I : Edie

"Nell, come on! We're already late," I called from the front entrance of our house. "We were supposed to leave ten minutes ago. You're never on time." She wasn't. It had always been a problem, because at a young age she figured out that if she wasn't on time for things, there were very rarely any serious consequences.

"I know, Edie," she said back to me irritably, emerging from her bedroom as she hastily pulled on a black cardigan. "You need to relax; the world isn't going to end if we're five minutes late." I rolled my eyes. Nell knew how important this was to me, how long I had been looking forward to it. "Calm down, Ede, I'm ready. Let's go."

The only reason that I was going to this concert with my older sister was because she could drive and I still hadn't learned. I had been putting it off and this was the universe's way of paying me back. I suppose that it could have gone worse than this; I might have had to go to the concert with my best friend, Gabrielle. I love her like a sister, but Gabrielle and I never really saw eye to eye when it came to music. That's how I know Nell and I are related. We both like the same kind of music, despite disagreeing on pretty much everything else under the sun.

"Finally," I muttered under my breath as we went outside and got into her car. It would take at least forty minutes to get to the venue, which was unfortunate. We had been fighting that morning and I wasn't sure that either of us was quite over it yet. "Nellie, you just spent an hour getting ready. You can't possible need to fix your hair already," I said, completely exasperated with her behavior. We were already running late and she was fluffing up her hair in the rear-view mirror.

"Again, you need to calm down. We'll get there on time, don't you worry." But I was worried. The only chance we had to get there on time was if we speeded the entire way there, which I really should have learned to not put past Nell. I honestly don't know how she managed to pass her driver's test.

I diverted my gaze so that I was looking out the window as we left our neighborhood and started to drive along main roads. Nell turned on the hit list radio station. It was going to be a long forty minutes. We were going to see my favorite band in the entire world, and the opening band was another band that I didn't really know anything about, but I had high hopes for. Nell didn't love the band like I did, but she still liked the music enough to agree to go with me, which thankfully saved me from begging Gabrielle to take me. As much as I didn't want to feel like I was being babysat by my older sister, I would prefer that to listening to Gabrielle's constant complaining in my ear.

Nell is only six months older than me. We're half-sisters, technically. Our dad cheated on Nell's mom when she was pregnant with Nell with my mom, who soon became pregnant with me. Our dad is kind of a serial dater. He's married now, to our other half-sister's mom. Nell and I have been taking bets on how long we thing that it's going to last. I have a little more faith in their relationship than Nell, but that's the way it has always been. Our other sister, Lizzie, is only three, and I can already tell she's going to be more like Nell than she'll be like me. Lizzie and Nell are already practically twins, minus the fourteen year age difference between them. They both have really dark brown hair, almost black, and big brown eyes that can convince you to do almost anything for them. They look just like our dad. I, on the other hand, look like my mom. My hair is so blonde it's almost white, and my skin is always pale. Tanning isn't really an option; all I do is burn in the sun. My eyes are blue. Nell's so tall she could be a model. I barely managed to reach five feet before I stopped growing. Anybody looking at us wouldn't believe that we were related at all, never mind us being sisters.

"Edie, we're here." Nell's voice broke through my thoughts and I looked up from where I was focusing on the dash. "Come on, you were so excited and now you're spacing out. You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm completely fine. I'm excited. What time is it?" She told me that it was about five to eight. We had made it on time. I wasn't surprised with the way Nell usually drives, but I wasn't about to complain tonight. I've been looking forward to tonight since I bought the tickets six months ago.

We went and entered the venue where the concert was going to happen. By the time we found somewhere to stand the opening band was almost starting. We listened to them for half an hour before my favorite band took over and played their show. It was a great show. It was everything that I had been expecting and more. What was even more surprising was that Nell and I got along all night. There wasn't even anything we had a slight disagreement over. It felt like everything was just going right so that I could enjoy the concert.

