Shatter

Alex shut the door and collapsed into his chair, leaning his head back and sighing. He hadn't known it was possible to be this exhausted. And it was only 12:30.

It was his third day at Goodwin High School, and his third working as a real guidance counselor. He'd helped out at high schools and elementary schools, worked as an intern while he was in college, but this was the first time he'd worked in a school on his own, and gotten paid full salary.

Not that that was very much.

Of course his first job had ended up being in a Brooklyn high school where half the kids were in gangs and on average three kids died every year (he'd looked it up). Oh if his parents could see him now.

Alex was twenty-seven years old. He considered himself relatively attractive, although he had never been a "jock" in high school. He'd been on the swim team for a few years because his friend had made him, but mostly he sat in his room listening to music. He was rarely invited to parties, and he rarely went to the ones he was invited to, except when his friends dragged him to one. Occasionally his sister would threaten him until he went. He didn't have many girlfriends, in fact his best friend Micheal had been convinced Alex was gay for the majority of 9th grade.

He had never expected to become a guidance counselor, but when he got to college he realized he wanted to help people instead of hurting them like his father, who was a weapons engineer.

So here he was, sitting in a tiny office in Goodwin High School (ironically named, he thought). He'd already broken up two fights that day, for a grand total of five that week (to which they were three days in). He'd confiscated a bag of pot and two flasks of alcohol. And a bag of glue. He hadn't even know it was possible to get high off of glue.

"Hello?" he heard, and turned to face the door.

A girl was standing in the doorway. She had straight, choppy black hair with a few blue streaks that matched her deep blue eyes. Her eyes were rimmed with heavy black eyeliner and she was wearing a Green Day shirt and black jeans with a tear in the knee and a chain hanging from her belt loops. She would have been slightly frightening if she hadn't been holding a lunch tray.

A girl was standing in the doorway. She had choppy black hair with a few blue streaks. She was wearing heavy eyeliner, a Green Day shirt, and black jeans with a tear in the knee and a chain hanging from her belt loops. She would have been slightly frightening if she hadn't been holding a lunch tray.

"I'm supposed to have lunch with the guidance counselor at one on Wednesdays," she said, moving past him to sit on the couch and unwrap her sandwich.

Alex looked at the clock. "It's twelve-forty-five," he said.

She shrugged. "I got bored in math class." She took a bit of her sandwich and looked at him, chewing.

"You know technically I have to send you back to class, right?"

"I know you won't."

"And if you don't go I have to send you to the principal's office."

She took another bite of her sandwich and stared at him.

He sighed. "But I know that if I send you, you won't actually go. And even if you did go," he continued, checking his schedule, "You'll get there and have to turn around and come back down anyway. You're Jillian Young?"

"Good job. You can read."

"I'm Mr. Moore," he said sticking out his hand.

"I know. I can read, too," she said, and continued eating her sandwich.

They sat in awkward silence until Jillian said, "My teachers hate me."

"I'm sure that's not true."

"No, it is," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. "They're convinced I'm devil spawn. I think my Spanish teacher actually called me that once, but I couldn't tell 'cause it was in Spanish." She didn't look up from her sandwich.

He laughed. "How old are you?" he asked.

"Seventeen. Why?'

He shrugged. "No reason."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-seven."

"Hmm." She looked him up and down. "You don't look twenty-seven."

"Well how old do I look?"

She looked him over again. "Nineteen or twenty," she decided.

He laughed again. He has a nice laugh, she thought.

"You're much cooled than Ms. Hill," she said. "She was a bitch."

"Language."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

They sat in silence.

"How are you at school?" he asked.

She shrugged and, having finished her sandwich, reached for her ice-cream bar. "I've only ever failed a couple classes. And they were dumb classes, like PE and art."

"And how many did you get an A in?"

She raised an eyebrow and smirked but didn't answer his question. "Why did you become a guidance counselor?"

"I wanted to help people."

She nodded and took another bite of her ice-cream. "People keep asking me what I want to be when I grow up." Her expression turned thoughtful. "I think they're implying that I haven't grown up yet."

"So what do you want to be?"

"I dunno. Work at Walmart, maybe. Or McDonald's. I hear Staples has some good benefits."

"Don't you want to go to college and get a real job?"

She laughed humorlessly. "Even if I wanted to go to college, I can't pay for it. And with my grades, there's no way I'll get a scholarship."

"There's always a way to go to college if you try. And you can get a much better job if you do go."

She put the last of her ice-cream bar in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. "I don't want to go. God, you sound like every other person I have ever talked to."

"Yeah, well…" he trailed off. "You know, I didn't want to go to college either." She didn't respond. "I didn't even think I wanted to finish high school. But my Dad convinced me to go, and now I'm a guidance counselor. And I get to help kids."

She snorted. "Yeah, you get to work with five thousand fucked up kids. Lucky you."

He didn't comment on her language, instead he changed the subject. "So you like Green Day?"

She grinned and held up her pointer finger and pinky in a rocker sign. "Best band ever."

He smirked. "Definitely."

"Dude!" she exclaimed, laughing. "You are officially my favorite teacher ever."

He pumped his fist. "Yes. My day is complete."

She threw her head and laughed. "What's your favorite song?"

"Ooh, that's hard. I like Boulevard of Broken Dreams, but 21 Guns is good, too." He paused. "Actually, I think it's a toss up between Kill the DJ and Carpe Diem."

She nodded. "I like Viva La Gloria Little Girl."

"Really?"

"Yeah! It's so creepy. I love it."

"What about Viva La Gloria?"

She shrugged and nodded. "Yeah, that's good, but Little Girl is better."

"You know what it's about, right?"

She grinned. "Oh, yes. That's one of the things I love about it."

"That it's about a drug addict?"

"Yeah!"

He shook his head and put his face in his hands. "I really shouldn't be encouraging this."

She shrugged. "It doesn't matter whether you encourage it or not, it's still going to be my favorite Green Day song."

Alex raised his eyebrow. "Your favorite Green Day song? You like another song better."

Jillian looked down at her hands, and if he hadn't known any better, Alex would have said she blushed. "Well, there's this one song, but you probably won't know it."

He crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair. "Try me."

She looked up at him. "It's call Frozen, it's by this band called Within Temptation."

He sat up straight again. "That's the song you like better?"

"You know it?"

"Dude, The Unforgiving might be the best album by any goth band I have ever heard."

