Every Story Has an Ending; How About a Beginning

“Brandon!” I called out. I was shoving through hoards of people on the sidewalk.

It’s been a month since I’ve gone to my new personal hell called an all-boys school, but I’m doing fairly well even without having a girlfriend to talk to. Besides the fact that I sometimes have random depressed moments or I don’t talk as much as I use to. Other than that, I’m fine.

Brandon decided that we would go out for some pastries because I was sighing too much and I needed some cheering up. We left the house about an hour and a half ago and still haven’t made it to the little cafe I have yet to see. We’ve been to the town or city a few times, but mostly for groceries or some pizza. You might be wondering why we haven’t gotten to the café yet, but we’ll get to that soon. Brandon parked the car in one of those giant car park things with different floors and we decided to walk. It was a bright and sunny day and the temperature was perfect. And the scenery here is so amazing, which leads to why we haven’t made it to the café yet.

I hate to admit it, but sometimes I have a really short attention span. It’s mostly when I’m in a new place or area or when I’m bored and sometimes when I’m sleepy. But I can’t help it. Brandon knows me, and he knows I can’t stay focused to save my life, so if he wanted to go on an outing on foot with me, he should’ve held my hand or something. I have to say, I am a little nervous about being alone with Brandon. I am alone with him at the house, but my brother is usually downstairs or in his room or in the game room, so nothing ever happens. But being out and alone with him, even though it’s a public area, is ten times more nerve wracking because anything could happen.

Just as I was about to pull out my phone to call Brandon, I saw a pretty blue bird land on a branch on one of the small trees on the sidewalk. I scurried out of some people’s way, but made sure not to startle the bird.

I quickly pulled out my small digital camera from my purse and squatted down so I could get a good angle. Just as I was about to take the picture, which looked amazing by-the-way, I heard a booming voice call my name which in turn, startled the bird and it fluttered away. I stood up and sighed as I watched it fly off. I heard my name again and rolled my eyes as I turned around to meet the caller.

The moment I turned around, I immediately regretted acknowledging the voice, because Brandon looked beyond pissed.

“Where the hell were you?” he questioned in an angry tone as he sat roughly on the bench the bird was just on. He looked a little tired. I guess from trying to find me.

“Well…” I started, fidgeting with my camera. “I got distracted, then I saw a pretty blue bird and I tried to get a picture of it, but you scared it away!” I whined at the end. Brandon just rubbed his short hair and sighed heavily.

“Let’s just go get that treat before I get too tired and annoyed to do anything.”

Then he proceeded to get up and started walking. I just stared at him, not really feeling the moment. Kind of just spaced out but not really thinking. Suddenly he came to a halt, as if he realized I wasn’t following, and he turned around and made his way back to me.

“Do you think you can follow and not get lost this time?” he questioned. I put my finger to my lip and thought really hard for a moment. As I was thinking, I noticed that Brandon was staring intently at my lips, so I lowered my hand and cleared my throat.

“Well, it’s a possibility. The possibility isn’t pretty high, though…” I said sheepishly. He just chuckled and grabbed my hand.

“Just don’t let go, alright?” I nodded and blushed as he started pulling me along with him. His hand was big and warm around mine and I suddenly felt really happy, even though I didn’t get a picture of the pretty bird.

“Open wide,” Brandon said to me as he scooped some of his strawberry cheesecake ice cream out of his medium sized red bowl.

“Do I have to?” I whined. I could already feel my face heating up. Of course, he noticed my reaction and smirked.

“Yes you do.”

I rolled my eyes and slowly opened my mouth and to his enjoyment, he put the spoon full of ice cream in my mouth and all too quickly took it out before I could even get it all off of the spoon. Before I could even try to form words, the spoon was in his mouth and he looked my dead in the eyes as he sucked the remnants of my ice cream off. My heartbeat picked up and I blushed furiously and quickly swallowed the cold substance that was freezing my tongue.

“W-why did you do that?” I sputtered. Brandon and I have never shared food, so that was embarrassing enough. Why did he have to go and put it in his mouth with ice cream left on it?!

“Do what?” he asked innocently as he scooped some more ice cream into his mouth.

Before I could say anything, I got brain freeze.

“Argh, brain freeze!!” I groaned as I held my head and squeezed my eyes shut. As the pain surged through my brain, I heard Brandon laughing and opened my eyes.

“It’s not funny,” I grumbled angrily. He finished laughing and wiped his eye, which offended me even more. How could something like that be so funny?

