Adrienne’s POV

We walked some ways through the woods. There was some smooth gravel pathway which allowed me to push Maddy in her stroller.

“How far is your house?”

“It just little farther, we’re almost there.”

“What kind of kiss was it?” I dare to ask, beyond curious.

“The kind of kiss that gets you kicked out of boy scouts,” he laughed.

“Meaning?”

“Relax, the kiss was just a little favor he did for me to help get me out of boy scouts. Why, do you think he’s bisexual and I’m one of his past lovers?”

“No…” I looked away.

“Really?” he said with a skeptical look.

I looked back, “Okay, that thought might have crossed my mind,” I finally admitted.

“Do you know about Amber?”

“Yes why?”

“Well if you know about Amber, you’ll know he’s 100% straight despite him being over sensitive, too orderly, and having a love of antiques.”

“You’re right about that, he’s like an Ivy League professor trapped in a teen boy’s body. Was he always like that?”

“Not when he was with Amber, he was someone completely opposite.”

“How so?”

“There are few people one has in his life who no matter what can always bring out his true personality hidden behind his social persona. Amber was just that. When we get in, I have something to show you that I know you’d want to see.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see. Looks like we’re here, home sweet home.”

It was a one story blue house with white shutters, “Looks cheery.”

“I do what I can to make it quaint, despite my drabby schoolmarm of a mother,” he opened the door for me and helped me with the stroller.

I held Maddy as he led me to the second living room which seemed to me his area by the major contrast to the other parts of the house. The walls were painted purpled striped of different shades of purple ranging from dark to light where many framed scenes of Paris hanged, the floor a nice hard wood. And all around the room were what looked to be an assortment of handmade nick-knack ornaments of fairies, cupids, angels, birds, butterflies, tiaras, stained glass, lavaliere frames with packing material spread out around them and a huge stack of black tapes.

“Sorry about the mess, I have forty shipments to work on scheduled to be mailed out by tomorrow,” he said clearing off the red velvet daybed for me to sit on.

“Did you make these? They’re beautiful.”

“Yeah, it’s sort of my way of making money; I have this little online shop of custom made accessories for special occasions like Christmas and weddings. You’d be surprised how many people would pay hundreds for these things, like the tiaras, in high demand for weddings, sweet sixteen, and Bat Mitzvahs, where daddy will be willing to pay $500 for his princess to have her custom designed tiara and look like the princess she so is not. And retired widows! I owe a lot to them! They go ape-shit for all this craft junk I make! 30000 hits a week hopefully I should have enough money to leave this homophobic hell. Sorry to brag, I’m a little too proud of myself.”

“Don’t be, that’s awesome! That’s practically a successful career, I’m jealous.”

“It’s more like one stepping stone of the many I have to do what I really want.”

“And what’s that?”

“You’d never guess.”

“Interior design?”

“Hell no, I copied this room from a catalog even bought the furniture and wall decoration from there. I’ll give you a hint, it’s the last thing you’d expect a flamer like me to want to do.”

“Well I wasn’t going to guess theater because I don’t see a Wicked or Les Miserables poster, and I wasn’t going to guess hair stylist or make-up artist because I see any hairstyling books or supplies lying around, maybe I was going to guess a designer of some sort like one who designs diamond jewelry that the stars wear at the Oscars. But now I’m leaning towards guessing photography by the black and white portraits of Paris. Am I close?”

“You’re very observant, but still very cold. Give up?”

“I can guess all day, there are millions of professions.”

“I want to be a professional futbol coach, not football, but futbol as in soccer, that’s what that large pile of videos over there are--eleven years of taped futbol games.”

“Something tells me you had part in Johnny being great in soccer.”

“Damn strait I did! I trained him was back when he had his arm surgery. I may have a knack for trinket making, but my god given talent is training and leading athletes to victory by bringing out their best on the field. I hate to brag, but I’m damn good!”

“Ah that’s not shocking, well to me it isn’t, plus you kinda have the look of a big Brit fan with the 70’s Soho inspired glitter and David Bowie shirt under a pinstripe vest that’s cut up with a Britain flag patch and a button that says ‘Snoff me David Beckham!’ on the pocket.”

“You know all this loud attire is for my mom, she thinks she could go on and pretend I’m her perfect little strait boy that’s going to one day marry a nice girl and la la la—“

“Don’t go singing Spring Awakening on me.”

“Damn you’re good!”

“So you are a theater fan.”