"Wait, how is the Unforgiving better than the Heart of Everything?"

He rolled his eyes. "Jillian. There is no Within Temptation song that is better than Iron. And In the Middle of the Night comes in close second."

"What about Our Solemn Hour?"

Alex shook his head. "Nope. Nothing better than Iron."

"What's so great about Iron?" she asked, crossing her arms.

He gaped at her. "Have you heard it? It's epic! The chorus by itself could blow anyone's mind."

"Yeah, yeah. 'You can't live without the fire', blah blah blah. Our Solemn Hour is seven hundred million times better. 'Sanctus Espiritus, redeem us from our solemn hour'? Amazing. Sharon den Adel is a goddess of song writing."

"Well, I'll agree with you on that one. And the way they put the Churchill speech in was pretty cool. But the part with that lady saying the whole 'You need not fear us' part blows Our Solemn Hour right out of the water."

She gaped at him. "Okay, I cannot talk to anyone who calls Mother Maiden 'that lady'," she said, standing up.

He laughed and glanced at the clock. "You have to go."

She pouted. "Can't I stay a couple minutes? They won't argue if I get a pass from you."

He shook his head and pointed to the door. "Go. I'll see you next week."

She huffed at him, but crossed the room, and opened the door to leave. Then she turned around. "By the way."

"Hmm?"

She smirked. "Shot in the Dark is better than Iron any day." She walked out, shutting the door behind him. She'd left her lunch tray.

He stared at the door for a minute, then turned back to his desk, grinning like a fool. His day had just gotten a whole lot better.

He couldn't wait for next Wednesday.


"Oh, come on, even with almonds?"

Jillian scrunched up her face. "Almonds are gross. They do not belong in chocolate."

"But they make the chocolate crunchy!"

"So do peanuts! And besides, dark chocolate is crunchy by itself."

Alex stared at her in disbelief. "You're seriously telling that milk chocolate is better than dark chocolate?"

She nodded. "And white chocolate is better than the both of them."

"But white chocolate isn't even real chocolate."

"Yes it is."

"No it isn't!"

Her expression turned thoughtful. "Do you have a dictionary?"

He frowned, but opened one of the cabinets in his desk and pulled out his Webster's Dictionary and handed it to her.

She rifled through the pages until she found what she was looking for. "Aha! 'Chocolate'," she read, "'a preparation of the seeds of cacao, roasted, husked, and ground, often sweetened and flavored, as with vanilla'." She looked up triumphantly.

"What does that prove?"

She crossed her arms and gave him a look. "Do you even know what white chocolate is made of?"

"Cocoa butter. That stuff you rub on your feet."

"Yeah. And what is cocoa butter?"

"Uh…that stuff you rub on your feet. We covered this."

She leaned her head back and sighed exasperatedly. "No, what is it made of?"

"Cocoa beans."

"Yes. It's 'a preparation of cocoa beans'."

Alex stared at her for a moment. Then it clicked. "That doesn't make it chocolate!"

"Actually, it does. That's the definition of chocolate." He opened his mouth to argue, but Jillian interrupted him. "You can't argue with the dictionary. Face it, I won."

He glared at her for a few seconds, then sighed. "Have you ever thought about being a lawyer?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes. It was another one of his attempts to convince her to go to college. He tried at least three times every time they met, which they had done four times now. They were a month into the school year, and Jillian already hated it.

"I'm not going to be a lawyer," she said.

"But why? You're good at arguing…"

"And I understand kids, so I should be a teacher, and I can count, so I should be an accountant, and I have a good smile, so I should be a saleswoman. I know, Mr. Moore."

He couldn't tell her to call him Alex, no matter how much he wanted to.

"And by the way, that last one was weak."

"What? You do have a good smile. You'd be a great saleswoman."

She leaned her head back. "Do we have to talk about this every time I see you?"

He held his hands up in surrender. "Hey, it's my job to get as many of my students as possible into college."

She glared at him. "Well could you please accept that I'm not one of the ones you're going to get in? Please? Go bother Julia Goldson or something. I'm sure she'd be happy to talk to you."

"Actually, I like Julia," he said. He was lying. He found her annoying as hell, but he couldn't tell Jillian that. "She's a very nice girl. She'll go far in life." Well, that part was true.

Jillian barked out a laugh. "Yeah. I'm sure. That doesn't make her less of a stuck up bitch."

Alex sighed. "Jillian…"

She waved her hand. "Yeah, yeah, language, I know." She paused. "I bet Julia doesn't ever swear, does she?"

"No, she doesn't. I could get you a tutoring session or two with her if you wanted. Maybe she could knock something into your head. Your teachers seem to have been unsuccessful."

She raised an eyebrow. "You're not a very nice guidance counselor." He opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off by jumping off the couch. "Oh no, we're out of time. Well, see you next week."

She crossed the room and had her hand on the door knob when he called out, "Promise?"

She turned and smirked. "Wouldn't you like that?" She opened the door and shut it behind her.

He slumped down into his desk chair, defeated. She'd left her lunch tray again.

In spite of himself, a smile crossed his face and he chuckled.


He would see her in the hallways, but she never said anything to him. He saw her arguing with teachers, and she got sent to his office a few times, but he never really talked to her outside of his office.

On Halloween (which was on a Wednesday) they talked adamantly about their plans. Alex told her that he was dressing up as a skeleton and handing out candy at his house. Jillian told him she was taking her little brother trick-or-treating, and that she was going to be the vampire to his slayer. Alex almost laughed until she showed him a picture of her costume, which featured a very low neckline, very tight shirt and pants, black leather boots, and dark, heavy makeup. Then he raised an eyebrow and told her that he probably shouldn't approve, but that she looked good. She then showed him a picture of her seven-year-old brother dressed as a vampire slayer with a garlic necklace and bottles of holy water, and he did laugh. It was the first time she spoke about her family.

The day before Thanksgiving, he asked her what her plans were for the long weekend. She shrugged and told him that she was getting up at one in the morning on Black Friday, but never told him what she was doing for Thanksgiving Day.

He didn't realize how much he was going to miss her over winter break until he watched her get on the bus on the last day of school before vacation. Everyone was cheering and talking excitedly about their Christmas party plans, but she didn't say anything to anyone and climbed up the bus stairs without glancing back. When she was on the bus, she looked out the window, spotted him, and gave him a small wave. She didn't smile.