“That’s what happens when you don’t eat ice cream slowly.”

“And whose fault is that?” I asked pointedly. He just rolled his eyes, smiling at me and dug his spoon into the bottom corner of my red velvet cake. I growled at him as he ate the bite.

“Eat your cake.” He’s so bossy.

Even though I didn’t want to listen to him, I proceeded to eat my cake and I enjoyed it while he finished his ice cream.

The rest of the day was spent just window shopping. I saw this really cute hat that went nicely with my outfit, but I left my wallet at home—what idiot does that when they go on an outing, so I couldn’t buy it. Of course, like the awesome best friend Brandon is, he noticed and bought it for me.

Just as we were leaving the shop, with my new hat on my head, my phone jingled in my purse. I pulled Brandon to the side of the sidewalk so we wouldn’t get trampled.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and opened the message.

Red Ninja: what’s ur address?

I quickly typed in my address and hit send, anticipation flooding my veins.

Red Ninja: kay, b there in 10

Me: okie doke:)

I looked up and gave Brandon the biggest smile I could manage without looking like a total idiot..

Excitement overwhelmed me and I eagerly wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him, for lack of another way to express myself without being embarrassed. He looked at me like I was crazy, but I couldn’t help it.

“Guess what?!” I asked as I excitedly bounced on my feet.

“What…?” he questioned back, hesitantly.

“Samantha’s on her ways to my house!!” I gushed as I hopped and squealed like a little girl. A few people walking by gave me an odd look and I struggled to control my excitement.

“And this abrupt news means….”

“That we have to leave now! Come on!” I squealed as I grabbed his hand and started pulling him in the direction of the car.

Suddenly I felt him pull on my arm, but he used a little more strength than he thought because I stumbled back and nearly fell. Instead of the cold hard cement, I felt a warm firm chest collide with my back and arms wrapped around my waist to keep me steadied, as a light chuckle left Brandon’s lips.

“The car is the other way, sweetheart,” he whispered low in my ear. A deep blush painted my face as I lightly wiggled out of his grasp.

“I knew that…” I mumbled quietly as he took hold of my hand and started walking in the direction opposite of where I was going.

“I’ll lead the way,” he said as he started picking up the pace.

The ride to the house was spent with me going coo-coo for coco puffs. Brandon tried to convince me that it wasn’t a big deal, but I scoffed and rolled my eyes.

“Of course this is a big deal!! It’s Samantha!! This is so big!! It’s almost like the part in Star Wars where Luke found out that Darth Vader was his father, except this is more positive, but still!! You should be excited too! Why aren’t you excited?”

An old fashioned hippy-like van was parked in the driveway beside Sam’s flashy car, so Brandon parked on the side of the road, by our mailbox.

“I am happy to see her again, mostly because she makes you happy, but I’m not overly excited because one: I’m not a girl and two: she has an influence over you. Every time she comes around, your wardrobe changes and you wear revealing clothes, and sometimes you guys do really stupid things.”

I blushed and shrugged my shoulders. “We were just having fun…” I replied as I remembered one of our “stupid” moments, which made me smile because we really did have a lot of fun.

We got out of the car and made our way to the front door and just before Brandon opened the door, I stopped him.

“Let’s try and scare Samantha,” I suggestively whispered to him. He rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Whatever.”

The switch was flipped and I went into stealth mode. I quietly opened the door, grateful that it wasn’t a squeaky one, and slowly crept my way in as I made sure not to make as much noise as possible. Brandon, on the other hand, just walked right in and waited for me to close the door, which I did very quietly.

I heard noises coming from the living room, so I slowly started moving forward. Brandon stayed behind and took his shoes off, and surprisingly, he didn’t make any noise. I got to the corner, where the hallway breaks off and I stood against the wall for a moment…just breathing. My heart was pounding with adrenaline as I finally made a concrete plan. First I was going to see what she was doing, and then I was going to scare her. And I knew it would be just her in the living room, because Sam doesn’t even like her, so why would he be in the living room with her.

I turned the corner and BOY was I wrong…and also slightly disturbed. There Samantha was, laying down on the couch, and guess who was on top of her. That’s right, SAM! What were they doing, you ask? MAKING OUT! Swapping spit and tongue—which I did not enjoy seeing the least bit.

I quickly turned around and tried to make a quiet dash for the dining room, but I ran into something and it scared the hell out of me!! And I screamed.

