The In-Betweeners

"Thanks for agreeing to come, James," Shane said. "My cousin Allie's cool but family parties are always a drag."

"No problem," I replied.

We were sitting in Shane's room while we waited for her parents to finish getting ready. She was wearing a pretty blue sundress and I was wearing one of Brian's borrowed button up shirts with one of Shane's dad's ties. I hadn't known that a tie would be necessary, but when I had shown up to Shane's house her dad had brought me up to her parents' room and shown me his tie collection so I could chose from them, and then he had taught me how to tie it. Shane had thought it was funny that I didn't know how to tie a tie, because apparently for whatever reason she did, and had made fun of me for a while after. To this day I could never figure how more girls knew how to tie ties than guys; do they really know everything?

"I'm actually really excited for you to meet Allie, she's like my best friend. Other than you, of course," she added quickly.

She went on to describe Allie, but I wasn't paying much attention. Had she just called me her best friend? That made my heart skip a beat. I had never been one to be able to define my relations with other people, I was always afraid that I was over-analyzing everything and that the relationship meant a lot more to me than it did to them. I knew that I considered Shane to be my best friend, but it was a huge relief to know that the feeling was mutual.

"Shane? James?" Mrs. Dorsey called from out in the hall. "Are you all ready to go?"

"Yeah, coming!" Shane called back. "Let's go," she added to me.

I grabbed my phone from where it had been sitting on the floor next to me and Shane grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair. We left her room and walked down the stairs to the living room where her parents were waiting for us. The drive to Shane's cousin's house was about an hour. We sat in silence for the most part, and about a half hour into the ride Shane and I both put our iPods on. I caught Mrs. Dorsey look back at us and roll her eyes but laughed. I knew she thought our generation was funny with all of our technology, she used to go on numerous rants about it. When we finally arrived it was around two o'clock in the afternoon and there were already about five cars lined up outside the house.

Shane looked excited for once, something that I wasn't used to seeing from her. She was sitting up straight and was nearly out of the car before it had fully stopped across the street from the driveway. I glanced at Mr. and Mrs. Dorsey quickly before I followed her hastily. I managed to catch up with her at the front door just as it was opened and Shane squealed with delight.

"Allie!" she cried and nearly tackled the girl who had opened the door to the ground.

"Hey, Shane!" the girl replied.

The only glimpse I could catch of Allie was her platinum blonde hair which fell in gentle curls to the middle of her back. She was tiny, a lot smaller than Shane, and I wondered how old she was. I had assumed by the way Shane had talked about her that she was our age, but she looked really young. Finally, Shane pulled away from her and I got a look at her face.

She was the most weirdly beautiful person I had ever seen.

She had these huge blue eyes, bigger than any eyes I had ever seen before, and the palest skin. She was beautiful in the same way Shane was, exotic and strange, but she could not have looked more different than Shane. While Shane looked like something out of a magazine, Allie looked like she was a little china doll; beautiful, delicate, and fragile.

"Hi," she said, smiling up at me through thick lashes.

"Hi," I said a little dumbfounded. "I'm James."

And I swear in that moment I was in love. I probably should have felt guilty about that thought sooner than I did, because even though it wasn't official or anything Melanie Ryan and I were technically together; but I couldn't help it. Melanie Ryan was very conventional pretty, Allie looked like some other-worldly creature - like some piece of art that I could just sit and stare at all day. She was fascinating, and unlike Melanie, I could tell Allie had more than just a special soul; she had a special everything.

"Come on, let's go get something to eat," Shane said.

I knew she had been excited all day for the party food, because family parties were the rare times of the year when her parents let her eat whatever food she wanted. She grabbed both of our wrists and dragged the two of us through the front door and into a kitchen.

"It's nice to meet you, James," Allie laughed once we reached the kitchen and Shane let go of us to dig into the appetizers. "These are my parents. Mom, dad, this is Shane's friend James."

My heart skipped a beat for a moment. I knew it didn't really mean anything, but I was already meeting the girl's parents.

"Hi," I smiled, trying to be as charming as possible. I wanted to impress her parents, but most importantly I wanted to impress her.

"Ahh so this is the boy I've heard so much about from my brother," Allie's dad said. "It's so nice to meet you finally, James. I've heard you've been a great friend to our Shane here. I'm Matthew, and this is my wife Janine," he smiled at me.

"It's nice to meet you too," I replied as I shook his hand, and then his wife's hand.

"Allison, why don't you go outside with them and hang out so we can have some adult time?" Matthew said to Allie.

"Sure, dad." She answered. "Come on guys, we can go out on the patio."

Shane and I followed her through the house and out the backdoor, Shane carrying a giant bowl of chips and me carrying my conflicting thoughts about Allie and Melanie Ryan. We spent the majority of the party hanging out on the patio just talking and laughing over random things. I found myself hanging on every word Allie said, and I think after a while Shane noticed. She gave me a few weird looks but didn't say anything. I was glad she didn't say anything though, because I did feel a little twinge of guilt in the back of my head.

I don't want to leave you hanging, reader, so I'll tell you this. Allie and I went on to become great friends, and I think she was my first friend that wasn't an asshole at heart.