Chapters On A Page

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, dragging on impossibly long though it was only four more periods of fifty minutes. I could just be thankful that I didn't have to pretend to be a lesbian again because I thought someone was fucking with me. Before lunch was over, everyone asked to see my schedule so they could compare classes. They each had long ago thrown out their paper or had folded it several times to store it someplace they'd probably never find it again. But they all had committed the words to memory since they had been heeding them for nine months. The once unscathed sheet of paper made it back to me in a minute or two and I saw that it was no longer clean, but instead that the margins were filled in with their names to indicate who I would be seeing in classes this week alone. Jill and Art were in my first period art class, Paul was apparently in History with me though I couldn't recall seeing him, Lindsay was in my fourth period Algebra class, Dominic and James in fifth period Physics, and Allison in sixth period gym. I even ran into Zack's two other bandmates, Rian and Jack -Rian was in Algebra with Lindsay and I while Jack shared my gym class- both of whom remembered me even with my hair braided.

Then there was seventh period English where I found myself in Alex's presence once more, along with the two girls that had been sitting with his group at lunch. Closer to them, I was sure I had seen them both before today, probably at something that had to do with the band. The dark-haired one didn't really seem to notice me like most people hadn't but she was smiley and looked to constantly be in a good mood. The other one, with lighter hair and who I had observed physically stating that she was Alex's girlfriend, kept glancing in my direction where I sat in the corner and I could feel that they were icy stares. This could only be explained by her maybe having seen the exchange between Alex and I at lunch, but I was going to shake it off because it wasn't worth the thought. Honestly, the best part about the rest of the day was that no other teacher forced me to introduce myself in length. With a quick scan of my newly graffitied schedule, I made sure to put up a fight if I got Ms. Sheffield next year because I could only imagine what her start-of-the-year procedure for getting to know our classmates would be if she made every new student into a showpiece.

I walked home in a much better mood than I had left in. Summer was already in the air and making my way through the throngs of kids heading home already felt like a celebration. I didn't bother pulling my iPod out for the walk, opting instead to just listen to the sounds the spring day brought. As I neared our new house, I easily spotted three figures on the front porch. Two of them were sitting on the steps that led up to the doors and the third was hanging upside down on the porch swing so she could play with her hair while it cascaded beneath her. Both sights brought a smile to my face and I had to refrain from breaking into a run to meet my friends where they waited for me. By the time I reached the gate though, they weren't going to hold themselves back anymore.

Shannon launched herself off the top step and skipped over the bricks that served as the front walk. The curls of her dark red hair flew out behind her before she collided with me, wrapping me in a tight hug. "Oh my God! They didn't kill you!" she screeched in elation. She pulled away enough to bore her brown eyes into my green ones, seemingly checking that there was no mental damage that wasn't apparent on my surface. When she was convinced, she pulled me close again. I let out a giggle at her overreaction even though I was used to her acting as such.

Shannon was the most outspoken one in our group of four. She never held anything back, and I suspected that it had something to do with her Irish heritage since her mom was the same way. She stood at about five-foot-three with maybe another inch when she was excited. Her hair was bright whether she was in the sun or not and her eyes had the tendency to shine just as often, even when she was off on her rants. Those rants along with her arched brows made her constantly look angry or intimidating. But it wasn't often that her words didn't end in a laugh that had the corners of her thin lips turned toward the sky. She loved where she had come from, but she claimed to hate her first name because her grandmother -who apparently was a conniving old woman- had demanded of it. So she usually told everyone simply to call her Nic, which was short for her middle name Nichole. The only ones allowed to get away with calling her Shannon were the three of us, our parents, and her own.

As soon as she let me go, Gwen was there to pull me into a hug even though she had been the furthest from me when I had gotten through the fence. In a quick second, I wondered why they were acting like they had never expected to see me again and then how she had gotten off the swing so fast without hurting herself. The former was a mystery to me but the latter could probably be explained because Gwen's life just worked out like that nine times out of ten to balance things out for her. She wasn't stupid by any means but sometimes things left her mouth that made everyone question this. There was simply no filter, and sometimes there was just a wall that formed around the common sense in her brain. Not one of us ever gave her grief for it though. She wore her auburn hair pin straight today and her hazel eyes were just as soft and childlike as they always were as she smiled at me. "I was worried something happened to you. I asked Lane why he was at school when you were at his house today. But he just stared at me like I was crazy," she stated in disbelief, shaking her head when she broke her grip on me.

