That night, I had a pretty peculiar dream.

I was in a forest. It seemed to be winter, since there was snow on the ground, and all the trees around me didn't have leaves on them. It reminded me of one of those samurai movies that are on late at night on TV. All of a sudden, I heard footsteps. I dove behind a tree, checking my back for a samurai's sword. Nope, wasn't one of those kinds of dreams. Then… what kind of dream was this? All of a sudden, I saw two figures, a large one and a small one. Then, I heard voices…

"…it's not going to work. You couldn't even hit a tree even if you stood in front of it!"

"Drop dead, Hobbes. It is going to work, I'll show you!" Hobbes? Then that second figure… must be…

"I'll tell you what, Hobbes. I'll bet you a quarter that it WILL work."

"Ha! Consider your quarter as good as spent." I looked away from the two to see another one… next to a silhouette of a snowman. I think I knew who this was too. She wasn't saying anything, but she was humming. She was unaware of what was coming to her.

All of a sudden, the short figure started running quickly at the girl and the snowman. He picked up some snow along the way, quickly rolled it into a snowball, and threw it, aiming directly at the little girl. His aim is horrible, at least it must be. He ended up hitting the snowman instead.

The girl turned around. "Calvin!" The kid, that is to say, me, stopped in the snow and tried to run away. The little girl took some snow off of her fallen snowman and made two snowballs. She threw one at the kid, a direct hit. And then, she threw one at me.

I stumbled back a bit, before falling against a tree. But… it wasn't a tree. It was Crystal and another large silhouette.

Crys was crying…

"I'm sorry, Calvin. I want to make this work… I really do."

Then I looked over to my right. The little girl was joined by her older self. Susie shot me a daring glance, completely stunning me. No seriously, I couldn't move. All of a sudden, the large figure moved Crystal out of the way, and clenched his fists. I closed my eyes, expecting pain.

And then, I woke up.

--

When I woke up in bed, I was literally shaking. What was THAT all about? I asked myself, getting up to go get a drink of water. That's when it hit me. I need to tackle this head on. If Crystal's brother wants to kill me, then he'll do it.

But he'll do it for a different reason. I wasn't going to try to patch things up with Crystal. Things were finally open to me for once. I mean, she DOES care. She said that she would go out with me, had I asked her with my heart in it.

…but then I figured I should wait.

--

"I got it!"

The ball landed right in my hand, and I tossed it at Mike, forcing a double play. I had told Mike earlier that Susie was going to help us with the skit, even though none of us (yet, I would assume) was going out with her. But right now, there wasn't any time to think about that. Another pop fly was headed my way. Clumsy batters.

It was a massacre to say the least. All the batters on the other team either didn't hit the ball, didn't make it past our pitcher, or when they did, always hit it so high that I would catch it and throw it to Mike, who'd throw it to our pitcher. Either way, our pitcher didn't really do so hot anyway. Five walks in a game, god.

"I wish all the teams we had faced was this easy," Mike said.

"WERE this easy, Mike," I said, correcting his grammar.

"Whatever, Mr. Calvin. So what's the deal with Crystal? You still trying to get back with her?"

"Nah. There's some things she needs to work out first." If she really liked me, then she'd stay with me, even if her brother was after me. But obviously, that wasn't the case. Even still, I was going to call her when I got home, and see what the deal is. I also had a back-up plan, just in case…

--

…her brother answered the phone. Typical. He sounded really gruff, like someone who would've been incarcerated.

"Hello? Who is this?!"

"Uh… hello. Is uh… Crystal home?"

"Oh, this must be that one kid she's been seeing. Or not."

"Or not? What is that supposed to mean?"

Crystal's brother cleared his throat. "I've been watching you with that other girl. I wouldn't have cared if you were just seeing her, but I will NOT have you making a fool out of my sister. You stay away from her, Twinky. Or I'll kill you." He hung up. Twinky?

--

"You're crushing my bread!"
Naturally, I was very distracted, which didn't help me at work. I ended up putting someone's bread in a bag first, and then put a bunch of canned goods in there. Obviously, the end result was bad.

"Oh, sorry. I guess I wasn't… paying attention." I didn't get scolded by the woman. In the end, I was yelled at by Roz.

"I thought I told you to keep your head out of the clouds as long as you work here!"

"Sorry Rosalyn. Things haven't been going so well for me lately."

"I've had my share of bad days too, but I never let it effect me at work." Yeah, because you're working the register. You don't have to memorize where the food goes in the bag. The rest of the day went smoothly, with no one else I recognized coming through for any awkward conversations.

--

My mom was working late again, and when I got home, Susie was there. "Uh… Susie? What are you…"

"My mom's not home yet. So I decided that for once, I should come here, instead of you coming to my house." I wasn't even planning on running into Susie today. But who am I to complain? Today wasn't my day, considering I was fearing for my life from some big brother type person.

We just sat there on the couch, TV onto VH1, one of those Best Week Ever type shows that they have. I wasn't paying attention. I was thinking about things…

"So… Calvin. You never told me what I was helping with." D'oh! I forgot!

"Oh, uh… we need a fan. You don't have to be screaming or anything," Me forgetting the part about us being the best things since iPods. "You just have to make us seem… good."

"Are you?"

"Not really, but you know. It's all propaganda. That's what bands are about, besides making music." We then just sat in silence… before she forgot about something else.

"I haven't seen your dad since I've been here. Where has he been?" I hated this question. People ask me this almost all the time, so I figured I might as well answer.

"He's dead."

Susie gasped. "What happened?!"

I sighed, trying to tell myself to tell her. "Well… it was raining. He didn't have gas in his car, and Dad, being the person that he was, decided to take his bike for a ride. We both, my mom and I, tried to talk him out of it, but he was persistent. He ended up going, and we found out that on his way back from the office, he slipped and was hit by a car. He was almost killed on contact."

All of a sudden, I could feel Susie's body against mine again. She was hugging me, almost harder than last time. "I'm so sorry to hear that, Calvin…"

"It's okay. It was a while ago. I'm over it now. I just think back to when I would've wished that he was gone and I wonder what I was thinking." Normally by now, I would've pushed her away by now, but something felt right about this. I couldn't help but put my arms around her too. And we almost stayed like that until her mom called her cell phone, asking where she was.

--

That night, I knew what I wanted to do. Tomorrow was going to be epic.