She wouldn't tell him anything about her plans for break. They'd talked about what they wanted for Christmas (he wanted a giant gummy bear, she wanted the new Green Day CDs), and he told her that his sister was visiting (he didn't tell her why the rest of his family wasn't), but all she told him about her plans was that she and her brother saved up candy for Christmas Eve because they could never sleep. He laughed, and pretended not to notice when she steered away from the conversation.


Alex picked his sister up from the airport the day after school let out. He hadn't seen her in nearly a year, and she told him all about the new pieces she'd done. Olivia was an artist. It had surprised him when he found out that she was working with his high school friend Samantha Greene, but he liked hearing about their adventures together. They were halfway back to his apartment before she asked him how his new job was going.

He sighed and told her about the fights, drugs, and alcohol. "They're good kids," he insisted, "but they just don't try."

Olivia nodded. "What about the other teachers?"

He laughed and launched into an explanation of all the teachers, especially the ones he disliked. When he finished, he began telling her about a few of the students. He told her about Julia Goldson's annoying attitude, Aaron Taylor's obsession with dogs, Hannah Eldridge's tendency to quote Eminem, and Kyle Andrews' self proclaimed allergy to homework. He thought of Jillian and fell silent. He didn't know why.

"Something wrong?" Olivia asked.

"There's this girl," Alex started. "Her name is Jillian Young."

"What about her?"

"Well, she never talks about her family, except her little brother. And that's not that weird, there're a lot of kids who don't talk about their family, but with her it seems…pointed."

Olivia frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It feels like she wants me to notice, but at the same time she wants me to stay away." He smiled. "But we have really cool conversations. She's really sarcastic and blunt and…"

"You really like this girl, don't you?" Olivia interrupted him.

He didn't answer immediately. "It doesn't feel like she's my student."

Olivia laughed. "Sometimes that happens. It just means you've started seeing your students as a friends. It's not a big deal."

He smiled. It was obviously fake. "Yeah. Course."

Olivia raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. She could tell that he wasn't convinced, but decided not to comment.

"So how's Samantha?" Alex asked, changing the subject.

Olivia didn't answer, just cleared her throat and blushed. Alex looked at her.

"Are you two…"

"No," Olivia cut him off. Then her blush deepened. "Not yet."

Olivia had been openly bi since she quit college when she was twenty, ten years ago. Samantha had never actually come out, but Alex had been expecting them to get together for a few years. At first it had creeped him out, the idea of his sister dating his high school girlfriend, but then he'd come to terms with it and was now just annoyed that they hadn't figured it out yet.

"It's weird, because we've spent so much time together over the past six years and I'm just now realizing how pretty she is." Olivia's entire face was cherry red now. "And it's not just that she's pretty. I feel like I'd give anything just to talk to her all day because she's so…cool, you know?"

Alex's smile had turned fake, and he tried to tell himself that it was because he really didn't want to imagine what Olivia and Samantha would get up to together, and not because she'd just perfectly described what he thought about Jillian.


Christmas was quiet. Samantha had sent him a photo album of all the paintings that she and Olivia had done. Olivia had given him a gummy python (the store didn't have any giant gummy bears). His parents had sent him white socks with dolphins on them (he decided they had sent him someone else's present by accident). They had sent Olivia a sweatshirt with Hello Kitty on it (she had been obsessed with Hello Kitty when she was five), and Alex had promised her that he could make it look better if he dyed it black and used permanent marker to cross out the eyes. He gave her an art set the size of a suitcase with colored pencils, paints, oil pastels, charcoal, crayons, and sharpeners and erasers. She loved it.

They spent the day eating junk food and watching cheesy Christmas movies. Alex would never tell anyone, but his favorite Christmas movies were Snow and Snow 2, in which a girl working at a zoo meets Santa and ends up marrying him. They watched both Snow movies, then found themselves watching classics like Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman. After having a Christmas dinner of Chinese food, they regained some of their dignity by watching the Nightmare Before Christmas. They lost the dignity again by singing along to all of the songs.

On Christmas morning Alex found that Olivia had stuffed their stockings full of candy. He didn't complain.

The day after Christmas it snowed, and although it wasn't particularly nice snow, they had a snowball fight, made a snowman, and made snow angels by pushing each other into the snow. Then they went back up to his apartment and made hot chocolate. When Olivia managed to burn the hot chocolate, they went down to Alex's favorite coffee shop and got hot chocolate.

On New Year's Eve they ordered pizza and got drunk on awful vodka.

On New Year's Day Alex woke up with a pounding headache and found a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin on his bedside table. Olivia was in the kitchen, no doubt making breakfast. Olivia, the lucky bitch, never suffered from hangovers.

For a brief moment Alex wondered if Jillian ever had a hangover.

She probably did.


The first day back was brutal. And a Wednesday. When Jillian walked in, she looked exhausted.

"Well, you look awful," Alex commented.

She glared at him and flopped down on his couch. Then she winced. He decided not to comment. "I almost decided not to come today," she said, sitting up. "But I decided I didn't want to get my ass kicked by my teachers."

He laughed. "How was your break?"

She shrugged. "Fine."

"Did you get the CDs you wanted?"

She looked down at her hands and shook her head. "We couldn't afford them. But my brother gave me a bracelet that he made." She pulled back her sleeve and showed him. It was made of black sparkly beads and said "Jillian" on it, with a skull-and-crossbones bead on either side of the name.

He smiled, then realized what was on her wrist and frowned. "What's this?" he asked, taking her wrist and pulling back the sleeve to see the bruise.

She tore her arm out of his grip and glared at him. "Nothing," she snapped, yanking her sleeve down.

He stared at her for a second, then filed it into the back of his mind for later and dropped it.

"I have something for you," he said, picking up the wrapped present off his desk and handing it to her.

She tore off the paper and when she saw what it was, she grinned. "Thank you," she said, looking down at the set of three Green Day CDs.

"You're welcome."

She reached down and picked up the paper bag at her feet. "Here," she said unceremoniously, handing him the bag.

It was heavy. He looked into it and laughed. Inside the bag was a two-foot-tall gummy bear. "Thanks," he said, still laughing. "You know, when I said I wanted a giant gummy bear, I meant one of those six-inch ones you can buy at Zeb's." Zeb's was the country store a few blocks from Goodwin. It looked completely out of place in the city, but damn if they didn't have the best selection of candy Alex had ever seen (besides Chutter's, of course, because Chutter's had the world's longest candy counter, officially).