“Please, I only know that because I need to in order to meet guys like me, and the hot ones are always in theater, and I also one day plan on marrying a Broadway star, moving with him to London, where he’d do West End and I’d coach and we’d live in a cozy brick town house by Canary street--that’s my fairytale.”

“Gilmore Girls is my fairytale.”

“You could do better than that.”

“What was it that you wanted to show me?”

“Oh that, right. Well it’s more of an offer. I don’t know if you do or not have the courage to see this.”

“See what?” Amber, it had to be something to do with her.

He got up and opened the drawer of the coffee table and pulled out an album, “Pictures of her and of Johnny too when he was nearly your age, taken during my photography phase. Wanna open Pandora’s Box?”

I so wanted to see but yet I didn’t, because I didn’t want to give her a face, a face that would sure to haunt me as much as her name. I had to see her, I had to see it, all because I had that yearning to learn more about Johnny, good or bad.

Maddy was asleep in my arms, her little body so warm. I slowly, not waking her reached to the album on the table and pulled it from him and towards me and opened it.

There she was, and already on the first page. There was the dead girl I would never live up to. She looked to be everything I wasn’t and could never be. She was beautiful, more than that, beautiful wasn’t the word…breathtaking. I’m a complete fool to think that I could ever compete with her, or that he could ever go for me after being in love with her. It was like seeing the living embodiment of Barbie--that torturous sight of impossible perfection you know you could never obtain.

It just got worse page after page, for the next page there she was with Johnny. Johnny looked different. Not too different though, he was just boyishly scrawny like the freshman boys in my past classes, but still as perfect looking as she. Ah the luxury to have had no awkward stage. There they were together, perfect and happy, laughing and smiling, looking like they were having so much fun. They were a beautiful couple, too good to be true, a couple everyone would envy, a couple who looked made for each other, like a story book prince and princess, Barbie and Ken, meant to grow up together and get married and live happily ever after. But the part that was hard for me to stomach was seeing how close they really were, a closeness I didn’t have with him.

That’s my fairy tale…

Brock noticed me stuck on the page with the pictures of them lying in the grass intertwined, “I know what you’re thinking. Remember, pictures do not show everything, Adrienne. Those pictures do not show the truth that couples with that intense closeness, are doomed to break apart tragically. Their closeness was more fatal and heartbreaking than happy. They knew each other practically their whole lives, grew up always together, enough for one to see the other as a sibling rather than a potential lover; enough for one to be severely lost and shut out if the other dies. It turned ugly,” he said softly, not wanting to wake Madison.

“I just can’t see how.”

“The three of us were friends because we all had one thing in common, we all were publicly looked down upon and made outcasts. I was the fag, he was unwanted the son of the slut, and she was the daughter or the town nutcase. We were miserable! They especially! They were close because they were all they had in this town, they had no one else. And it was tragic because they weren’t enough for each other. It all came down to one having a ticket out this town while the other being trapped here in despair.”

“She killed herself and he left.”

“That is the gist of it.”

“Why no mention of Todd?”

“Because Amber falling for some guy other than Johnny was inevitable just like her suicide.”

“But she killed herself because she was pregnant with Todd’s baby and Todd abandoned her.”

“That’s what Johnny chooses to believe, I seriously think it was because her mother was schizophrenic and Amber was afraid of her fifty percent likelihood of having it too. Todd’s Todd, he’s a douchebag, a bully, but he’s not the complete bad guy. If there’s a bad guy in this story, it isn’t Todd, it isn’t anybody but this horrid town that turned its back on her.”

“Why did you decide to show this to me?”

“I’m not going to lie, this town, this place, it truly is hell on earth, it will test everything you have. Here you’re not Adrienne, but---“

“A child mother.”

“An outcast.”

“Still why did I have to see this album?”

“I don’t know, I thought it’d help you to actually see her.”

I was reminded of my father oddly. Albums were all I had of him just like albums were all I had of Amber. I had albums of my father and…a letter…I was suddenly reminded of the letter he left me. He left me a letter, I haven’t read it but I’ve seen it long ago when I was eleven in a red velvet trunk, an envelope with my name on it in his writing, and my mother telling me she would give it to me when I was older. So why did Heather have that red velvet trunk with her at college? Maybe she could mail that letter to me.

“Are you okay?” he said seeing me so deep in thought trying to remember.

“Can you do me a favor?”

“Sure, what do you need?”

“Can you hold her for a little while? I need to make a call.”

His face grew worried, “You’re not calling Johnny are you, please don’t tell on me.”

