}Chapter 1{



            Cal was closing up her English book with three minutes left to spare in class. She looked around at everyone else in the room to see who else was finished with there Vocab. But no surprise to her, everyone else was cramming away to get as much done as they could before the weekend.                
            “Are you finished Miss Burden?” She heard Mr. Irving, her AP English teacher, ask. She turned in her seat to look at the 40 something year old balding man. “Yes, may I turn it in now Mr. Irving?” She asked while rising from her seat, so as to not let him say no. He gave her a disapproving look. “Very well then Miss. Burden, hand it over.”
             He took, almost yanked, the paper form her hand, obviously upset that he didn’t get the chance to prolong her suffering over the little break from school. He placed it on a tall stack that Cal new would be his assignment over the weekend. She gave him a sweet smile as if to act like his rudeness had never taken place, then went to go take her seat at the front of the class.
           As soon as she sat down though, the bell rang.” Well, this week is finished. Just 14 more left to go until I can escape for summer.” she mumble to herself under her breath, and then started to gather her things. “Hay Cal,” Cal looked up to see Sarah, her best friend since pre-k, smiling at her. “Wanna do something this Sunday?” Cal grabbed the last of her stuff. “Yeah sure, what do you want to do?” They started to walk through the overly packed halls of Austin Stetson High (A.S.H.).
           Cal could barley hear Sarah’s soft voice with all the yells from the passing cheerleaders. She placed a finger over Sarah’s mouth to stop her rambling, griped her forearm, and glided through the crowd to the exit. It was sprinkling out, which was no problem for Cal, but Sarah was like a cat when it came to rain.
“Alright, now what where you saying. I couldn’t hear you over the stupid little pep parade in the hall.” That forced a giggle out of Sarah, but she quickly shoved it back in. She never really liked to think ill of anyone.” Well I was saying that we could go hang at the coffee shop, the go theater jumping”. That was really the only thing to do besides brave the mall with all the fashion prim dramas lurking around.
             “Okay, want me to do the driving or have you gotten your permit yet?” Sarah’s face dropped a little. “It should be here over spring break, but I’m not going to get my hopes up.” ‘Poor Sar’ Cal thought to herself. “You’ll get it soon Sar, no worries. I’ll see you on Sunday.” Cal gave her Sarah a hug, the proceeded to her Jeep. Pulling her keys out, Cal lifted her head to see Ben Marks leaning against the hood of her jeep. After a three month relationship, one hell of a sweet break up from her, he still acted like they where together. “Hi C, how ya been?” She edged past him to get to her car door. “”You ask me that same question every day. And shortly after that one, you follow it up with’ what are you up to tonight?’” His smile slowly started to fade as he could tell where the conversation was heading.
           “So I’ll give you the same answer I always give you to the same question you always ask me. I have work tonight like always, and even if I didn’t have to work, I don’t think it would be a good idea for us to hang out since we broke up last week.” She was able to pull the car door open an inch or two before Ben put his hand on the window, and pushed it shut. “Ben I have to get home. We can talk about this latter, but I really do have to get home. His hand didn’t leave the door, nor did the evil glint in his eye.
           “We never broke up C, what we have can’t be broken apart. You know it and I know it. What you said last week was just because we have some bumps in our relationship that need to be smoothed out. And pretty soon you won’t have an excuse to get out of going out with me; pretty soon we’ll have everything back to normal. I’ll let you go to work now, but I’ll be stopping by your house latter on when you get off work so we can fix this” He leaned in to leave a wet kiss on her cheek before he turned, and walked away.
           When she pulled into her driveway, she was pondering what would happen when Ben showed up latter on that evening. She had to wander tonight, she just had to. Last time she had wandered into a gallery, and almost got caught. That was something that never happened to her before. She was still pondering about both problems as she got ready, and left her house to go to work.