Andrew and Allison

Andrew had been up for a long time. Woken at six by his father, he'd grabbed a bottle of water before heading out for his morning run. His usual route took him for four miles through the trees towards the railroad, then back past the school towards the river and home. Not today. He'd made the turn at the end of the street as usual, but then taken a right down towards the docks. He needed to find something – or someone.

The previous evening, he'd gone through the motions of stretching and cut some logs for the fire, but his mind was elsewhere. His father watched through the den window, and Andrew knew that he needed to keep up the appearance of working out, as if he had paid his dues to the school on Saturday, but the debt to his father was still due.

He passed three streets, and then turned left into Cleveland Drive. About halfway down the block on the right. There. Number eight. Andrew stopped, and leant against a tree on the opposite side of the street to catch his breath. After a minute, he looked up, wondering which window was Allison's. Again, he was surprised at how much had changed over a couple of days. The house was still, and the neighbourhood, like most others, was quiet. Inside, people would be sleeping, or preparing for work. Reading the newspaper, eating breakfast, showering, getting dressed. All of the usual Monday morning stuff.

Andrew didn't really know why he had taken this route this morning. He'd run this way yesterday morning as well, and he knew that they were seeing each other in third period. Mr Vernon again. How that inspired them. But for now, school didn't exist. None of his friends existed. He knew that the pressures of his peers would come soon enough to try and break the moment. He wanted to hold the weekend, this weekend, a little longer if he could. Smiling to himself, he turned and jogged away, knowing that he had to run for twenty minutes before his father expected him home.

Behind him, the curtains at the attic-room window moved slightly, as they fell back into place. Allison had seen him. She'd been sat watching since six, hoping that he'd come round the corner. When he did, it was final confirmation of what she'd hoped for but dared not hold too firmly – she had a friend.

This was something she'd never had to deal with before – today was certainly going to be interesting, she thought as she headed for the bathroom.

The room quickly filled with steam as the shower got up to temperature. As she undressed, Allison couldn't help but cast a more critical eye over her body in the mirror. Usually she never gave it a second thought, other than from a purely functional viewpoint. But today was different. She tried holding her hair in different styles. She turned sideways, and realised that beneath her slowly growing breasts, her stomach was not as flat and smooth as it could be as it curved down towards the dark patch of hair. She resolved to do something about that, aware that for her new friend, she may even have to take up jogging….

Almost as an afterthought, she turned and looked back over her shoulder. The view from behind was… hell, she couldn't tell if her butt was good or not. It looked ok, but she really hadn't thought about it before. 'I've got gym class later,' she remembered. 'Better try to sneak some looks at the other girls so I can tell!'

With a smile at this weird thought, and whatever else the day might have in store, she stepped into the shower cubicle, and for the first time in years actually began to sing.