I snorted softly at her words, squeezing her hand. "I said I was going to Dulaney. Not Lane's. I had to switch schools," I reminded her, knowing that she remembered this information deep down. Her eyebrows pulled together for a second in confusion and then she let out a long Oh in recollection. "Who's Lane?" I mouthed to the other two while Gwen was looking away.

"I don't even think there is one at Towson," Murph said aloud without fear that Gwen would even know what he was talking about. He had hung back from the girls at first, but stepped forward now that they were off to the side and wrapped me in a tight hug. He would deny it most of the time, but he didn't have a problem participating in some of our girlier actions like this.

Murph's full name was Russell Jacob Murphy, but almost since the moment we met, I had been calling him by his shortened last name. I had liked the ring of it better and the girls had picked up on it instantly. Like the rest of his family, he had a mess of black hair and steel gray eyes that sometimes looked silver in the right light. There was a bump in the middle of his long nose from it getting broken during a fight with one of his brothers, but it had never bothered him. He liked to joke around and tell people that either Gwen, Nic, or I did it to him after we found out he'd cheated on us with the others. He had never dated any of us though and the four of us had agreed long ago that it would be too weird to even think about.

In the second grade, our teacher had had the genius idea to align the desks into groups of four. She hadn't been new, so she had clearly set this as a ritual for the beginning of school years before that. Even at almost seven, I was not keen to this idea because I had an older sister who had warned me that this was just a plot to force us to make friends with the other children in our "group." I was not an anti-social kid, I simply wanted to make friends on my own terms. The only person less thrilled about this prospect was Murph because he was the leftover boy in a group with three girls. I had broken down though and became friends with Shannon and Gwen just like the teacher had wanted. Somehow we had won over Murph by the time my birthday rolled around at the end of September, and the four of us had been nearly inseparable ever since. Their parents were my parents and my parents were theirs. It was hard to imagine life had I not been forced into a friendship with these three. So I wasn't surprised to see them here after spending our first school day apart without one of us being sick or on vacation. But I still couldn't say why they were acting the way they were.

I led them into the house when they finally let me go longer than thirty seconds. I dropped my purse onto the floor inside the door, being careful of the contents within it, and automatically headed for the couch up on the raised part of the floor. I slumped into one end of it while Nic took the other with Gwen between us and Murph threw himself onto the love seat. "So what's gotten into you guys? Is there some kind of bet going on over who can hug me the most?" I inquired, holding back a chuckle. I propped my feet up on the coffee table, examining my shoes until one of them answered.

"We just missed you today, is all," Shannon piped up after only a few seconds. "It was so out of order for you not to be there. Even Zack missed you and kept asking if you'd gotten a hold of any of us. That in itself is strange, so you know everyone was all out of sorts," she claimed, leaning forward so she could see me passed Gwen.

I laughed. "Zack and I have been friends since I was born thanks to us being related, and have gone to the same school since sixth grade. It's not so unusual that he might miss seeing me around," I said with a roll of my eyes. "There's only four days left, anyway. Then we have the whole summer to spend together. There's not even any time to miss me," I claimed, waving the whole matter off. They each shook their heads, silently telling me that I was insane because they were going to miss me no matter what I said.

"So do we get to see the house, or are we confined to this posh living room for the rest of our visits despite the fact that we're family?" Murph wondered, not even bothering to turn to look at me. Somehow I could tell he was watching his shoes at the other end of the love seat just by the way he moved his feet.

I had forgotten that this was their first time here. They had obviously found the place and greeted me like everything was the same. I had fallen into the belief that it was; that it was the same old house and the same old after school hang out. Now reminded though, I planted my feet on the floor and pushed myself off the couch. I had made it to the open double doorway that led into the hallway before turning around, cocking an eyebrow and asking if they were coming. The three of them scrambled up after me then and eagerly followed my every step.