“Why would I, you were only trying to help, and no I’m not calling him. It’ll only be for five minutes, I’ll be just outside the sliding glass door, you know how to hold a baby do you? Have you held one before?”

“Yes, of course, hand her to me, she’ll be fine, she’ll obviously still be in your sight.”

I handed her to him, hoping she wouldn’t wake. After I motion to him the five minutes hand signal before going out.

I took my phone and hit the speed dial for Heather and waited. Finally she answered after six rings.

“Why are you calling me?” she answered.

“Hello to you to.”

“If you’re going to be mean to me I’ll hang up.”

“You were mean first!”

“Always your story. Why are you calling? I’m very busy.”

“I want my letter?” I demanded.

“What letter?”

“The one that Dad left me, I know he left me one, I’ve seen it. You have it, I know you have, you took that red trunk with you.”

“Why are you bringing this up?” she groaned.

“I want to read it.”

“Mom doesn’t want you to…did she tell you?”

“Tell me what? Mom doesn’t have a say in this, it’s my letter! I want it.”

“Talk to mom about this, not me.”

“You have the trunk of his stuff!”

“You don’t want to read it, you’re better off not ever reading it, just drop it!”

She had to have been keeping it from me because she held his death against me. “Is this because I caused Dad to die?”

There was a long pause, “Excuse me?” she asked.

“I know you blame me for not saving dad.”

Another long pause, “….Adrienne, you do know I made that up right?”

I froze, what was she talking about? “What? No, I know the truth, I was born to save him but my marrow wasn’t a match.”

“Mom didn’t tell you?” her voice cracked and I could hear her tone change.

My heart was beating fast, wondering what dark secret was kept from me. “Tell me what?”

“Adrienne, that was just some sick lie I told you, I didn’t think you would actually believe it or still would now.”

She’s messing with me again, there was no way….“No, I mean why was I born? Mom only wanted one child.”

“It was all a childish lie, something I got from some TV movie. You were born before Dad got cancer.”

“No I wasn’t! Stop protecting me!”

“Adrienne, dad killed himself!”

I collapsed on the ground, “What?”

“Killed himself, committed suicide, he couldn’t take being sick anymore so he shot himself.”

“You’re lying…” I started crying, not wanting to believe this lie!

“I was there Adrienne. I was the one who found him dead after being dropped off early from school.”

“You found him?” I gasped.

“I thought Mom told you. Dad gave up! He gave up on all of us. It was not your fault, it was his fault.”

“Then why do you hate me?”

“Because you were too young to remember him, too young to have any of it affect you the way it has affected me every day. I hate how you could still be a kid.”

“You really found him dead when you were six?”

“Yeah, Johnny and I have more in common than you think.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Ask him. Listen I have to go, I’m not in the mood to relive my trauma.”

“Heather wait! Don’t hang up!”

She did, leaving me numb with shock. How could my mother not have told me! Heather…I couldn’t believe she…it all had made perfect sense now. I had no idea she had been living with that for all these years. I could see now why she hated me. My father was to me just this guy I see in pictures and home movies, not really a person I knew. I didn’t really have memories of him, just stories my mother told me of him. I couldn’t with all the imagination in me try to imagine what Heather must have gone through all these years and what my father meant to her. She remembered him, she actually knew him, and he was more than a person to her…he was a father to her, and worse, a trauma.

I walked back inside, Brock immediately saw my tears. I took Madison.

“Oh my god, what happed? Are you alright?” he stood up.

“I don’t know, I just found out that not only do I not know my own sister anymore, my dad actually died from suicide. It’s like my whole childhood is crumbling before me, like everything I thought I knew was all some lie to protect me.”

“Coming of age is a bitch.”

“Johnny told you that,” I said remembering him saying exactly that to me.

“No I told him that. It happens to everyone. I thought my parents loved me and supported me no matter what…then I came out to them, my dad refused to see me again and my mom refused to come to terms with it. I never felt secure again. I know one day soon I’ll have enough money to leave here, finally be myself, and my mom too will disown me rather than just pretending not to see me. It’s scary as hell growing up and losing the security we had as a child.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t imagine what that must have been like either, just like there’s no way I could imagine what coming of age at six must have been like for Heather, finding my father dead.”

“Shit,” he said under his breath, “and I thought Johnny’s past was bad enough having his life-long best friend die in his arms.”

I gasped, “Amber died in his arms?!”

He covered his mouth, “Oh no, I wasn’t suppose to tell you that. Yes, but I can’t tell you anymore, it’s his trauma to tell. As hard as it is, try to keep it to yourself that you know that much.”

