Chapters On A Page

We all stayed at the treehouse long after the sun went down, so glad for the summer to be here to allow us to stay out late. Murph and Rian had scrounged for wood and built up a small fire during the afternoon that we made larger when darkness fell. We acted as if we were camping out at the fort that had always been kind of another home to some of us. We made s'mores and cooked hotdogs over the fire, we told scary stories that mostly did nothing but send a small chill up our spines and made us laugh. Some even broke out the alcohol stashed in Rian's trunk courtesy of Jack and drank. It turned into a party like Zack had wondered if we should do. It wasn't the kind of party that made me want to tear my own head off though. I actually had fun at this party, with my best friends, a small fraction of my family, and new friends. Thankfully, Nic could tell now that I had been telling the truth in the woods, so she didn't question any other small interaction between Alex and I. Murph seemed to forget his argument altogether since he got along just fine with Alex. I was glad to forget all about it and enjoy the treehouse with everyone.

I went home with Nic, Gwen, and Murph, all of us piled into Gwen's car. Since Lilah and Katie were riding their bikes back to Katie's we followed them to keep an eye on them before heading to my house. We all scampered to my room immediately, being sure to keep quiet so we didn't wake my mom or alert a curious Kaylee. While my friends made themselves comfortable in my room, I tiptoed to the hall closet and grabbed a stack of blankets for the two of them that would pick to sleep on the floor. The three of them were all seated on my bed when I entered the room, each of them with their legs crossed Indian-style while they sat in a semicircle and drooped tiredly. I dropped the blankets onto the window seat along with the book bag that was still hanging off my shoulder, and then I joined them.

"Sometimes I wonder why exactly I broke up with Zack," Nic nearly swooned, breaking the circle almost as soon as I sat down to complete it. She moved her legs out from under herself and leaned back against my pillows. Murph looked down at her as if she were crazy which is exactly what I was thinking she was.

"I could have sworn it was the extra appendage that sealed the deal on the end of the relationship," he reminded a bit skeptically. He turned back to Gwen and I with an eyebrow raised, silently asking us to confirm if she was serious. I just shrugged, and looking at Gwen told me that she was contemplating what appendage could be considered extra.

"Oh, but it's not like I don't still like guys," Nic contended, sounding very matter-of-fact from where she lay. She turned her head so she was looking out the window and since there wasn't much to look at out there at this hour, I imagined she was staring at the streetlight. It caused me to catch on to what was happening in her brain. "He was always a sweetheart to me. I didn't not like him after we broke up," she sighed.

"Yes, but he's my cousin. And even if you hadn't figured out that you liked girls, you had decided that he was too close to family to continue anything serious," I reminded, still trying to talk her out of whatever plan she was making in her mind. I was attempting to follow exactly where it was going and even where it had come from. Nic and Zack had had a short and harmless relationship when we were all about thirteen, something that was set up by Emma when she realized they both had crushes on each other. But it wasn't like they had had deep feelings for each other, and Nic had still been trying to figure things out about herself at the time. Both of the reasons Murph and I had mentioned had been the downfall of the relationship, having them part on good terms. I probably never would would have been able to spew the lie about me being into the same sex my first day at Dulaney had Nic -and my other two best friends- hadn't been the prominent things on my mind. The only difference between my lie and her truth was she did, in fact, still like a handful of boys. Zack wasn't one of them. "How much did you drink tonight?" I questioned, sitting up on my knees to get a better look at her face.

"I don't know," she shrugged, a dreamy smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "Jack was leaving his cans like half-full, so I kept picking them up so he wouldn't waste them," she told me, and began lightly slapping at Murph's arm closest to her.

"Honey, I think he set them down with the objective being to pick them back up to finish," I enlightened her, speaking softly though. She had probably already been drunk at the point she had started taking Jack's unintentional leftovers and she was certainly drunk now, so my words didn't mean a thing to her. That also meant that whatever thoughts her addled brain was playing were nothing, and that starting a relationship back up with my cousin wasn't a conscious one. One look at her now, and I realized she was already drifting off to sleep. "C'mon," I urged the other two, standing up again, "let's get to her bed."

Gwen laid out a couple of the blankets I had brought in so that the floor would be padded enough to be comfortable, and she threw down one of the pillows that lined my headboard. Once it was up to her standards underneath the window seat, Murph carefully lifted an already slumbering Nic from my bed and transported her to the temporary one on the floor. Making sure that she was lying on her side and that she wouldn't roll over in the night, I pulled another blanket up to her shoulders and tucked her in. Our small task done, the other three of us began getting ready for bed ourselves. Murph set to setting out the remaining blankets for himself, between Nic and the television, while Gwen and I headed into the bathroom to change, wash our faces, and brush our teeth. He joined us for the latter, and we all silently made our way back out to my room when we were finished.

