That Summer: Chapter 3

"Rachel!" Monica greeted her friend as soon as she exited the vehicle. Monica had been outside, and like a little puppy, as soon as she saw the Greens' van she ran behind it all the way down to their house. "Mon, how are you?" Rachel greeted her best friend with a hug. "You look great." Monica had lost a whole bunch of weight a couple years ago, and had managed to keep it off for a whole 2 years, which Rachel couldn't understand; the girl always ate like crazy.

"Well, Rach, I see you've reacquainted yourself with Monica" Leonard said, opening the back hatch of the van. "But before you two go gallivanting off to the Gellers', why don't you help unpack? Huh?" "Oh, right. Sorry dad." She apologized, grabbing a few bags from the back and taking them in the house.

Rachel walked inside and was greeted by a rather musty smell, which was one of the things that characterized her Lake House. She remembered how, in Illinois, she would always be relieved by the 'home-smell', mainly composed of her mom's cinnamon air-fresheners, but how every weekend in the summer she so loved and looked forward to coming up to the familiar musty atmosphere.

"I get the downstairs bedroom this weekend Rach!" Jill practically screamed as she ran in the room with her bag, marking her territory. Rachel let out a small puff of air and giggled a little, basking in the fact that she was finally up here again. How finally, after months of waiting-

"Monica!' Rachel thought suddenly. Her friend was waiting outside for her, and she didn't want to keep Mon waiting forever, she could get a little impatient.

Rachel climbed upstairs to the bedroom she would be occupying for the weekend and dropped her duffel bag right side up on the floor. "Let's see...." She thought aloud, and opened her bag, situating the books and DVD's she brought up on the table next to the bed, as well as getting out her jewelry, discman, and CD case. She frowned a little. 'How much stuff did I actually pack?' she thought as she looked at her things. The way Rachel packed, you'd think they were staying up there for more than just a weekend. "Oh well." she said, descending the stairs and going out to greet Mon once more.

"Rach, what were you doing in there? I swear I could have ran up and down the street twice in the time it took you." Monica had a frustrated look on her face and her arms crossed on her chest, but her voice was cheerful. Rachel could only laugh. "Mon, come on, face it. You know you're not that fast. Now I know you could have ran around the cul-de-sac twice, but I doubt the whole street. Elm Point Road is pretty long, even though it's a dead end. Besides...." "Oh, shut up Rach, I'm faster than you at least." Monica cut her friend off. She knew she was slow and she had gotten tired of hearing it over the years. Besides, she was a whole heck of a lot faster than she was when she was fat.

"Come on, let's go down to my place now that we're done arguing." Monica suggested, tugging at the waist of Rachel's loose tank top. (Just picture the one she wore in the final scene)The tank top was one of the shirts Rachel had planned on wearing this weekend to get Ross's attention. 'Ross....' Rachel thought excitedly. She hadn't seen him as they drove in, she wondered where he was. 'Probably inside, reading one of his boring dinosaur books.' she thought, getting it off her mind for the time being.

"So, daddy, can I?" Rach asked her father, wondering if there was more to unpack yet. "Yeah, go ahead sweetie, it's fine. There's only a couple bags left, but I know you want to bond with Monica. Now..." Leonard motioned for Rachel and Monica to go, "go away before I come up with something else for you to do." He said to Rachel, so her and Monica left to go to the Gellers'.

"Man," Rachel started as her and Monica walked down the street, "it's sure awesome to be back up here!" She smiled and took a breath, then rubbed her arms a little. It was getting a little breezy, the wind had picked up and it was coming off the lake. Elm Point Road was along the shoreline, so the residents of that road had their own beaches to hang out on. "Yeah, isn't it? I can't believe the amount of work we got done on our place so far this year." Monica stated.

The Gellers' had had their house for quite a long time. Jack and Judy had bought it together six years before Ross was born, and he was 19 years old. Leonard and Sandra had gotten the Greens' place with Rachel's dad's parents 7 years ago, when Rach was 10 and Jill was 7. Therefore, Rachel and Monica had known each other for years, but didn't exactly become friends right away.

"Yeah, Mon, remember when we got our place?" Rachel reminisced. "That first year we practically hated each other." The two girls laughed at their past. They had had so many fun times when they were younger, they really missed those times. "Yeah, but then the third year was when we started to hang out a lot, wasn't it?" Mon asked. Rachel nodded and hugged Monica's shoulders. "Yeah...Yeah it was. I'm really glad that we turned out as great of friends as we are." Monica hugged Rachel back. "I know, I'm glad too Rach." The two girls continued to walk down the road with their arms around each other.

"So, is Ross up this weekend Mon?" Rachel asked eagerly, changing the subject. "No, he had this paleontology-type trip to go on for college; he'll be gone for three weeks." Monica told her. "Nice" Rachel lied, and she silently started to feel sad. So she had brought up all this cute stuff for nothing. And three weeks was a really long time to Rachel. She wanted to see Ross, and so badly for some reason. But Rachel didn't feel like telling her best friend she was thinking about her brother was appropriate for a first meeting, so she just kept her feelings to herself. But she also silently swore to herself she would tell Monica soon, because she wanted to get something started with Ross this summer.

"So Rach, are you coming inside or what?" Monica was holding the door open as Rachel brought herself back to reality. "Uh...yeah, sure." Rachel walked inside her friend's house and shut the door. And Monica silently wondered what Rachel's mind had been up to out there.

[So there's chapter 3. Yeah, I know I updated, like 2 days ago, but I want to get this story going (plus, I was bored). I hope you liked it. So read and review please, and I'll update again soon with chapter 4 (just so you know, it's like 4 pages on Microsoft Word so it's pretty long.) I got all the way up to chapter 5 typed, ideas just keep comin'. And I hope those reviews do also!!!]

Erin :)