“No wonder he doesn’t want to get close to me…how could he with anyone after that. Christ. Why does life have to be so shitty and messed up?”

“I don’t know, I guess to make us see the good in life and not take it for granted.”

“But that’s the thing, people after do the exact opposite, they see only the bad and refuse themselves from all the good, afraid of losing it again.”

“Well it takes time to heal and accept the past as what it is and not what it could have been.”

“I know, I clearly can see why it’s hard to do. I just don’t understand how people could say trauma makes a person stronger and builds their character. They make it sound like it was a good thing that was supposed to happen to them. You know that ‘part of God’s plan’ bull they tell us, and how it’s all a test.”

“Yeah tell me about it, some fucked up test. I guess that’s life for you,” he shrugged.

0o0o0

It wasn’t my fault, I didn’t kill him…My father left me... why? Why did he give up, why didn’t he fight harder, why didn’t care to see me grow up? Johnny probably asked the same kind of questions after Amber died...in his arms.

My father robbed me of a father. And yet even after discovering the truth to his death, I still wished I could have remembered him. He was my father, no matter what. I still would have loved to known him, despite that. Heather had nothing to envy for I envied her for that so much more than I had envied her for having Johnny.

All my life I had envied Heather, I still do, and it has been a lifelong obsession really. It was like I couldn’t be happy until I matched her, like I had to match her or else. In my head I made her into this enemy, this soulless rival taking everything I wanted and dangling it in front of me. I had never really empathized with Heather because all I would see was the glittery life she had lead and angrily wonder how she could want more.

But I was beginning to see that perhaps she wasn’t the only one at fault, the soulless enemy only out for herself. She had a trauma that had forever clouded over her and ruining any happiness she could find. I realize now, with all vies for attention and her casual flings with numerous boys, it was all her trying to fill the empty loneliness and temporarily take her mind off the pain of a father who selfishly abandoned her too soon. I know now what Johnny had meant when he told me she had lower self-esteem than me.

Perhaps I was to her as she was to me, a soulless enemy. It was no mystery now to why she treated me the way she did. I was innocent Adrienne to her, innocent Adrienne, head up in the clouds with no bloody trauma clouding her mind, innocent Adrienne that must be protected and kept untainted, innocent Adrienne that must not become messed up like Heather. I would hate me too.

It’s funny in a sad way how alike we are to our soulless enemies and how we find this out all too late…

I don’t know if we’d ever be close, because of the many years of putting each other at a distance, and all I know is that it wouldn’t happen overnight. But maybe now that I actually want to be closer, maybe now when I actually do need my sister, it could eventually happen over time. I wouldn’t count on it though; I must not forget that I am the worst sister in the world who behind her back got knocked up by her then serious boyfriend of three years.

I was also angry, at my father for dying, yet angrier at my mother for not telling me the truth. Yes I know what my father did was much, much, much worse, but for some reason my anger was towards my mother. I should be angrier at my father, but at the moment I wanted to put all the blame on my mother because that was easy. It’s hard to get mad at the dearly missed deceased, so hard.

I was so mad at the way my mother handled me after his suicide. What she did was so unfair to me and Heather most of all. It was her fault that Heather and I grew to hate each other and be so distant. If she would have told me and when I was young, Heather and I would actually be close like normal sisters. My mother robbed me of having a sister practically, so I could maintain my naïveté childhood.

Why was it so important to her to have me sheltered? What good had her sheltering done me? It had hurt me and put me in harm’s way more than it protected me. And ironically Heather, the non-sheltered traumatized and corrupted one had turned out better than me.

I will tell Maddy the truth; I will not hold her back nor sugarcoat the harsh reality; Maddy will not become me. Telling her the truth may make her pessimistic, it may make her a bit untrusting, it may even fill her head with worries, but that is the price that comes with being well-informed. I can’t have her become me.

0o0o0

Johnny had finally came back from work after what seemed like forever even though it was only five. He looked exhausted and distraught, which was normal, yet this looked to be a different kind. He took Maddy in his arms and collapsed on the couch bed, holding her like he hadn’t seen her in months.

“How was it?” I asked, afraid of the answer, “did something happen, was it that bad?”

“It was fine.”

Yeah right, “It doesn’t look like it was just fine, what happened?”

“Nothing, it was just mundane work. How was your day?”

“Don’t change the subject, why do you look like you just came back from hell?”

“Because work is hell, Adrienne, I told you this would be hell for me. What did you do all day when I was gone?”

