KELLY

I sneak down to the kitchen when I hear my mom and dad finally going to sleep, and stuff a packet of bread, some peanut butter, a can of soup, and a bag of chips into the duffel bag I've brought with me. Then I go back upstairs and put one of my pillows in, a comforter, a flashlight, one of a pair of black walkie-talkies with and then stuff everything into my wardrobe along with my sleeping bag. I hesitate, and then throw on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on top of the pile, then close my closet door. We all agreed at Teddy had to stay in a proper place - not with the Hart's, because there was no space, and definitely not with me. Sneaking Teddy into my house just isn't a very good idea - we had to find a place temporarily until the "transfer" student could register, officially, with one of the students' houses. Our house.

So he's staying in the woods.

I wait in my room, reading under the covers, so that my mom and dad are properly asleep before I leave the house. At eleven-thirty exactly, I get out of bed, check to see whether anyone's awake, and then grab the sleeping bag, book and duffel bag and slip quietly out of the back door, which Mom always leaves unlocked. Dinky (our cat, and no, I did not name her) rubs up against my leg when I slip out of the house, and I pat her before padding softly through the garden and out the back gate. A tiny flame burns somewhere to my left, where there is a small path leading up from the main road to the forest behind our house. I walk towards the light, which bobs in the darkness, and Leo slowly appears out of the dark, with Teddy next to him. His finger has been lit up with flames, and in the dark, we all look like ghosts. "Let's go," I motion for them to follow me.

"Here, let me help," Teddy says, and takes the duffel from me, leaving me with the sleeping bag. We walk silently through the woods, walking by the light of Leo's fire and my flashlight, once we're far enough away from the house.

I swing the flashlight beam in long arcs in front of me, trying to find the specific tree that I've been hiding out in since I was eight. Cory, Austin and I built the treehouse, taking three years, and Cara joining us when she moved here.

Finally we reach it, and I run my hand over the bark of the tree. Cory, Austin and Cara never really come here anymore - I guess they just grew out of it. But I never did. "Well. Here we are," I tell Leo and Teddy.

Leo looks amused. "Isn't there a ladder or something?"

"Yeah," I walk around the tree to find the knob in the trunk that's the beginning of the place where we always sed to climb up.

He coughs. "And where exactly is it?"

"One of us usually climbed up the tree, but since my arm's screwed up, I don't think I can do it," I stretch my arm out twice and wince. It's really sore, and I can feel the stitches stretching against my skin. "Maybe I didn't htink this through well enough..."

Teddy sets down the duffle bag, and I point him towards the easiest place to start climbing up the tree.

He's surprisingly agile, even though he has such a lanky frame, and quickly scales the tree. After about five minutes, he gets to the top and drops the rope ladder down to us with a thunk. After a bit of struggle because of my arm, I manage to get to the tree house and lie there, panting, until Leo climbs up too.

It's just a platform in the trees with a shoddy roof, and used blankets to make "walls". But there are a million memories that I've made here - pretending to be pirates, falling asleep staring at the trees, talking to Cory and Austin and Cara, learning the names of hundreds of birds... I can't describe how much the treehouse mean to me, as a child. And still, now. Now that I think about it... It's not the treehouse I loved. It was the making memories. It was the leaving the world behind. It was the imagining.

And then, I have two imagined people standing right in my treehouse.

Nobody comes here anymore - well, other than me. Cory, Cara and Austin have grown out of it, I guess, but it's something I can't leave behind.

"Okay, so this is where you'll be staying," I tell Teddy, and he sets down the duffel bag and everything else on the floor. "From here," we walk over to the opening where we climbed in and I hand him the flashlight. "You can signal me from here. Three blinks and I'll come, if I see it. Or walkie-talkie me." I explain how to use the walkie-talkie, and everything else, and then Leo and I leave.

Just as we're a few feet away from my back gate, I pause and blurt out a question. I'm not sure whether it's because I'm tired, but I say this, "Leo... How do you... How do you put up with always being left out?"

He knows what I'm talking about.

"Y'know. Jokes help. They make me feel useful. But most of the time... I guess I'm like my dad," he shrugs. "Better with machines than people. And Calypso comes along... And I guess it's easier. And I tell myself that one day, things will be better. Though I'm not sure when."

I think about this. "Thanks, Leo."

He pats my shoulder. "No problem. I'll see you tomorrow?"

I nod, and he lopes off, back to his pick-up truck.

The sky is beautiful, at night. The light pollution from the city makes a fog seem to hover over me, but here and there, I can still see the stars. And I wonder, if somewhere out there, billions of light-years away, are a reflection of our universe. The place where my friends came from, where I wish I could be. I wonder if our answers are out there.

But the answers may hold the way back home. And do I want to let them go?

I am about to open my back gate when I see it.

A pair of eyes, angry and hurt, staring at me, to my left.

I'm too tired to be scared, but I can recognise those eyes.

Austin.

And I think he's seen everything.

CASTING
Leo Valdez: Nat Wolff
Calypso: Shailene Woodley
Hazel Grace Lancaster: Hailee Steinfeld
Edward Remus "Teddy" Lupin: Andrew Garfield
Gale Hawthorne: Liam Hemsworth

A/N
I AM SO SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING!
Started school and stuff whew so not much time to write but I WILL DO IT :D
Have fun with this chapterrrr 3