She shrugged. "I saw it online and figured you'd love it."

"I do. Thanks."

"I gave my brother a Lego set. He was really excited. It was a model of Atlantis."

Alex laughed. "I have a friend who loves Atlantis. When we were kids he wanted to discover it."

"My brother just likes Legos."

"What did your parents get?" Alex asked, testing the waters.

Jillian's face hardened into a mask. "Just some books and stuff."

He nodded. "What do your parents do? You never talk about them."

"Mom runs a personal business selling flowers," Jillian responded immediately. Too immediately.

He pretended not to notice the look in her eye when she said it, like she was begging him to believe her, to stop asking questions.

It was the first time she'd talked about her parents.


He didn't start to really worry until she came into his office limping slightly with a bandaged hand and a black eye.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Tell down the stairs." She sat down in her usual spot on the couch and winced when she put too much weight on her leg.

"What about your hand?"

"I broke a vase at the bottom of the stairs. Sliced my hand open."

He didn't mention her eye. She clearly didn't want to talk about it anymore. She was also lying.

After she left, Alex picked up his phone and called the nurse.

"Hi, Ms. Illsley, it's Alex Moore from guidance."

Ms. Illsley chuckled. "I've told you before, call me Paige."

"Paige."

"What can I do for you?"

"I need you to call down a student. She came into my office a little banged up and I just want to make sure she's okay."

"Who is it?"

"Jillian Young."

Paige was silent for a moment. "Do you know why she hated Victoria Hill so much?" she asked finally.

"No."

"Because she did the same thing you're doing now. She really liked Victoria until she started trying to get information about her injuries."

Alex didn't say anything.

"I'll check her out if you want, but just think about it."

He didn't want her to hate him (he refused to acknowledge the nagging feeling that he didn't think he could live with himself if she hated him), but she was limping badly.

"Just call her down," he said, and hung up.


Jillian didn't come to his office on Wednesday. He worried that Paige had been right, and Jillian hated him now. Or worse.

She didn't come the next week either, and he called the office to make sure she was at school that day. She was.

When she showed up in his doorway the third week, he almost hugged her.

"Hey," he said.

She walked past him and sat down on the couch. "Sorry I haven't been here. I was busy with schoolwork."

He nodded and pretended to believe her.

"You were the one who told the nurse to call me down, weren't you?"

"It's my job to make sure you're okay."

She looked down at her hands. "I didn't need help."

"Maybe not, but I'm your teacher, I'm supposed to help."

She stood up. "God, will you just leave me alone?" I don't need your help. Just go away," she said, her voice rising.

"Jillian," Alex started, but she cut him off.

"I'm leaving." She crossed to the door and had put her hand on the knob wen he grabbed her arm.

"Wait," he said. He went to his desk, grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, and wrote down his number. "Just take this. You can always call me, I don't care what time it is," he said, handing her the piece of paper.

She crumpled it in her fist and left.

When she got outside, Jillian put the paper in her pocket. Better safe than sorry.


She still came to his office, and he tried to have conversations with her. When he was careful, he could talk about music and school and little things without making her angry. But it still wasn't the same.

At the end of May she came in and said, "My birthday's next week."

"Really?"

"Yeah. My brother told me he'd take me out to dinner, but he's seven, we'll see how that goes."

He laughed and asked, "Why can't a seven year old take his sister out to dinner?"

"Where's he going to get the money?"

"I see your point."

She shrugged. "We'll probably go out anyway. I can pay."

"Do you have a job?"

"Yeah." She rolled her eyes. "I work at McDonald's. Great, huh?"

He shrugged. "Better than nothing. At least you've got money."

"Whatever."

"What day is your birthday?"

"Thursday."

He hummed.

On Wednesday the next week he gave her a brown paper bag with two pounds of fudge in it, one mint (her favorite) and one peanut butter (her brother's favorite). It also held three chocolate bars, one dark, one milk, and one white.

"I couldn't think of anything else, sorry."

She shook her head and told him it was perfect.

Her voice made him want to hug her.


On the last day that they met before graduation, he gave her a party hat.

"What the hell is this?" she asked in a monotone.

"It's your graduation hat," he answered, smiling.

"You want me to wear this on stage?"

"Maybe after."

She looked at him like he was crazy, and he smiled like he was.

When she came up to the stage to receive her diploma (which she was very proud to be getting) she had taped the little silver party hat on top of her graduation cap.

She wasn't going to college. She told him she wasn't ready, and maybe she'd be ready after another year. Secretly Alex thought she just didn't want to leave her brother. She was very protective of him.

Alex saw her after the ceremony hugging a little boy with blonde hair that he thought must be her brother, but her parents weren't there. He didn't have time to congratulate her before she left with the blonde boy.


It was two weeks after school got out when Alex was woken up by his phone ringing. He picked it up and looked at the screen. He didn't recognize the number. The clock said 2:07 AM.

He pressed the button to answer. "Hello?" he said groggily, sitting up in bed.

"Hello? Is this Mr. Moore?" a little boy's voice asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Um…" The boy sounded like he was about to cry. "My name is Nicholas, my sister's name is Jillian. You're her guidance counselor."

"Is everything okay?" Alex asked, wide awake now.

"No," Nicholas sobbed. "Jillian won't wake up and she's hurt and she told me to call you if we were in trouble and she couldn't get to the phone and…"

"Nicholas," Alex interrupted. "How did Jillian get hurt?" He threw back the covers and started looking for his shirt.

"Mama," Nicholas said quietly.

Alex froze. He'd known, somewhere in the back of his mind he'd known. "Is your mother still there?" he asked, finding his shirt and looking for a pair of jeans.

"She's not awake either. Please, Jillian's bleeding and I can't wake her up."

Alex pulled on his jeans. "Where do you live?"

Nicholas recited his address and Alex promised he would be there soon. He didn't hang up the phone until he had parked his car outside their apartment and was in the elevator.

When he knocked on the door her heard scraping before the door opened to reveal the little blonde boy he'd seen at graduation standing next to a step stool. He'd been looking through the peephole, Alex realized. He was wearing Batman shorts and no shirt. He had a forming black eye, a mark on his cheek that looked like someone had slapped him, and a cut on his cheek that wasn't bleeding but definitely had been. He was crying.