When the show was over, Nell and I went outside and crossed the street to where Nell had parked her car. We looked around for probably half an hour before she finally went back to where we started looking. I looked at her expectantly. "Nellie, where's the car?" I asked. I hadn't been paying much attention to anything earlier, let alone where Nell had managed to find a parking spot. Now it was late, at least ten thirty, maybe even almost eleven. It was completely black except for the streetlights and the headlights of the cars passing by on the road, but all of the lights were too far away to offer any sort of aid in finding the car.

"I swear, Edie, I parked right here," she tried to tell me.

I ran a hand through my hair. "Obviously you didn't, Nell, or your car would be right here. And it's not." I waved my hands around for the emphasis of my point. "Think really hard, where did you park?"

"Right here, Edie! I remember, because I parked right beside the little red Toyota. I remember liking the color!" I bowed my head and pinched the top of my nose between my fingers. I could kill her.

"Penelope," I started slowly with her full name because I know she hates it, "Do you even realize how many little red Toyotas are sold every year? Do you? There have got to be millions of them out there! That's how you chose to remember where you parked? By the little red Toyota?" I had raised my voice quite a lot by this point. I hadn't been this mad at Nell in a long time. We fought a lot, this morning for example, but it had been a long time since she had done something to make me this mad at her. I thought we were done fighting for the night. The concert had gone so well, at least I thought it had. Apparently I was wrong.

"Edie, I'm sorry!" she protested. "How was I supposed to know?"

"You drive every day, Nell. Every day! You didn't notice how many little red cars are driving around you on your way to work, or on your way home from work, or school, or when you to go Kylie's place? Really, and you call me absent minded!" At this point, I was completely exasperated, and sat down on a cement block dividing the parking lot with a field, hanging my head in my hands.

"It was a mistake, why are you so mad at me?" Now people were starting to leave in a slow stream. I guess lots of people were hanging around, hoping to meet the bands.

"I'm mad because this whole day has been a disaster! And this isn't making it any better, Nell. I'm hungry, and tired, and cold, and all I want is to go home, and you had to pick tonight to lose the car! What's dad going to say?"

"Oh, God, Edie. It isn't the end of the world. We just have to wait until everyone leaves and then the car will be the only one left. Dad doesn't even have to know."

"That's just like you to say, Pen, just like you! You never think about consequences for anything, you just do what you want. You think that dad isn't going to find out when we don't get home until two in the morning? You think he isn't going to be mad when he finds out about this?"

"Edie, you need to relax—"

"You say that all the time, Penelope, but one of us has to care, and you obviously don't." I stood up. "You think that everything will always work out? What about when it doesn't? If I relaxed like you always tell me to then we'd end up dead in a week. No, not even a week. We'd be dead in a day." I turned on my heel and walked off toward the playground. I was too angry to care about if what I had said had hurt Nell's feelings. She was the reason we were stranded downtown with no way of getting home in foreseeable future.

I collapsed down on a swing. I leaned against the chain holding it up to the pole, and hung my head. I was cold; I hadn't thought that we'd be outside for so long, and hadn't dressed to be outside. It was fall, and the nights were starting to get colder. I was only wearing a loose light sweater. I couldn't believe that Nell would do something so stupid.

"Uh, hi? Are you okay?" I heard the voice from above me. I didn't want to talk to anyone right now. Why is it that people can never tell when you want to be alone? I looked up and before I could respond I was shocked into silence.

Standing in front of me was one of the most attractive boys I had seen in a long time.

I didn't think that it would work to lie to him. I wasn't a good liar, and I was obviously upset; if it didn't look like I was, he probably wouldn't have come over here in the first place. "No, I'm not. My sister can't find the car," I said bitterly. "You know why she can't find the car?" I went on, unable to stop now. I knew if something didn't go right in the next few minutes, I'd probably start crying. "Because she parked next to the little red Toyota, like there isn't a million of those driving around out there."

He didn't say anything. I half expected him to walk away and leave me alone with my problems. Instead, he sat down on the swing next to mine. "I'm Adam," he said.

"Edie," I introduced myself curtly. I didn't say anything else. I didn't trust myself not to get completely carried away and rant about my problems, or to just start sobbing uncontrollably. He probably had problems of his own to deal with. He didn't need to hear about my issues, too.