“I had to wonderful conversations with your sisters, fed Maddy, then changed her, after we did some exploring outside to avoid your mom, came back, change and fed her again before trying to put her down.”

“Did Brock come by to save you?”

“Yes, why didn’t you tell me he would?”

“I forgot and I wasn’t a hundred percent sure that he would, he could be a flake. Did you two get along?”

“Of course, he told me to tell you he says hi and that you better drop by and see him soon, he misses you.”

“I bet he does, he’s been in love with me for years,” he smugly said.

“Did you guys have some deal where he taught you how to play soccer in return for you spending time with him or something?”

“Other than him kissing me against my will at thirteen, we weren’t together in that way, we were just friends,” he groaned in annoyance.

“Hey, did you know about Heather seeing my father dead at six?” I suddenly asked.

He sat up, and looked at me, “Yeah, why are you asking me this, now?”

I abruptly started to cry, not being able to look at him.

“Whoa, what’s wrong? Adrienne, look at me. Did something happen, was it my stepmother?”

I couldn’t control my crying, “I’ve had really shitty day today. First Tori starts giving me these racial remarks, then Dana tells me I’m psychologically unfit to be a mother, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to call Heather and try to fix our relationship. And that lead to me finding out the truth, that my dad actually killed himself and Heather was the one—“

“You didn’t know that? Your mom never told you?”

“No, I don’t think she ever was planning on telling me. My mother’s overprotection attacks again! How does keeping a child from the truth protect them? It’s one thing to keep it from me at six, I can understand that, but to never plan on telling me, not even when I was old enough to take it…that is so…urgh! Why does my mother keep on doing this to me?! She never told me anything and always I have to go out and find the truth from others, like Heather and even Jillian. Do you know how much that has fucked me up, instead of the truth I got immature lies from Heather and damaging misinformation from Jillian! I’m not blaming her for me getting pregnant….maybe I kind of am, I don’t know, all I know is that her protecting me has put me in danger and robbed me of so much! I know she did it out of love, but it keeps on hurting me and hurting me. I hate being a helpless kid who isn’t told anything until after it’s too late. Sometimes I think it’s better to know the painful truth and be over cautious than to be naïve and susceptible to anything.”

“Believe me, you had so much better than me and especially Heather. You don’t know how lucky you are to never before have gone through trauma,” he said seeing just Heather’s side.

“I know that. And why do you say, never before?”

“Because your pregnancy at the age you were was a trauma. It’s pretty unusual how well for your age you had handled it.”

“Why is that? I don’t think it was a trauma, I love Madison, and---“

He put his hand on my shoulder, “I know, I’m just saying that what happened to you was something any girl your age would not know how to cope with.”

“Whatever, I don’t think having Madison was traumatizing for me.”

“What about finding out about your father?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. I’m in too much of shock to feel anything. I don’t think I even want to, because I’m afraid I guess.” Afraid, I’ll turn into Heather… “I’m just too worked up right now by everything that has been happening, I feel like my childhood is completely gone and I feel so…”

He interrupted by suddenly kissing me and taking me in his arms and holding me close. He was so gentle, kissing my tears, and rubbing my back, trying his best to comfort me, whispering to me that it was going to be alright.

Suddenly Maddy started crying and he pulled back and I looked away. We were at loss for words again, I reminded of our argument this morning.

He then got up with her and tried soothing her. I sat there not knowing what to do or think.

I do believe than Johnny and I have the most complicated relationship of all. When you can’t label it, it’s complicated, when you don’t ever know for sure where you stand, it complicated, when you’re constantly confused like I am now, it’s complicated. Though I do have to admit, complicated relationships are a very good distraction. After all that’s happened today and all that I had found out, at the end of the day my last thought before I close my eyes was if Johnny’s kisses that night meant anything. Our relationship was a fucking unsolved mystery.

Yet just when I thought we were back to being awkward friends, somehow, I can’t recall how, despite all of his objections, we ended up making out again in the middle of the night. Both of us were knowingly using each other as a distraction because what was more distracting than a complicated relationship was an affair…

Johnny was right, it was a bad idea…It was a deliciously bad idea that neither one of us could resist no matter how wrong nor how damaging the repercussions were going to be.

And the ironic part was, one year ago to the date we had conceived Maddy…

We suddenly stopped at the sound of bed creak from upstairs, which seconds later turned into bed springs creaking fast with moaning. We quickly drew apart from each other as it continued. No wonder his other parents had so many fucking kids.