"Are you Mr. Moore?"

Alex nodded. "You must be Nicholas."

Nicholas grabbed his hand and led him down the hall to the kitchen. Alex felt his stomach turn.

"Nicholas, call an ambulance," Alex said in a calm voice. Nicholas ran down the hall.

Jillian was lying on her side on the floor. He couldn't see her face, but her arm, which was stretched up above her head, was bleeding. When he walked over to her glass crunched beneath his feet.

He knelt next to her and rolled her onto her back. Her hair was matted with blood, and her cheek was bleeding. Her eyes were closed. Her bottom lip was swollen and bleeding. Her arms and stomach were badly bruised. Her hand was swollen and bent strangely, and Alex suspected that it was broken. Her breathing was shallow and came in gasps.

Down the hall Nicholas hung up the phone, and he appeared in the doorway a few seconds later.

"Is she going to be okay?" he asked, his voice quivering.

"I don't know." Alex had never believed in lying. It complicated everything.

Nicholas came to kneel next to him. "She was protecting me. Mama was mad 'cause I left my Legos on the floor and she tripped on them. Jillian stopped her from hurting me too much." He was crying now. "It's my fault."

Alex wrapped an arm around the little boy's shoulders, and Nicholas flinched. Alex removed his arm, but kept a hand on Nicholas' arm. "It's not your fault, Nicholas. Your mom should know not to hit you. Or your sister. Is you mom still here?"

Nicholas sniffed and nodded. "She went to bed."

Alex restrained himself from going into their mother's bedroom and strangling her.

"What's this?" he asked, running his fingers over the welts on Nicholas' bare back.

Nicholas flinched again and scooted away from Alex, wrapping his arms around his knees and pulling them close. "Mama's favorite is her black belt," he whispered.

Alex was about to respond when he realized that Jillian was making a gurgling sound.

"What's happening?" Nicolas asked, crawling closer to his sister.

In the distance they heard sirens.

"Nicholas, go down to the parking lot and show the paramedics where to go," Alex said. Nicholas ran out of the room and towards the elevator.

She was choking, Alex realized, and it terrified him, because he knew it meant that there was blood in her lungs. He turned her on her stomach and blood poured out of her mouth onto the kitchen floor.

Three men came through the door and Alex stepped back and watched them put Jillian on a stretcher and take her away.

He ran a hand through his hair and stepped out of the kitchen into the hall where a police officer – Officer Connolly – was talking to Nicholas. When Nicholas saw him her threw himself against Alex. It was obvious that the officer was scaring him.

"The woman you're looking for is in one of the bedrooms through there," Alex told Officer Connolly. "She's their mother."

Connolly nodded and called the other police officers to go into the bedrooms. She turned back to Alex and started asking him questions.

"I'm sorry, can I talk to you later? I'd like to go to the hospital with her."

Officer Connolly paused and looked like she was going to argue, but then she looked down at Nicholas and sighed. "I'll meet you at the hospital."

Alex nodded and turn to Nicholas, kneeling down to get to his level. "Do you want to go get some clothes?" Nicholas shook his head. "Come on, we can't go to the hospital without clothes. I'll go with you."

Nicholas nodded and led Alex to his room. As they passed the bedrooms Alex saw a woman lying on her bed with a bottle hanging from her fingers. Nicholas pulled on a pair of pants and a shirt and tugged Alex back to the front door. Alex picked up Nicholas' coat and sneakers on the way out. In the car he handed the little boy his coat and shoes and told him to put them on.

When they got to the hospital they were met by a receptionist who told them that Jillian was in surgery and they didn't know when she would get out. Alex brought Nicholas over to one of the seats. When Nicholas lay down and Alex saw his back, he remembered and realized that Nicholas needed to see a doctor.

"Hey, Nicholas," Alex said. Nicholas looked up. "Come on. We're gonna go see a doctor."

Nicholas nodded and got up off the chair. They walked to the receptionist. "Is there an available doctor?"

The receptionist smiled and held up one finger as she picked up her phone. She pressed a few buttons and talked to a doctor for a minute, then hung up the phone and smiled at them again. "Go down the hallway, third door on the left. You can go right in."

Alex smiled and thanked her and led Nicholas down the hallway. They knocked on the door and a man's voice told them to come in. Alex opened the door. A man with curly brown hair sat at the desk inside staring at a computer. He gave them a tired smile when they came in. "Hi, I'm Doctor Dickinson," he said, standing up and walking around the desk to shake Alex's hand.

"Alex Moore. This is Nicholas. We just need you to take a look at him."

Doctor Dickinson looked down at Nicholas, then squatted down. "What's up, buddy?"

Nicholas clung to Alex's hand like a lifeline and didn't answer the question.

"Nicholas, take off your shirt and show him," Alex said. Nicholas glanced up at him, then let go of Alex's hand, stripped his shirt off, and turned around to show Doctor Dickinson his back.

The doctor hummed and straightened up. "Why don't you come up onto this table and we'll take a look."


Alex yawned. Nicholas was fast asleep on Alex's lap. It was nearly nine o'clock in the morning, and Alex had been awake for too long. But he couldn't sleep.

"Mr. Moore?" He looked up. A doctor was standing there, looking at Alex. "You're here for Ms. Jillian Young?"

"Yes," Alex said, careful not to disturb the sleeping boy on his chest. "Is she okay?"

"She should be fine. She is out of surgery and in ICU. You can go visit her if you want."

Alex nodded. "Thank you."

The doctor smiled, turned around, and walked away.

"Nicholas." Alex shook the little boy's shoulder. "Nicholas, wake up." Nicholas sat up and blinked his bleary eyes. "Do you want to go see Jillian?"

Nicholas nodded and slid off of Alex's lap. Alex took Nicholas' hand and led him to ICU. Jillian was lying on a hospital bed surrounded by machines with an IV in her arm and her neck and an oxygen mask over her mouth. Her face was black and blue. They could hear the hiss of her breathing and the beeping of the heart monitor. Alex lifted Nicholas up to let him see his sister.

"Is she gonna be okay?" Nicholas whispered.

Alex looked at the little boy and smiled. "She's gonna be okay." They stood in silence for a few minutes until Alex couldn't stand to look at her anymore. "Do you want to go get some breakfast?" he asked Nicholas. Nicholas nodded, and Alex put him down on the ground and led him out.


