I'm Anything You Want Me To Be.

We fell asleep in the van.

I was just sleepy, Dani on the other hand was exhausted.

"Welcome to the Eighty One Twenty Three office." Jared says, smiling at me. "They're never really here this late but we told them we'd be dropping by."

"Eighty One Twenty Three," Dani repeats Jared subconsciously. "Means everything to me."

Pat laughs at Dani who is still asleep on Jared's back.

Jared said he didn't want to wake Dani up, given that she was all too tired, so he volunteered to give Dani a piggy-back ride.

"Damn right, it does."

We look behind us and see Tim closing the door.

Tim lets out a chuckle. "Morning, guys."

"It's only a minute past midnight," Jared huffs, obviously happy to see Tim. He puts Dani down on a couch, but this bothers her and she starts awaking.

"Morning, princess." Someone else greets Dani.

Dani flips her middle finger at him, eyes still closed, as she gets up. "Princess my ass," She sticks her tongue out discreetly like a little kid. It's almost as if the sleep had refreshed her because now, there is absolutely no sign of her earlier stress. But then her eyes widen, as if she recognizes the endearment of being called "princess," as if there were exactly one person she knew who used it. Turning around, she yells "Tanner!"

"Dani!" he yells back and catches Dani in his arms when she runs to him. "I can't believe it, you're really here--"

"Hell yeah, I am!"

"Where the fuck have you been?!"

"College!" Dani pulls back. "Garrett didn't tell you?"

"No, but he did tell me you guys broke up,"

"Well, yeah, I was at college." Dani drops the breakup.

Tanner squeezes breath out of Dani again. "Oh God, I missed you!"

"I missed you more!" Dani counters.

When they break off, Tanner stares at me.

Before he even asks, and before I even introduce myself, Dani does it for me. "Tanner, this is my sister, Iann--"

"Twin sister?"

"Yeah, I never really told anybody," Dani mumbles.

"That's so cool!" Tanner cheers. He walks to me and holds his hand out. "My name is Tanner."

"Iann." I reply and shake his hand.

Dani comes from behind him and jumps onto his back. "I met Tanner before I met Garrett,"

"That was such a funny story!" Tanner adjusts Dani on his back. "You see, Garrett and Dani met at a party--"

"John's told me about it."

"Aw, damn it, I love telling that story." Tanner pouts, upset John's beat him to it.

"But you don't know how Tanner and I met," Dani says.

I squint at them, almost suspicious of the contact they're making. Too much.

"Hey," Dani points at me. "I know what you're thinking."

Tanner switches a glance with Dani before continuing for her. "Aw, Iann, you know Garrett was Dani's one and only."

My eyebrow retracts.

"Tanner's like, my big bro or something!" Dani exclaims before giving him a kiss on the cheek. "He was one of John's high school buddies,"

"You know, you never did like John." Tanner observes.

"You know the douche he was back then." Dani scoffs and hops off of Tanner.

"Yeah, his douchebag phase was the worst."

"Phase? What are you talking about, he's still a big douche." I joke.

"Oh!" Tanner initiates a high-five and I cooperate.

"Do you guys want some coffee, anything?" Tim offers.

"I'm good." Jared says. "We really gotta drive back now if we wanna be back in the studio by sunrise--"

"Well, who told you to drive these two over here?" Tanner argues. "If it were up to me, I would've made Garrett get his ass in that van and drive."

Tim agrees. "All he's done for the past recording sessions was prance around with that little camera of his and take lots of diddly footage."

"We use them to make updates," Pat defends.

"Well Garrett takes too much footage, you can ask Colby! He talked to me about wondering if he had to get comfortable with a camera in his face all the time." Tim explains humorously.

"We could use it someday," Pat suggests.

"Yeah, make a DVD or something." Dani jokingly backs Pat up, seeming almost finding it funny that Pat had to defend Garrett.

"We just might!" Pat half-angrily huffs, crossing his arms in front of his chest and sinking onto a chair.

Jared lets out a yawn.

Pat gets back on his feet. "We should go."

