Chapters On A Page

It was snowing again. Being close to the end of January, this wasn't such an odd occurrence. The flakes were huge, appearing as if dozens were clumped together as they fell from the white sky to land on the already blanketed earth. It would be gone soon, I felt. Large flakes did a good job of hiding the ground quickly, but they weren't stable enough to last long after the snowfall stopped. It was still enough to have me sitting in the window seat, marveling at the short storm as if it was the first one I had ever seen in my life. To me, it was hard not to love the snow and rejoice when it fell from the sky. According to almost everyone I knew, this was because I had never had to drive in it. Everyone else over the age of twelve absolutely hated the frozen precipitation and they couldn't see that my love for it went deeper than that. I couldn't explain it to them and I guess I really had no desire to. If I was going to be alone in enjoying it, then that was that.

"Val, can you stop wishing you could make love to the snow and come help me?" Nic demanded from the doorway of the bathroom. She held her gloved hands palm-up and apart away from herself, a slightly irritated expression etched into the subtle lines of her face.

I slid off the bench with a tiny smirk and a shake of my head before following her retreating back into the bathroom. She was standing at the sink in front of which Murph sat on one of the stools from the kitchen. I met his eyes in the mirror as I rested my chin on his shoulder, my nose wrinkling. "Are you sure you want to do this, Murph?" I questioned, glancing quickly at the reflection of his hair before meeting his gray eyes in the glass once more.

"Even if I wasn't, it's kinda too late now," he pointed out, referring to the hair that was already sticking up due to the product in it. Nic came around his other side to stand next to me then, the color brush in her hand coated with a white goop that produced the smell that caused me to wrinkle my nose in distaste once again. "Good Christ, does that burn!" Murph shouted when Nic began carefully brushing the bleach into his hair, continuing what she had already started before coming to get me. Murph squirmed atop the stool, attempting to ignore the urge to scratch at his head.

"Hold him still or distract him or something, please," Nic begged lightly of me, her eyes connecting with mine for a split second while she nodded toward Murph. I obliged, leaning against the side of the sink opposite the bleach mixture and tried to keep Murph's mind off the burning sensation running along his scalp.

My friends were still angry with me, I knew because it was clear as day. Alex was right. They would forgive me, but the time hadn't come yet, and I couldn't say exactly when it would. But we had been friends for ten years, they were a part of my family and a part of me. They would continue to hang around no matter how pissed they were at me because we couldn't stand to be apart. So they had continued to come over everyday and act like nothing was awry between us, minus only a hint of malice in their eyes every so often. They were fine pretending that I didn't have something going on with Alex since they barely saw him, and I was content with accepting this because I didn't want to fight with them.

"It may be too late to turn back now, but is this even really worth it?" I asked, forcing my focus back onto Murph one hundred percent. He was still fidgeting in his seat, so I reached out to take his hand for him to squeeze whenever he wanted to scratch at his head. I was wishing I had been able to talk him out of this idea before it started. His black hair was my favorite feature of his. The messy mop was Murph's defining feature, and it was going to be completely changed in an hour.

"Anything to not be distinguished as a Murphy at this Godforsaken wedding," he responded with an over-exaggerated roll of his eyes.

"Despite yours being broken in the past, you all have the same nose. And eyes, too," I reminded him, making it sound as obvious as it really was. "There's no way people aren't going to recognize you as a Murphy," I continued, sealing my statement with a smirk. I smartly chose not to mention that his oldest brother's wedding wasn't going to be all that bad. I knew he didn't have a loving relationship with any of his brothers, but Riley had gotten much more bearable ever since he'd gotten engaged to his fiance, Fiona. I was sure Murph was just thinking there had to be an ulterior motive to Riley asking him to be a member of the wedding party.

He huffed, but continued to watch Nic transform his hair into a lighter version of itself in the mirror. "Well, then I'll just dye it electric blue or some shit. Maybe I won't have to be an usher then," he speculated hopefully, but we both knew his mom would never let him get out of this.

Soon Nic was done with the task he had set upon her and she peeled her gloves off with a sound of finality. "You know, this is the first time I've ever bleached all of someone's hair," she enlightened us wonderingly, seeming to find great interest in tucking one inside-out latex glove into the other. "I hope you don't go bald or anything." Her words had the effect she had surely desired. Murph's jaw dropped to the floor and he sputtered to ask whether or not she was serious while I giggled away because I knew she was only joking. He didn't take any notice of this though.