I slipped into my side of the bed, pulling the sheet up over me and making sure the comforter was kicked to the bottom of the bed. Gwen snuggled into the space next to me, already lying on her side facing me. Murph flipped the light off and padded his way back over to where he'd be sleeping in the dark. He only tripped once, causing the two of us that were awake to produce giggles that we had to stifle. For a while, we simply lie there in the dark. It normally took us forever to fall asleep. We would spend hours lying in complete darkness, laughing at retellings of stories, making random noises, throwing things blindly at each other, singing along to a CD that we never failed to have playing. But tonight was different for some reason. The only sounds that filled our unusual silence was what reached us through the open windows. My eyes adjusted to the bit of light the one on the street provided and I could see that Gwen was already asleep while Murph rolled onto his stomach. Realizing I was equally as tired as either of them, I did the same, turning my head toward Gwen and letting my eyelids fall shut. Before I knew it, I was out.

The distinctive smell of warm air tickling my nostrils was what woke me up in the morning. Just by the angle that the sun was slanting across my face, I could tell it was already later than I wanted it to be. I had work this afternoon and I knew I would never be ready in time if I didn't wake up now even if I wasn't sure of the exact time. Regardless, I rolled over onto my side, curling my legs up to my chest and pushing my face into my pillow. My arms were kind of thrown out in front of me and I made to pull them in so that they were secured beneath both the pillow and my head. Something -or rather, someone- prevented this though. Fingers slowly gripped the wrist of my right arm, preventing me from moving it and my left arm underneath it. Taking in the reality that someone was pinning me down, I tried desperately to pull free as I woke up more. It only ended up in me flailing around and giggling coming from the person holding me.

"Valerie," Nic crooned, dragging it out in an attempt to calm me down. It worked, because my eyes popped open and I stopped moving. It also helped that she let go of my wrist. She was still laughing at me as I sat up, digging the heel of my hand into one of my eyes to remove the remaining sleep from it. "Time to wake up, pookie bear," she informed me, using a soft and sarcastic motherly voice.

"Shannon," I stated tiredly. It came out much angrier than I had intended just because of the current quality of my own voice. There was more I had to say, all of it piled in my brain and waiting for my mouth to get the hint that it had a job to do. But the one word just hung there for a moment, causing her to raise her eyebrows at me. "Why exactly did you have to wake me up like that?" I finally asked, pushing my messy hair away from my face. "I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Are you still drunk?" I tacked this on quickly, just figuring out that maybe this was the case.

She giggled some more and shook her head to deny my claim. "Not even hungover. I'm just enjoying the morning," she claimed, her smile so wide I was sure I could see every one of her perfectly aligned teeth. Her legs were folded underneath her, making it so she was sitting on her heels. Her hands rested on her bent knees and it made her look even happier to be awake as she sat there.

"Ugh," I groaned, running a hand over my face. "What time is it?" I muttered, and grabbed for the alarm clock on the table beside me. The red, block numbers let me know that it was fifteen minutes until one. I wasn't sure exactly what time I had finally passed out after we got home, but I was positive it wasn't late enough to have slept until now. I groaned again. I was sure I could waste some more time talking to Nic, but I simply pushed my way out from under the sheet draped over me and crawled over the side of the bed that Gwen had slept on. As I paced over to the door to the bathroom, everything from before we had all fallen asleep came back to me. I had to physically bite my tongue to hold off on bringing up what she had said about Zack. With a little effort, I pushed forward and headed into the bathroom without another word to or from her.

There was no time to shower, which was my biggest regret about sleeping into the afternoon. I had to stand in the bright lights casted down from above the medicine cabinet to wake up that final bit before I could make myself look like I actually had showered. I brushed out my hair to calm the waves swimming in the woods and drying in the sun had caused, and then braided it since it was my easiest go-to. I did my makeup as fast as I knew I ever had and I brushed my teeth. When I exited to my room once more, Nic was gone, leaving it empty. My bed was made and each blanket she and Murph had used was folded neatly and stacked on the floor according to thickness. A light smile formed on my lips even though I would have insisted she didn't have to clean up. I was quick to change though, pulling on a pair of black pants and then the customary black polo. Just before I bounded out of my door and downstairs, I grabbed my purse weighted down with another camera and my notebook as well as several other -normal- objects.