Brandon was still laughing his butt off while Sam and Samantha were bickering/yelling at each other and I was super frustrated. One, because Brandon was laughing at me for getting scared and Sam and Samantha were freaking yelling!

“Shut-up!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. Brandon stopped laughing for a second and then started up again, which in turn caused Sam and Samantha to start up again as well. I looked from one annoyance to the other, then sighed and walked into the kitchen to grab a snack and then made my way all the way up the stairs to my room.

Once I was on my bed, content with the door closed, I started thinking about what I just saw. The pop tart just met my lip before I had a major spazzy moment, just to get over the visual of what went on.

Why were Sam and Samantha kissing?! I thought they hated each other! Ever since a few years ago, they just stopped liking each other. At first I was like, ‘whatever, they’ll get over it’, but as time went by, my thoughts changed to, ‘holy cow! They really do hate each other!’ to ‘OH MY GOSH. THEY’RE GONNA KILL EACH OTHER.’. Now that this has happened…how do I react? Should I confront them about it? Maybe Sam was drunk and he pounced on Samantha. I know she wouldn’t have a problem with it because she still likes him...

A knock on my door interrupted my thoughts.

“Go away,” I said to whomever it was as I threw away my pop tart wrapper and totally missed. I huffed and got my lazy but off my bed to put it in the trash. I turned around and there Brandon was, sitting on my bed, like he owned the place. Which in turn, scared me again. He started laughing again, but it was less crazy sounding this time.

“You’re making me angry…” I grumbled at him.

“What happened downstairs that made you turn around so quickly?” he inquired as he folded his arms behind his head, completely disregarding what I just said.

I sighed and rolled my eyes, something I’ve been doing a lot more lately.

“Nothing,” I replied as I started thinking about whether or not I should tell him. Brandon’s my best-est guy friend in the whole world, plus I secretly have a giant crush on him, so I don’t think he would tell anyone…right? Wait, who would he even tell?

Making my way over to my mini fridge, I grabbed a bottle of pink lemonade that I made the other day and took a few gulps before sitting on my window seat. Brandon got up from the bed and sat in front of me.

“Tell me what happened,” he demanded. I rolled my eyes.

“Seriously, it was nothing.”

“Camille,” he said looking deep into my blue eyes. I wanted to look away, but he held my gaze.

“Well…” I started as I trailed my gaze down his arm and blushed. My eyes stayed glued to his hand.

“They were—“ but I was immediately cut off by the door bursting open. I quickly turned my head towards the door, and there was Samantha, with a smug smirk plastered on her face as she looked at us.

“Was I interrupting something?” she inquired. I ignored her comment, grateful for the distraction, and ran to her giving her a big hug, which she openly accepted.

“I missed you so much!” I squealed.

“I know! I missed you too!!” she replied as we excitedly hugged and bounced up and down. We finally stopped and both turned to look at Brandon at the same time.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Yup,” I replied.

“I already know, so don’t start getting all bossy on me,” he mostly directed to Samantha as he stood up from the window seat and made his way to the door.

“Good thing you’re finally learning. Make sure to close the door,” Samantha teasingly replied to Brandon. He chuckled before he closed the door completely.

“Okay, spill!” she demanded as she pulled us down onto the beanie bags in the middle of my room.

We basically spent three hours talking and catching up. Even though we’re best friends, we haven’t communicated as much as we should’ve so of course there would be a lot to discuss.

“It can’t seriously be that bad at an all-boys school! Aren’t there a bunch of gorgeous guys?” she questioned.

I rolled my eyes.

“That’s the problem! It’s too much; I’m surprised I made it a month at my school.”

“Have you talked to your mom about it?”

“Well…a little. She’s always gone and busy with something, so I don’t see her much. It’s basically been just Sam, Brandon, and I which is seriously getting boring, because Brandon isn’t even around that often. I swear, Sam and I have gone through our whole movie collection at least three times.”

“No way! You guys have a huge collection!” Samantha exclaimed.

“That’s what I’m saying. We’ve gone out a few times, only because I annoyed the life out of Sam. Both Brandon and Sam actually don’t really let me out of the house that often. Not to mention, Brandon gets so mad at me when I get lost on out outings. Sam has kind of started to do the same thing. Sometimes I’m not even allowed to take out the trash—if it’s really late at night, and I’m like, overkill much? It’s ridiculous. I basically have to argue my way out the door.”

“Well, it is a new place and they’re probably just being cautious because they don’t know the area just yet. You can’t blame them for caring about you,” she said reassuringly. Why is she defending them? Clearly their behavior is ridiculous!