He was reaching panicked anger when I heard the car horn, unnoticed by the both of them. Nic was trying desperately to not let her chortles break through her serious mask as I slipped back into my room. I skipped to the closest window and peeked out from between the blinds. There was a car waiting in the driveway, just as I had known there would be. Despite the distance, Alex caught sight of me and he gave me a smile through the windshield. I spun back to my friends after assuring him with a gesture that I would be outside in a moment. "I guess I'll have to wait to see the results," I stated, feigning slight disappointment. Just as I had suspected and what I had been hoping to avoid, both of them quieted down and grew somber because they knew why I was leaving. But I tried to ignore it and work around it. "I'll be back by the time Gwen gets here, promise," I told them, then kissed them both on the cheek in an attempt to put them back in a better mood. Instead of sticking around to see if this worked though, I exited the bathroom and made my way down the hall to the stairs.

"Where are you going?" my mother's voice asked as I was pulling my coat from the downstairs closet. I hadn't seen her when I'd come down the stairs, but she was coming around from the other side of the Christmas tree that she was beginning to un-decorate.

"Out," I replied when I was certain I would no longer sound startled as a result of her sudden appearance. I slipped my arms into the sleeves of my parka but I didn't bother zipping it up.

Trix's forehead wrinkled in apparent confusion. "Aren't Russell and Shannon up in your room?" she questioned, leaning her weight onto one foot so she could see the stairs as if the two of them would be standing on the landing to back up her point.

I cringed some at the use of my best friends' real names, but I pushed on. "Yes, and Gwendolyn is going to be here later," I informed her, emphasizing Gwen's name just to see if she would notice and take hint of my annoyance. She didn't. "I'll be back. It's driving lesson time though!" I reminded her, and I knew she wouldn't argue with this. She hadn't ever seen a need to push me to drive before, but I could tell that she was pleased that I was taking the initiative to do it now. When she simply nodded in understanding, I continued on my way outside. I hurried to Alex's car and hopped in as quickly as I could to get out of the cold and snow. Of course, the kiss he greeted me with was an added bonus of being hasty.

Just because my friends had discovered that Alex and I had been more than friendly for a while, that didn't mean we had gone public with it. That would have caused just as many problems now as it would have before we'd been caught. Especially since he still had a girlfriend that was not me. I had told him that we needed to figure things out before we took another step in any direction, and he had come to agree with that. So we still had to sneak around, keeping our affair a secret from everyone but Nic, Gwen, and Murph. The excuse of him teaching me to drive was the one we stuck with. There was no reason to make up something else that would surely just fall apart with no trouble. Most days we really did revisit seldom used roads to actually continue my lessons, and I was proud to say I was finally making some progress. Other days though, we hid at his house just to be together. Today seemed to be one of those days.

As usual, his parents weren't home, so he pulled into the empty garage, hitting the button on the remote clipped to the visor above his head to set the door to closing. I waited for him by the door into the house, unable to remove the smirk from my face even as he came toward me to place a swift kiss on my lips before leading me inside. Hand-in-hand, we headed down the short hall that led to the kitchen and then made our way toward the stairs.

Like always, I studied the pictures that lined the wall as we ascended to the second floor of his house. "You look just like your dad," I stated absentmindedly, my pace slowing which caused us to separate. He stood on the step two above me while I paused to have a closer look at the picture in front of me that had caught my attention. It could only have been Mr. Gaskarth in the picture. He was a larger man and his eyes were squinted against the glare of the sun that must have been bright in the sky that day. But he was clearly happy, as he was sporting the same smile I had seen on his son a million times.

Alex chuckled lightly and took a step down so he could take my hand again. "If you say so. My brother looked a lot more like him though," he assured me before tugging lightly on my hand to get me to move once more.

I dropped my coat onto his bed once we'd gotten into his room and seated myself on the corner as I always did. "So anything special today?" I wondered, glancing up at him through my eyelashes.

He laughed again and then dove onto the bed, catching me around the waist to pull me with him. His lips found mine instantly and it effectively answered my question for quite a while. But Spot didn't seem to like that the house had people in it again and yet he still wasn't getting the attention he thought he deserved, and he shoved his way in between the two of us. Alex rolled over, jokingly cursing his dog while I satisfied Spot's need for a belly rub. "Dude, you're worse than Jack sometimes," Alex groaned, trying to meet the dog's eyes, but they were rolled back in his head in a show of contentment. "Well, I thought we'd watch a movie. But this dick is obviously going to ruin every chance I would have to distract you from it," he claimed after a silent minute. He rolled his head to look at me, giving me a smirk while reaching over to scratch Spot's chest.

I pushed myself up, kissing the dog's nose before I slid off the bed. "We should play that game. The one you always kill me in," I insisted, bending over at the waist some to scan the titles in his video game collection.

"Halo?" he asked -though he knew that was the one I was talking about- which led me to immediately finding its case in the lineup. I plucked it from the others and turned back to him. "You just pointed out yourself that you're terrible at it," he countered, sitting up himself. "You don't really wanna play it, do you?" he asked me curiously, his head cocked slightly to the side as he approached me.