"Yeah." Jared nods.

Pat walks over to us and gives Dani and me each a hug. "I love you both. Take care."

"You too," We say together as we watch Pat exit after having Jared throw him the keys.

Jared encloses Dani and me in one giant bear hug and says "See you soon."

I don't know to whom he said it, but I hope he meant to say it to Dani alone.

We faintly hear the van drive off.

"Do you have to go too?" Tanner asks both me and Dani.

"Yeah,"

"Do you need a ride--"

"No, thank you." Dani politely turns down.

"Alright."

"When are we expecting you back here?" Tim asks.

"A week." Dani answers.

"Both of you?"

Dani looks at me and gives me the option to answer.

I had every reason to choose not to go back.

I'm gonna look for Jay, I have to visit my parents' graves, and.. There's a bunch of reasons I could not go back. I know.

But I can't think of them now.

And you know why?

Because there's someone I know will be waiting for me back.

John.

And I did promise him that I would come back for him.

"Yes, sir." I answer Tim.

"Great," Tim replies, not knowing what I had to contemplate on to arrive at a decent and polite answer.

"We'll get going." I say and begin to lead Dani off.

Dani stops me by grabbing onto my wrist, but the next words she says aren't meant for me. "Tim, do you guys still have exaltation?"

"Yeah, we have some left at the back,"

"Can I borrow a copy,"

"You can have one--"

"Thanks, Tim!"

"I'll go get it for you." Tim mumbles as he leaves Dani and me.

"Exaltation?" I ask.

"You're gonna love it." She beams.

Curious as I am, I just shrug it off. After being handed Dani's keys which hanging on a hook by the door, I decide to start the car and warm it up for us.

It's been a while since I've been in here. A really long while. It was when Dani was leaving for college.

We debated for a while on whose car to take. We came to the decision to use Dani's. But when we started peeling off our driveway, we figured out she was out of gas so we used mine instead.

I take a deep breath and just start the engine after dragging our suitcases into the cargo.

"Yeah. Yeah!" Dani yells as she's trotting out the office, hugging a thick, square, black envelope to her chest like it's so precious. "Bye guys, see you in a week!"

I watch her as she sets herself in the passenger seat.

"Let's go!" she cheerfully says.

I step on the gas and we start moving.

"Seat belt." Dani reminds me as she caters to her own reminder.

"Right." I do the same.

After minutes of driving, I ask her now. "So what's this exaltation thing?"

"Here," She hands it to me after teething the plastic wrap off.

"I'm driving." I scoff jokingly.

"Okay, fine." She crosses her legs and opens the envelope for me after taking it back. "It's a book put together by John and his friend Dirk,"

"John?"

"John."

"John who?"

"I know, there's a bunch of johns in the world, I'm talking about your John. I think he did this late twenty-ten--"

"What the hell is it?" I ask, curious now.

"You've always liked poetry, right?"

"Yeah, but what's John--"

"Here." She slides a piece of thick paper onto my lap. "When they made the announcement for this, I pre-ordered one almost instantly just because I knew you would love it. I wanted it solely for the photographs but I knew the poems you could do with."

"That's so thoughtful of you," I quietly and honestly muster up those words.

"Of course, when I got home I wanted to give it to you but we started fighting so I destroyed my original copy, threw it in a fire."

"Oh--"

"But it's okay! I got a new copy and we're not fighting now so you better take these before I burn these down again." She slides more papers to me. "Now, I'm not a big fan of poetry but this one's my favorite."

I look down at the paper she's pointing at and it starts with the all-capital line. "Speak now or forever fall to pieces." I read aloud. Before I continue, I redirect my attention to the road ahead us.

You would think someone who's been through what Dani and I've been through would be more alert when driving.

"Maybe later." I say.

"Alright." She tucks everything back into the envelope and just puts it on the dashboard.

I continue driving around, following Dani's directions.

Then we get here.

Dani and I exit the car, walk each other to the porch. I pick the lock with the the house key in the ring with her car keys and open the door for us.

"Welcome home." she tells me.