Jillian was in ICU for two days. That night Alex took Nicholas home and tried to get him to sleep, and when he couldn't Alex brought Nicholas to his apartment. The bed was just barely wide enough for both of them to fit, but Alex didn't have the heart to make Nicholas sleep in one of the guest rooms after what he'd been through, and the little boy was out like a light by eight and slept until 7:30 the next morning, when he went into the kitchen to make breakfast for Alex. Alex was woken up half an hour later by the smell of burning eggs.

The next day Alex was careful to wake up before Nicholas and make his specialty pancakes.

When they went to see Jillian in the hospital that day she was out of ICU and was being taken off of the medication that knocked her out. She was expected to wake up within the next two hours.

Nicholas couldn't sit still for long, so Alex gave him money and told him to go get something from the cafe and to bring him back a hot chocolate.

Nicholas had been gone for ten minutes when Jillian opened her eyes.

She had a tube in her throat to help her lung until it could function on its own, so she couldn't talk. But he gave her a notepad and a pen so she could write down what she wanted to say.

How long was I unconscious? she asked.

"Two days. You were in ICU."

What are you doing here?

"I was the one who found you. Well, actually your brother called me. But I've been taking care of him for the past few days."

She looked around, and he understood her unspoken question. "He went to the cafe. He should be back…" Nicholas walked in holding two cups of hot chocolate and two donuts. "…now."

Nicholas put down the food and threw himself at his sister. "Jillian!"

Jillian pushed him off and wrapped an arm around her stomach, her face white and her teeth clenched. Nicholas looked hurt, and Alex stepped in to comfort him. "You have to be careful, buddy, Jillian's stomach is hurt."

Jillian nodded and pulled her little brother in for a one armed hug. He wrapped his arms around her and she kissed the top of his head. She couldn't hug him with both arms because of the IV, but she moved over on the bed to give him room to climb up. He pressed himself against her side, being careful of her bandage.

She looked up at him and he handed her the pad. In sloppy handwriting she wrote What happens now?

He sighed. "I don't know. But you're going to stay with your brother."

She looked down at Nicholas, who had fallen asleep, then wrote, Promise?

He smiled. But his stomach twisted at the thought of what Jillian would think if he couldn't keep that promise.


Jillian was in the hospital for a week, and by the end of her stay she'd driven several of the nurses to tears. When Alex went to pick her up one of the nurses shook his hand and thanked him.

"You're being cruel to nurses," he said when he walked into her room.

"Can I go now?"

He chuckled. "I just signed the release forms. You can go as soon as you get in the wheelchair."

She glared at him. "I'm not getting in a wheelchair."

Alex sighed. He hadn't expected her to. "If you don't you'll never get out of here."

She rolled her eyes but began to get out of bed. "I didn't break my legs, you know. I don't need a wheelchair."

"You're getting one anyway."

Nicholas was waiting for them when they reached the lobby, and he ran over and hugged Jillian, who put him on her lap.

"Still think the wheelchair was such a bad idea?" Alex whispered in her ear.

Jillian tried to ignore the feeling of his breath on her ear, and Alex tried not to notice the shudder that went through her.


Jillian and Nicholas' mother was put in jail, and their grandmother slammed the door in their faces when she was asked to let them stay with her. Jillian was eighteen, but after her lung surgery she couldn't stay home alone. And Alex knew that the state wouldn't let Nicolas stay with his sister anyway. She barely had a stable job and the only place she had to stay was the apartment that technically belonged to her mother and still had blood stains in the kitchen and vomit in their mother's bedroom.

So Alex called the state, got approved, and told Jillian and Nicholas that they were both going to stay with him until further notice. He'd expected Jillian to protest, but she just looked at Nicholas – whose smile was stretched across his face – and nodded.

Alex hadn't realized it before, but Jillian would wear the same shirts more often than other people did. He blamed it on the fact that she almost always wore black jeans and a dark shirt, and that he only saw her once a week. He learned that neither Jillian nor Nicholas had many clothes. He also found that Jillian's clothes were all bought with her one money (the ones that weren't were either three years old or hand-me-downs that she hated) and that Nicholas' clothes didn't really fit him. So Alex took both of them shopping, which was awkward for Jillian until he told her to go pick out four new shirts and two pairs of pants that weren't black jeans. Nicholas was easy to shop for, mostly because Alex had been a seven-year-old boy (20 years ago, admittedly) and Nicholas was very vocal about what he liked and disliked.

They left the store with five shirts for Nicholas, four for Jillian (one was a black tank top that Alex thought would be tighter than was appropriate – he knew he should say something but he couldn't bring himself to mind), three pairs of shorts and two pairs of jeans for Nicholas, a pair of jean shorts and a pair of bright green skinny jeans for Jillian, a set of Superman pajamas for Nicholas, a pair of Nightmare Before Christmas pajama pants for Jillian, and a black boy's bathing suit with skulls on it for Alex that he wasn't sure he would ever wear, but Jillian had convince him to get.

Alex hadn't lived with anyone since college, and even then he'd hated it. He'd never been on very good terms with his parents, and they hadn't been around very often anyway. His sister, although he loved her and would never get mad at her for it, was almost always working on schoolwork, and even though she tried to make time for him, he was usually left alone. He didn't really complain – they were relatively wealthy and the house could easily entertain a young boy for a few hours – but it was lonely and he'd gotten used to living alone. But he found that he liked waking up to Nicholas bouncing on his bed or Jillian cooking (she was excellent at making easy things like eggs and grilled cheese). He liked playing with Nicholas at Central Park, and he liked going swimming with the two of them. Jillian had spent the first half-hour sitting at the edge of the pool until Nicholas had snuck up on her and pushed her into the water. Alex had worn the bathing suit that Jillian had made him buy. He found that he liked it more than he'd expected.


"Jillian?" Alex called. He stopped and knocked on the door of the guest room she was staying in.

A moment later the door opened and Jillian stood there in jeans and a loose tank top with one earbud in. From the other earbud, hanging by her thigh, he could hear a rock song that he thought he recognized, but it was too unclear for him to tell. "Yeah?" she answered, leaning against the door frame and looking bored.

"My friend from high school is visiting tonight, we're gonna go have drinks together. Are you okay watching Nicholas for a while?"

Jillian gave him a withering look. "I think I can handle it," she said in a sarcastic tone.

"Thanks."

She gave him a half smile and shut the door.


"Alex!"