I nodded fervently, biting my lip while I read the back of the case. "I like to see you win," I revealed, grinning up at him. He snorted lightly, but then kissed my forehead and took the game from me to place the disk in the console. I sunk down to the floor, scooting to put my back up against the end of the bed while he put the television on the right settings. He joined me after a moment and handed me the other controller. I cuddled close to him, swinging my legs over his lap. He welcomed this, shooting me a smile and sneaking in one more quick kiss before we began playing.

Like I knew he would, he won every round we played. I didn't care though. I was terrible at most video games and I had accepted this fact long ago. With a guy as one of your best friends, you kind of have to. I really did just like to watch Alex play though, even if it meant I was ultimately going to lose. Eventually though, he coaxed me away from the game, taking the controller from my hands without pausing the screen and pulling me closer to him. His hand slid to the back of my neck to bring our faces together, and soon the game was all but forgotten. All that mattered was that he was kissing me and that we didn't part. Things got heated though, and we unfortunately had to break apart just long enough for me to tug his shirt up over his head. Those few seconds ticked by at an unbearable rate. We both knew where this was headed if we didn't stop soon. I was sure I didn't want to stop. But there was a voice in the back of my head, screaming at me that this was not what I wanted, not yet, and also that it was all so wrong. Thankfully, I didn't have to deal with contradicting thoughts or breaking things off before they could go any farther.

From what felt like out of nowhere since we had been so disconnected from reality, the sound of a door slamming shut came to us from the first floor of the house. Like a reflex that we had been born with, Alex and I jumped apart, leaving a foot of space between us. He scrambled along the carpet for his shirt, which had somehow ended up closer to the door than I had remembered. He shrugged into it, pulling at the bottom so it lay flat on his torso. He didn't even notice that it was inside out until I told him, at which point he found a hoodie among a pile of what appeared to be clean clothes on the chair by his desk, knowing he didn't have time to put his shirt on the right way. We could hear footsteps on the stairs, and they were surely coming our way.

He had just gotten it zipped when a voice asked, "Alex, why did you park in the garage?" It was close by, and a moment later who I was guessing was Alex's mother stepped into the doorway. "You're going to have to move before your father gets home. Who's this?" she wondered, changing the subject abruptly when she noticed me sitting on the floor, half-hidden behind her son standing in front of her. I couldn't help but feel as if the gaze she had pointed toward me was suspicious, like I was a secret criminal and she was the only one that could tell there was something different about me.

"Oh, uh," Alex stammered, "this is Val, mom. She's a friend of mine." I gave a meek wave when he stepped aside to let her get a better look at me, but I was still feeling like I was no longer welcome here. "We were playing a game," he told her, as if she had asked why I sitting on the floor in his room.

"Hmm," she sniffed, taking a second to assess me. "Well, it's nice to meet you," she said, and then continued on about how Alex should probably move his car soon. She exited the room again a minute later with barely a second glance at me.

It left him and I in an awkward silence, and it took him a moment before he came to sit next to me again. We didn't say anything, but he took my hand and began to play with my fingers as if it helped him think. "Maybe you should take me home," I whispered, fearing that anything louder might shatter him. He hadn't spoken for several minutes. Instead, he had watched our fingers intertwine and break apart again, over and over. But he nodded now and helped me to my feet, leading me back out to his car when I had donned my coat once more. The first few minutes of our ride were just as silent, the absence of even music making it more eerie than it should have been. It came to the point where I could no longer take it. "So… your mom doesn't like me," I said, attempting to make it sound nonchalant but failing.

"What?!" he exclaimed, turning to me briefly to give me a shocked look. "No, she does," he asserted, but his confidence was fading fast. "She does. She's just gotten to like Lisa a lot, so she might just question why you and I are hanging out," he told me, telling the truth this time.

"So if you eventually break up with Lisa, she is going to hate me," I responded, this being the only thing I picked up from what he had said.

"When I break up with Lisa. Not if. I thought we had settled that that's where this is headed. And my mom's not going to hate you. She's not like that," he tried to convince me.

I couldn't say I was really listening anymore though. My stomach had been in a weird jumble of knots since we had jumped away from each other and I didn't know why, but it was making me defensive and somewhat wary. We had made it to my house, somehow coming up on it without my noticing. I was thankful for it though. I hopped out onto the driveway lightly dusted with snow, an excuse and my fight evading me. Something in me was just telling me that I needed to get away from him. "Look, I'm sorry. I'll talk to you later, 'Lex," I promised him, and then shut the door. I could feel his eyes follow me to the porch, but I didn't look back until I heard the car disappearing down the road.