"You kind of sound like you're a little uptight. No offense, or anything," he said. I looked at him. How was I supposed to not take offense to that?

"Are you going to tell me to relax? Or calm down? Because I swear, if I hear that one more time tonight, I'm going to scream." I snapped before I fell back into my quietness. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that," I apologized quietly.

"No worries," he said easily. "Nothing wrong with being like that." He didn't say anything else and neither did I. We sat in silence for probably an hour like that, both of us swaying on our respective swings until I heard footsteps behind me.

"Edie, I found the car! It was kind of close to where I thought it'd be. But it wasn't next to a little red car. It was beside a big blue truck. I guess that I had just thought that the car was really nice, but there wasn't a parking spot next to it." I bit my tongue so I wouldn't say anything. Nell came around the swings so she was facing us. "Oh! Who's your friend?"

"We aren't friends," I mumbled. I didn't even want to think about calling this stranger my friend. We had just met ten minutes ago. We didn't know anything about each other, and because of that, I certainly didn't trust him.

"I'm Adam," he introduced himself. "You must be Edie's sister."

"Yeah, I'm Nell. Edie didn't mention anything about you. How long have you been friends?" Leave it to Nell to be the nosy older sister.

"We just met," Adam said easily. "Edie looked like she was having a bad day, so I came by to see if I could make her feel any better. I guess I ended up just sitting with her, though, and I don't think she's any less mad than she was earlier tonight." By now it's twelve-thirty in the morning, and a lot colder than it was when Nell and I left the house.

"Did dad call?" I asked her. Being right about him being mad might make me feel a little better about this whole situation: lost car (even though it's now found), fighting with Nell on what was supposed to be a great night, and looking completely pathetic in front of the very attractive guy that I had never met before.

"No. I told you he wouldn't, but you wouldn't listen to me. I told you that you needed to relax—" I tensed up at the word, "—but you didn't listen to me. She never listens to me, even though I'm the older sister." The last comment was directed at Adam.

"By six months," I defended. "Only six months. And we're only half-sisters." It isn't very often I feel the need to make the distinction, except that tonight I'm too upset with Nell to not tell Adam this. I felt the need to explain how we could be so different in personality. It made me feel a little better to blame this entire mess on her and me sharing only half of our DNA.

"I see," Adam said casually. "I guess that explains how different you guys look." I rolled my eyes. That's what everyone said about us only being half-sisters.

"Yeah," Nell interjected, "but we've been together since birth. Well, Edie's birth, anyway. My mom didn't want to take care of me, not with how things were left between her and our dad. So I live with Dad and our stepmother, and Edie and our little sister." I hung my head a little lower. My hair fell to hide my blush. How could Nell just go around telling this complete stranger all about our family history? I didn't even like talking about my mom or Nell's mom with our dad, or with our stepmother, Cindy. Adam was a complete stranger. How could Nell trust him with something like that? But Adam didn't say anything that I had expected.

"Well, sometimes that's just the way it goes."

"Totally," Nell agreed. "Are you ready to go home, Edie? I know you said you were cold and tired, and you're probably super hungry by now if you were hungry before." Adam looked over at me.

I looked at him quickly. He looked like he was about to say something, so I quickly looked back over at Nell. "Yeah, let's go," I muttered quickly, standing and starting to walk away.

"Hey, Edie," Adam called from behind us where we had left him on his swing, "was it the concert that put you in a bad mood?" He sounded almost concerned that this whole thing was his fault – I don't see how it could be his fault though. I didn't even know who he was. I almost felt bad because of the look that he was giving me.

I turned to face him. "No," I called, "it isn't anyone's fault. The concert was fantastic. It was the best part of my day." He smiled, and I turned to catch up to Nell, who was almost at the car. I couldn't believe that she didn't notice it earlier; it was literally ten feet away from where we had been looking.

So this was an idea that popped into my head a while ago. I'm not quite sure where it'll go, but I do have some plans, so hopefully you guys like it. I'm always looking to improve, so I'd love it if you guys left me a review and let me know what you thought about it, and if there's anything you think I should work on.