Alex turned in the direction of the voice and smiled when he saw Micheal sitting on a barstool with a beer in front of him.

"How's it goin'?" Alex asked when he sat down.

Micheal shrugged. "Same old, same old. Some idiot managed to flood my bunk room last week, I swear is was gonna punch that bastard. I've been wearing wet clothes for five days. Good thing I got a couple days off, huh?" He grinned and knocked his shoulder against Alex's. Micheal had joined the army after high school, which had actually surprised both of them, but he really liked it and Alex wasn't going to complain, even if it meant that his best friend was halfway across the world most of the time and had a pretty good chance of dying every day.

"How 'bout you?" Micheal continued, and called to the bartender, "Can I get another beer?"

"Coke is fine," Alex said. He hadn't had any alcohol since the night Nicholas had called him; after seeing the broken beer bottle lying next to Jillian and red with her blood he just couldn't stomach it.

Micheal raised an eyebrow in Alex's direction but didn't comment. "So, I heard through the grapevine that you took in a couple of charity cases."

Alex slammed his drink down on the bar and glared at his best friend. "They're not charity cases," he said in a dangerous voice.

Micheal held his hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay, sorry." He picked up his beer and took a swig. "If they're not charity cases, then what are they?"

"Um…" Alex wasn't sure how to describe it. "Well, one of them was my student and the other is her brother."

"Your student?" Micheal's tone was incredulous and his eyes wide.

"She was. She graduated. But she didn't have anywhere to stay after her mom got arrested and Nicholas is only seven so…"

"Her mother was arrested?"

Alex waved his hand. "Long story. And not one I'm going to tell you."

Micheal shrugged. "So Nicholas is her brother?"

Alex smiled and pulled out his wallet. "Her name's Jillian, they're both pretty cool once you get past the fact that Jillian hates people and Nicholas is a seven-year-old boy." He took a picture out of his wallet of the two of them. They were at the pool and Jillian was being attacked by Nicholas.

Micheal whistled. "She is smokin'."

Alex rolled his eyes and snatched the photo back. "She's eighteen," he said, shoving the photo back into his wallet. But not before Micheal had seen the look in his eye. It wasn't the look of someone who thought his friend was being stupid. I was protectiveness, anger and maybe even jealousy.

"Oh my God, you like her." Micheal began to laugh. "Oh, this is priceless. You like a girl ten years younger than you."

Alex turned red. "Shut up! I don't like her!"

"Dude, seriously? You look like a high schooler who wants to ask his crush to dance."

Alex looked down at his hands. "I don't like her. And even if I did it doesn't matter. She'd never see me that way. I'm just her guidance counselor. She still calls me Mr. Moore."

Micheal had stopped laughing, and now he put his hand on Alex's shoulder. "So what? You aren't gonna know unless you ask her."

Alex laughed. "Says the guy who took four years to ask his girlfriend out."

Micheals' face broke into a smile that portrayed his drunkenness. He'd only had two beers, but he'd never handled alcohol well. "Did I tell you I asked her to marry me?"

"What'd she say?" Alex exclaimed.

"Yes. We're planning for the wedding to be in December, we don't want to wait too long."

"You mean Caroline doesn't want to wait?"

Micheal laughed and nodded, looking down at his beer.

"Well, I'm happy for you, man," Alex said, clapping his best friend on the back.

They talked for hours, and by the time Alex had gotten Micheal into a cab and was walking home it was nearly midnight. But Micheal's words about Jillian still floated on the edges of Alex's mind.

"I don't like her," he insisted to himself as he fell asleep.


The next morning he was woken up by the smell of pancakes cooking.

When he reached the kitchen he saw Jillian wearing the bright green skinny jeans and tight black tank top that they'd bought for her. Her feet were bare and she was dancing to her iPod while holding a spatula in one hand. Alex's mouth went dry.

He ran back to his room and leaned against the closed door.

"Fuck," he breathed.


Jillian didn't move out, even though her lung had healed and she could have if she'd wanted to. Alex never mentioned it, and he wasn't sure if he wanted her to move out anyway. He knew that what he felt for her was wrong, but he really did like spending time with her, even if they were just talking.

She got a better job at the end of July working at the grocery store, and Alex began talking to her about college again.

Near the end of August, when they were getting Nicholas ready for school, Olivia changed her Facebook status to "In a relationship with Samantha". Alex messaged her "Finally!". The pictures of them together made him smile and think of Jillian.

The first day of school was full of meetings for Alex. When he got back to the apartment Jillian and Nicholas were playing Monopoly together. Nicholas jumped up and began telling Alex all about his day. Alex decided they should all go out for ice cream to celebrate a good first day.

Nicholas got a new flavor called Playdough, which was just vanilla ice cream dyed bright yellow with sugar cookie dough pieces dyed blue and pink. Jillian got Mocha Chip (coffee ice cream with chocolate chips) in a chocolate dipped waffle cone that she wouldn't let Alex have a taste of. Alex got vanilla and chocolate twist soft serve with chocolate sprinkles. Jillian laughed, but he insisted that he liked old fashioned boring ice cream. She told him that he should have gotten a hot fudge sundae.

They sat at a table and Nicholas launched into an excited explanation of his day. Alex looked over at Jillian to give her an amused smirk and froze.

She was licking her ice cream. Which of course was expected, but she had no idea what she did to him with her tongue buried in coffee ice cream and God, he was an awful, sick person.

He realized a little too late that Nicholas had asked him a question and that both Nicholas and Jillian were staring at him.

"What?" he asked, looking at Nicholas as they laughed.

"Why were you staring at Jillian?"

"Uh…" He glanced at Jillian. She was smirking at him. She took another lick of her ice cream and Alex tore his eyes away. "I wasn't."

"Yeah you were," Nicholas insisted.

Alex laughed nervously and stood up. "Come on. We've both got school tomorrow and Jillian has to work."

They stood up and walked out the door. Alex could feel Jillian's eyes on the back of his neck, but he didn't turn around. When they got back to the apartment Jillian took Nicholas to his room and put him to bed and Alex went to make tea.

"You were."

Alex turned around and saw Jillian leaning against the door frame wearing her Nightmare Before Christmas pajama pants and black tank top.

"I was what?"

"Staring. You were staring at me. At the ice cream shop."

He turned back around and watched the kettle. "I wasn't."

"Stop it. You were."

He put his hands on the counter and closed his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

"You like me."

