The next day, when Miles woke up, Emma was gone, blankets neatly folded in the corner, no trace that anyone else had been in the room, which was probably for the best.

"Crap," Miles muttered, remembering that it was a Monday, and in fact the last day of the school year. He hurried to get ready, showering, brushing his teeth, and getting dressed in his school uniform, which was a blue polo shirt, with his school logo on it, and tan pants. He walked downstairs, grabbing a piece of toast, fed Nim, trying to be as nice as he could, despite the anger he felt, and waited for Savannah in the car.

The drive to school was relatively quiet, as it always was, but today, Savannah wasn't singing along to the sounds of Kelly Clarkson and Hilary Duff.

"Are you alright?" Miles asked his sister as they pulled into the school for grades nine through twelve.

"Yeah, great." Savannah smiled, stepping out of the car. "Have a nice day, Miles."

"Alright-" Miles said, bewildered. Something definitely was up. Savannah had never in his life, told Miles to have a nice day.

School was never fun for Miles. Sure, he was good at is, especially at Language Arts and Science, and he excelled at Math, but History moved him to tears. He had never been good at it. Memorizing all the dates and names and places, it all just didn't click for Miles. He had definitely given up hope for that hour, spending most of his class hour surfing the web as opposed to reading the history text online.

As he walked into the computer lab of his last hour, he coughed as the cool air used to cool the computer monitors, met the warm air in his lungs from outside. North Carolina summers were unbearable, he decided as he logged on to the computer. They were always painfully hot and sunny, but the winters were even worse for Miles. As much as Miles hated the heat, he couldn't stand the cold.

He turned his head as his best friend, Phil sat down next to him. Phil was a wild kid, with even crazier bright red hair. His skin wad unusually pale, especially because he spent every moment he could outside. His uniform looked different.

'What happened to you?" Miles asked, noticing the dark red stain that extended from Phil's shirt, all the way to his pants.

"Ross threw his juice at me-" Phil said miserably.

"I hate that kid!" Miles exclaimed. Even though Miles was low on the social chain, Phil was even lower. Plus, Ross was dating Savannah, so that somewhat protected him from his wrath, but for Phil, it was like open season on his butt.

The history class was pretty uneventful. The last day of school always was. Just Mr. Skauge ranting on about the Vietnam war, which was most unusual, because the class hadn't even gotten past World War I.

When the bell rang, papers were thrown in the air, the halls being filled with shouts of excitement, as he and Phil made their way to Savannah's car, but turned in the other direction when they saw who was in it, Ross. The seven mile walk home was still better than riding with those two, even if it was ninety out.

"I am so happy that I don't live there-" Phil said as they walked dword the division of classes. Just passed the local Frosty Boy was where two different divisions clashed. One one side, it was the unspeakably rich, with their Ferrari's and fancy cars, on the other, the incredibly poor, lucky to have a car. It was so unusual for a town like Wilmington to have so much poverty next to so much wealth. It was all so segrigated.

"So, what are you going to do this weekend?" Phil asked, trying to make conversation when Miles didn't respond.

"Not much. I am going to finish my last hours at the aquarium- I think I have two hours left. I am so happy that they agreed to let me back in. I dunno. I'll probably hang out with Emma-"

"That the girl that you want to marry?" Phil asked, interested. After he and Miles last experience with a girl, you'd think Phil could care less.

"I don't want to marry her." Miles said "Just, well. Maybe I do.. It's definitely not even worth a try. She's way out of my league."

"You never know, dude." Phil said. "Miracles can happen-"

"Not ones that big. You should really meet her. She's so- So not like the girls at our school. I don't know, she has something about her-"

"Where does she live?"

"I don't really know. She spent the last night at my house and when I woke u-"

"Woah!" Phil exclaimed, stopping Miles in mid-sentence. " A girl spent the night at your house. This is huge." he stopped. "Did you?"

"Did we what?"

"You know-" Phil said, looking at Miles like he was an idiot. "Have sex-"

"No. No. No." Miles said, shocked. "No. Absolutely not. I just met her-"

"You've got to be gay-"

"Phil, come on. I am not gay-"

"Then you just have to be stupid not to have hopped on that-"

"You know Phil," Miles said as he approached his friends house. "I am starting to think why you've never had a girlfriend"