“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled, brushing off her odd response. She smirked and sighed, running her fingers through her bright red hair to get it out of her face.

“Ready for Samantha’s-super-long-and-depressing-story-about-her-life after you left?”

I laughed and nodded eagerly.

“Okay, so, I guess a week or so after you guys left, my parents started arguing and it got really intense. My dad ended up hitting my mom-" my eyes bugged "-and she whacked the stupid out of him with a baseball bat, but they seemed pretty chill after that." The hell?

"They filed for a divorce and it’ll be final by next week. They decided that they wouldn’t move out of the house because they’re both comfortable with splitting it in half and living like that, which I think is totally weird. They had a talk with me and asked me whose side I wanted to be on and I was like…‘the one that has Camille on it because I'm not dealing with this shit’, so my parents called your mom and she said it was totally fine that I move in. Which leads me to another thing; is it alright if I move in? I want to check with you first before it becomes official.”

Excitement overwhelmed me and I quickly nodded my head.

“Oh my gosh! Yes! That would be the best thing ever! And you can use the guest room—which happens to be right across from mine!”

Another episode of girly squeals erupted and we both laughed at our silliness.

“Wanna have a movie night?” she asked as she got up to get a drink out of my mini fridge.

“Sure, I’ll tell the boys.”

“Alright, but can we unload all of my suitcases from my van? I don’t want to leave my precious clothes stuffed in bags.”

I laughed and opened the door but stopped short.

“I thought you had a lot more clothes than that?” I questioned. Samantha's room was decked out and I've seen her wardrobe. Her van can't possibly house all of her clothing.

“Oh, don’t worry; the U-Haul truck will be here tomorrow.”

“Uh, alright.”

Don’t worry? Don’t worry?! Freaking U-Haul truck! Insanity is the only word to describe Samantha at times. How are we going to fit all of that in the guest room? It's only half the size of mine, granted it is relatively spacious, but there isn't a closet and the wardrobe probably isn't even big enough to store what she has in her van. We're gonna have to figure something out.

Samantha hurried downstairs and just as I walked by Sam’s room, I was suddenly pulled into the game room and pinned against the wall. It was too sudden and fast for me to respond so I just stared at Brandon like he was crazy.

“What did you see?” Brandon questioned as he removed his hand from my mouth.

I rolled my eyes.

“Are you seriously still on that?” I almost laughed. A faint blush dusted his face, but he did his best to keep a poker face.

“Obviously, so just tell me.”

“Why should I?” I challenged, not wanting to give in so easily.

He smirked, as if waiting for me to ask that question.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he purred. “I have the upper hand,” at that, I felt his hand slightly tighten on my wrists. I blushed as if just realizing my situation.

“Oh…” I mumbled. “I suppose it would be appropriate in order to avoid future conflict.”

He laughed a little.

“What kind of conflict could come from a tiny little person like you?”

I glared up at him and remembered that I had to glare up in order to see his face, so I'd already lost the fight really. I heaved a heavy sigh.

“Fine,” I grumbled. “I saw them making out, and it scared me a little.”

He wasn’t shocked like I thought he would be, but rather smug about this news.

“I knew it was something like that.” What? He knew?

“What do you mean?”

“Well, think about it. When was the last time you heard him talking to a female?” Oh...that is true. But there aren't other females at our school, so who would he talk to anyway?

“Now that you mention it…oh, we’re going to have a movie night, Samantha and I. Would you and Sam like to join?”

“Sure, I could order some pizza,” he suggested.

“Why would we order pizza when we can make something ourselves?”

“Because that would be a lot of work?”

“This is a special occasion! And how can you complain? You're an amazing cook!”

He smirked all smug and I rolled my eyes.

"Mind unloading her van with Sam while we whip something up?"

“That works,” he replied. We both weren’t talking, just staring at each other and I realized just how close we were and that he was still holding me.

“Y-you can l-let me go now,” I stuttered. His grip tightened and his face changed as he leaned closer to me. My heart was beating like a jack hammer and my knees started to get weak.

“And if I don’t want to?” he challenged.

“Then…then…I’ll do something bad!” I forced out with a loss for anything else to threaten him with. I was too nervous to come up with anything clever, not that I ever really do. He laughed and released me from his hold.

“You never fail to make me laugh. You know what else you never fail to make?”

“I’m not making you a sandwich.” I instantly blurted out.

“How about a cake?” I thought for a moment then shrugged.

“A cake would be nice,” I concluded.