“So this is what you mean when you said the basement is the worse place to be in the house,” I stated.

“All thanks to Viagra,” he turned away, his back now to me.

“Exactly a year ago we made Maddy,” I told him.

“So what, you wanted to make another one tonight?” He accused, obviously in suffering from the moaning upstairs.

I hated that tone of his, “Excuse me?”

“I told you that I didn’t want us doing this again.”

“Like this was my fault? You kissed me back, you were on top of me, you had your arms around me, and who’s to say I started it?”

“It’s not exactly easy to say no to you.”

“Again it’s just making out, as long as we are not actually having sex, it’s harmless.”

“It starts out as making out and turns into something more and more each time, then much sooner than planned it would turn into sex, and then it would get messy.”

“Figuratively speaking?” I joked.

“Don’t start, Adrienne, this isn’t a game,” he groaned, covering his face, “This is not going to get you to forget about your father.”

“What do say we are exactly? What do you think we are? I want to know,” I demanded. He was the one playing games!

He suddenly sat up and looked at me, “You may have a child, but you are still fifteen and confused, and I am not going to make the same mistake twice. You are still the same age as my little sister and I would not want some guy doing to her what I had done to you. The truth is it still to this day makes me sick that I got you pregnant, the guilt is unbearable. I am never going to get over that, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. I will always see myself as the guy who ruined you, and I will always see you as that quiet little girl sitting in the corner happily lost in her own little world turning magazine shreds into a meadow. The quiet little girl I ruined. You will never be just some girl to me and I refuse to treat you like you are.”

“It was as much my fault as it was yours. You think I don’t have guilt, I hate seeing you put up being back here and working for your father because I know if it weren’t for me, you’d be in Harvard.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Maybe it isn’t, but do know that I’ve forgiven you, never really blamed you in the first place.”

“Trust me, when you grow up you’ll hate me as the one who took away your childhood and gave you this life.”

How could he think that, after all he had done for me and Madison? I was the one now who made him face me, “Listen to me, Johnny, I will never hate you for you’ll always be the one who gave me Maddy and who stood by my side instead of going away to Harvard, one who sacrificed everything he had, everything he loved, to give his daughter the childhood he wish he had. Whatever wrongs you think you’ve done, or have done, you take full on responsibility and do everything you can to make it right. I admire you for that, more than you know. You have no idea how much it meant to me when you took care of me through the pregnancy and didn’t let me go through it alone. I will never forget that, and will remember that even when I’m all grown up. You have nothing to be ashamed of, nothing. Trust me, when you grow up, you won’t hate yourself because you’ll have a daughter who will love you as the one who gave her a loving and stable childhood.”

He was silent for a moment, “You always find the beauty in everything and when you can’t, you make it beautiful. You took an old dismal magazine and made it into a meadow. I wish you weren’t fifteen. If our circumstances were different, man…” he chuckled lightly, “Even then when I first saw you years back, I had wished I would meet an older fifteen-year-old version of you. Ironic that my wish came true three years later.”

Oh my god, he had a crush on me too!

Wait a minute, “How did you I made pictures out of magazine clippings?”

“I remember when I first moved there that summer always seeing you at the sitting area by the track making them.”

“You were there?” How the hell did I miss him? I would have remembered seeing him, believe me.

“Yeah, that summer Jillian and I went to the club to avoid the boredom of being stuck in the house watching TV all day.”

“Really? I don’t know how I was able to miss you.”

“I do, you were too into making that picture to notice anything around you including me.”

“The ironic part is I don’t remember the pictures I made. I just remember why I made them.”

“Why did you make them?”

“To escape I guess, to take my mind off my surroundings.”

A/N: First off, my websites are only temporarily shut down. My sites being shut down does not mean I have given up on my stories. I just couldn’t make my website bills because my college went bankrupt at the last minute, and I had to move states and move back home leaving my college, my job, my friends—it was such a bitch. I was suppose to graduate college in May but now it going to take another year because the college courses I took there will not transfer—yeah that’s my drama, I’m very sure I’m not the only one. Everyone has drama.

But your lovely reviews always help me look to the brighter side and write. I can’t put to words how much I appreciate them, every one. I can’t thank you enough. Thanks for believing in me, and forgiving me my extreme lateness.

Oh and here’s a little goodie for you, a preview of the professionally illustrated book cover is now on my myspace page(The JuliAngelFace one, NOT the Forever Madison one), if you want to see it. It would also be great if you could let me know what you think of it.