At the end of the hall to the right was the den where the family computer sat on its desk and a couple of bookcases lined one wall, their books still in the boxes behind the door. In the middle of the hall to the left of the larger living room doorway was another doorway into the dining room. Currently the only things in it were the bar the house came with, the china cabinet, and more boxes filled with my mom's good dishes. The other end of the hall was the kitchen but I assured them that it was like every other kitchen even though I adored it, and I led them through the smaller entry into the living room. On the way up the stairs, I pointed out the downstairs bathroom on the other side of the room. The attic door was just off to the left of the wall at the top of the stairs. The hallway on the second floor was wider, and on the right in the middle were the two bathrooms my sisters and I used. Beyond that was the guest room that currently sat empty but I later planned to convince my mom to turn it into a movie room of sorts. Across from that was Lilah's room, then Kaylee's, followed by my mother's. Across from hers, back to the right side, was my room.

It was a lot more organized than it had been two days ago. Zack and I had managed to get my mattresses onto the bed frame and it now was situated in between the window seat and the far wall, with my bookcase on one side and nightstand on the other. Behind the door, I had placed my desk and my dresser was against the adjacent wall, next to the door to the bathroom. To the right of the main door, in the corner, was a small stand for my television as well as movies, and in the diagonal corner was the closet.

Murph whistled while the girls automatically made their way over to the still bare window seat to sit down. "Impressive," they all said in unison almost as if they had practiced it to be that way. Sometimes things like this just happened with us, so we barely laughed anymore out of habit.

"You've definitely already made it your own," Murph assured me as he stepped around the few boxes still in the middle of the floor. Once he made it to the unmade bed, he threw himself down. Unlike with the couch downstairs, he landed on his stomach so that he was lying across the surface and could reach the bookcase. He extended his hand, grabbing one of the old cameras I had sitting atop the shelves. There was still a whole box full at the end of the bed that I had to find a place for, but he appeared to be perfectly content fiddling with the one in his hands. "When are you going to take our senior pictures, huh?" he asked jokingly as he lie there. The novelty of some place new to explore had apparently already worn off.

I rolled my eyes at him and I caught Shannon doing the same. Gwen was far too busy picking at the polish on her fingernails to notice anything. "Well, certainly not today," I replied, carefully pacing over to the closet. "I have to get to work at the restaurant," I informed all of them, having suddenly remembered myself. The day had been so hectic that it had slipped my mind until confronted with plans that I actually wanted to follow through with. Standing in front of the closet with one of the bifold doors open, I pulled the shirt I was wearing over my head. I didn't even care if Murph noticed despite the fact that he was as straight as an arrow. There wasn't much any of us hadn't seen on each other over the years. It also helped that I was wearing a tank top underneath. Throwing the t-shirt to the ground, I pulled out one of the polos I was required to wear to the restaurant I worked at and slipped it over my head.

"Not today, you don't!" Gwen exclaimed, finally broken from her fixation with her old nail polish. She peeked out from underneath her bangs with a grin on her face.

Thinking she was only confusing my schedule and had wanted me to hang out longer, I started to tell her that I did have to go. But I noticed Shannon nodding and Murph even popped up from his position on the bed. "That's right," Shannon said as if she had just remembered something. "We called James and he was completely willing to take your shift in honor of your first day at Dulaney. We've got the whole evening to pretend like we just spent several painstaking hours of school together," she enlightened me excitedly.

"Seriously?" I questioned back, almost finding it hard to believe. It only took a nod from them to convince me though. I knew I was going to have to pay James back somehow, but it wasn't hard to please the kid. "Well, shit. Let's go bake some cupcakes then!" This would kill two birds with one stone, being able to give some to both Alex -sooner and easier than making it to band practice- and James tomorrow.

Gwen, Nic, and Murph each groaned at the prospect of having to help me. But none of them truthfully had a problem with it because that was what I liked to do. They also liked to devour the first batch of anything I made right out of the oven, and were probably the biggest fans of anything I ever thought up. Murph was the first one out of my room, bolting off the bed and through the door so he could go through the pantry and be the one to pick what flavors I made. The girls and I giggled at him with a shake of our heads and followed behind him to begin an early summer ritual.