My friends were all standing at the counter when I entered the kitchen, my mother and youngest sister of course already gone for the day and Lilah still at Katie's or at school. They weren't eating, but I could tell that they had been up for a while and had probably eaten then. Still too sleepy for my taste, I stomped passed them to the fridge, muttering something about just wanting some Goddamn chocolate milk. They laughed and joked about my Sleeping Beauty act of the morning while I stood against the far counter, drinking my milk from a small, pink cup and glaring at them from behind it with each sip I took. It couldn't have been more than a half hour since I had woken up and found myself stuck in the stupor oversleeping causes. But when I glanced at the clock on the wall between the basement and garage doors, I saw that it was already a quarter till two. That woke me up more efficiently than actually being up had been able to. My shift started at two and if I was to ride my bike like I'd had every intention to, then I was going to be beyond late. The thought of my bike brought up an entirely new predicament though.

"Fuck," I exclaimed in a gruff voice that had me carrying the word out into two long syllables. Before I said anything else, I dove into my purse sitting on the island in front of me. After a bit of digging and pushing things around to reach the bottom that was covered in gum wrappers and candy that had been sitting in there for a year, I finally found my phone which I had shoved in there while leaving my room. "I left my bike with Alex," I told my friends who had given up on trying to ask me what was wrong and were now just simply staring at me with expectant expressions.

I scrolled through all of my contacts, easily finding one of the new additions from last night. I hit the little green button while Alex's name was highlighted and brought the phone to my ear. While the other end rang, I asked Gwen if she could bring me to work, nearly pleading because I was terrified I wouldn't make it. But she nodded without a second thought as always. I wasn't so lucky on the phone, only catching Alex's voicemail. "Hey, it's Val. So I seem to have left my bike in the back of your car yesterday. No rush to get it back. But it would be awesome if we could meet up somewhere this week so I could get it. Call me back," I sang, leading the way into the living room. It was true that I preferred to ride my bike in the nice weather, but I could fare without it for a couple days. My message finished, I snapped my phone shut and let it fall back into my purse.

Instead of only Gwen going to bring me to work, Murph and Nic tagged along as well. I suspected it was so they could snag some free food for lunch before they finally went back to their own homes, and I wasn't going to make any objections to this. We piled once more into Gwen's car parked across the street, and headed off. Gwen often drove as if she were determined to get us all killed. She swerved a lot and criticized every other driver on the road, swearing both loudly and under her breath and sighing so heavily you'd think she would pass out from lack of oxygen. Thanks to her speed and anger, I was at work with five minutes to spare. Before I rushed out of the car, I told them they could pick a table and that I would let whoever was waitressing know that it was on me. I couldn't talk for much longer than that though, and I hurried into the restaurant. Once inside, I shoved my purse onto my designated shelf in the office and clocked in. This left me with the ability to breath once more, relieved I had made it.

I was much slower on my way back out to the front. I picked up three of the laminated menus from the podium by the door and walked them to the table Gwen and the others had picked, and waved to James who was bussing another table on my way back. Lunch hour was well over now and mostly people were clearing out instead of coming in. For now, the place was practically dead.

Something about this thought brought me up short as I leaned on the podium with my elbows. I put my head down, my forehead against my wrists as I tried to work out why my stomach was turning into a mess of anxiety-ridden knots. It was the last word that was causing such a reaction, and I followed a path in my mind that led me right back to my oversleeping. Suddenly, I remembered why I had refused to wake at a respectful time. I'd had the nightmare again, the one with my oldest sister as a child. I still couldn't recall the details of it, but I knew it had woken me up several times to toss and turn and to want to sleep for much longer. I wished it would just go away.

"Hey, Val," someone rather close to me greeted, breaking me from my negative thoughts on bad dreams. The way he said the words gave me the impression that he had been trying to get my attention for more than just a few seconds. I lifted my head from my arms and found Dominic smiling back at me. "Hey there," he grinned, clearly relieved that I wasn't having some sort of breakdown.

"Hey," I responded, smiling widely right back at him as I routinely grabbed another menu. "What are you doing here?" I wondered, and stepped around the podium that was the only thing between us.

He slipped his hands into the pockets of his jeans, appearing more apprehensive than I had seen him the whole week at school. "Well, I knew you worked here with James. And I came by on the chance that maybe you would be working today," he admitted, and I instantly felt the blush color my cheeks. I felt too much like my sister had surely felt yesterday around Alex. I couldn't say I was complaining though. "But we should probably tell James that I came here strictly to talk to his sweet ass," he claimed with another grin, making me laugh and nod in agreement. I walked him to a newly clean table, knowing our mutual friend was still nearby. "I'll see you around then, Val," he said, making it a promise.