He didn't answer.

"Mr. Moore."

He opened his eyes and stared at the black counter in front of him.

"Alex."

It was the first time she'd called him by his first name.

He lifted his head and turned around to find that she was much closer than he'd thought. "You're eighteen."

"So?"

"You're my student."

She shook her head. "No I'm not. I graduated. And I'm a legal adult." She crossed her arms. "You like me. Say it."

He stared at her. "I…" He took a deep breath. "I like you."

She nodded. "Good." Then she stepped forward. When she snaked her arms around his neck he nearly stopped breathing. "I like you too," she whispered.

He didn't move as she leaned forward, and he didn't move when she pressed her lips to his, but after a few seconds he realized that he wasn't dreaming, put his hands on her hips, and began kissing back. She slid one hand to the back of his neck and he squeezed her waist tighter.

They broke away and Alex looked into her eyes. "We shouldn't have done that."

Jillian rolled her eyes. "When are you going to figure this out? No one cares! We aren't doing anything wrong."

"You're not. I am."

"Oh my God, no, you're not! There is nothing wrong here." She took her hands off of his shoulders. "You aren't my teacher anymore, I'm an adult, you can't get in trouble."

"Look, I know that, but if someone did want to get me in trouble, all they'd have to do is point out that you and your brother are living with me for free. Do you realize how that looks to the police?"

"Yeah, but who's going to want to get you in trouble? Nicholas loves you, my mom isn't ever going to meet you, your friends wouldn't do anything like that, I haven't got any friends…"

"That isn't true, what about Kerry?"

"We stopped hanging out after the accident. Anyway, who's going to want to get you in trouble?"

"How should I know? The point is they could if they…"

She cut him off by kissing him. Somewhere in the background he could hear the kettle whistling.

"You like me, right?" Jillian asked when she pulled away from him. He nodded. "And I like you. So why can't you just forget about everyone else and take this?"

He paused. Yes, it was wrong and slightly sick, but he cared about her so much, and not just her body, or the way she kissed him (although she was really good, where did she learn to kiss like that?), but her personality and her sense of humor, too. And he could see in her eyes that she was telling the truth. She really did like him.

He leaned down and kissed her again. She slipped her fingers into his belt loops as he slipped one hand into her hair and ran the other up and down her side. She slipped her fingers underneath his shirt and dug her nails in, and he bit her bottom lip in retaliation.

When they broke apart they were breathing hard, and Alex found that he didn't care about their age difference anymore. Or anything else, for that matter.

"When did you start to like me?" he asked breathlessly, leaning his forehead on hers.

She chuckled. "I've had a crush on you since that first day in your office when I realized you were the first teacher I'd ever met who had good music taste. I didn't start to really like you until I woke up in the hospital and saw how you treated Nicholas." He laughed. "You?"

"I don't know when it started. I didn't realize it until I went to the bar with Micheal. He was the first person who actually pointed it out to me. But at least since Christmas." Alex lifted his head and stepped away from her to turn off the kettle and pour the water into his cup. "Tea?"

Jillian snorted. "What are we, English?"

"English people have tea at, like, four. Tea helps you relax. For bed. Because you have to work tomorrow, and so do I."

She rolled her eyes, but said, "Sure." He poured them both a cup of tea and they went to their respective rooms.

"By the way," Jillian said just before Alex closed his door. He turned to look at her. She gave him a quick kiss and smiled. "This is awful."

He rolled his eyes, but when he lay down to sleep that night he was smiling.


In the middle of the night Alex was woken up by the door opening. He turned over, wondering who on earth was waking him up at four in the morning. There had been no screaming, and if Nicholas had a nightmare he always went to Jillian.

But she was standing in the doorway, her arms wrapped around herself, trembling slightly.

"Jillian?" Alex said, his voice heavy with sleep as he sat up.

She took a few steps closer to him. "I had a nightmare," she said in a small voice.

Ah. Well, he'd expected it, actually he'd expected it a while ago. "Come here."

She came and sat on the bed, and he wrapped his arms around her. "It was about Mom."

He almost didn't want to hear it, but he knew it was better for her to tell him. "What happened?"

"She hurt Nicholas." She sounded like she was about to cry, and Alex was reminded again of how much she cared about her brother.

"She can't hurt Nicholas or you anymore, remember?"

Jillian pulled away and nodded. "I know. But I keep having dreams about it anyway."

"This isn't the first?"

She shook her head. "I've had them for as long as I can remember. But they got worse after…" she trailed off. "I didn't…want to talk about them. For Nicholas."

He reached out a hand to rub her back. "It's okay. He knows you're strong, even if you have nightmares. Everyone has nightmares sometimes."

"Do you?"

He nodded. He wouldn't tell her that they were all about her. "Yeah."

She was quiet for a moment, just breathing. "Can I stay in here?" she asked.

His heart skipped a beat. "Of course," he said, moving over to give her room to lie down. He wrapped his arm around her and she tucked her head into his shoulder.

They lay in silence until Alex thought of something he'd been wondering for a while. "Jillian?"

"Hmm?"

"Why is Frozen your favorite song?"

She didn't answer, and Alex thought she had fallen asleep until she said, "'It makes me feel better."

"What do you mean?"

"It's about someone who has a secret that they can't tell anyone, even though it's tearing them apart. And they're afraid 'cause the secret is dangerous, but they just can't get themselves to tell." She paused. "That's how I feel."

He had a feeling he knew the answer, but he asked anyway. "Why?"

"Mom. I couldn't tell 'cause they would take Nicholas away. And I thought no one understood, but then I heard that song on the radio and I knew someone did."

"Do you still feel like that?"

"No."

He smiled and kissed the top of her head. "Good."

Alex was about to fall asleep when Jillian said, "Thank you."

"For what?"

"Taking care of us. Thank you." She paused. "Are you going to adopt Nicholas?"

"Do you want me to?"

"I don't know."

He thought about it. "No. But I'm not going to make him leave. Or you."

He thought she hadn't heard him, but after a few minutes she said, "Promise?" And in that one word he could hear how broken she was, how much she had lost, and he swore to himself that he would give it back to her.

"Promise."

This is my first real story on here, I'm very excited. I hope you liked this, I spent about a month working every second I could spare on it (and a few I couldn't, but I never learn anything in French class anyway).

Please review because I really want to know what you think of this. Also it's my birthday.