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O.O Wow......that's intense! ....I wanna know what else happens!!!

But of course




“Morning!” I said cheerfully to my cat the next morning, plucking him out of my bed and giving him a hug. “Lovely day, isn’t it, kitty?”

He glared at me with his higher-evolutionary-plane unhand-me-you-mortal look, so I put him down and checked the clock.

7:09

Oh my gods, I had gotten about four hours of sleep. This was going to be fun.

"I guess I shouldn't scare him or anything," I said to Kitty-Kitty. (Just to annoy him in all of his superiority.) "I'll wait until after lunch."

But that's in, like, five hours!

Crap.

I could've gotten ready in about twenty minutes, you see, but then I would be bored for about four and a half hours. No way my short attention span could take it.

So what did I do?

A multitude of options awaited me.

I could go back to sleep. But thanks to some kind of delayed reaction sugar high, I found that option utterly impossible. I guess I'd have to faint later on at his house (I grinned as I thought of this very romantic sort of scene.) I could take a walk, but I was too lazy, and I really didn't feel like washing and drying my hair for the second time in some six hours. I could be a nice person and make pancakes, but whoever said I was nice?

"Kitty-boo," I teased my cat, "I'm bored, and I've only been up for five minutes!"

He glared at me, perfectly content to do nothing all day. I realized suddenly that I was asking the wrong person, and nudged him out of my room with my foot.

"You should be ashamed of yourself," I told him, shutting the door in his face. "Coming in here when I was asleep and everything."

My other cat was far more fun, anyway.

In the end, I opted for the best time-waster ever invented by humans: writing. I thought about it for a minute, finally choosing a dramatic scene I had been planning all yesterday, and began to type, my fingers flying over the keyboard.

As I typed, I ran over a list of things I needed to bring along with me--I would leave them at Evan's house for him to bring to Tara, random books and a CD or two. And one very special thing that had kept me up until three in the morning...

My dad ended up being the nice person and made biscuits, and I snatched one, bringing it back to my room. I was wholly absorbed in my writing, and if I gave up now, who knew what I would lose?

Coming to the end of a scene, I paused and looked at the time.

11:47

"Oh crap," I muttered aloud, "no time, no time..."

What to wear?

It wasn't too cold outside, but it was enough for me to wear a plain white shirt under the long, fitted polo I chose, though the pants I was wearing barely went past my knees. I thought I looked pretty cute, but that was for my sister and mom to decide, wasn't it? According to them, i had no sense of fashion at all. But hey, it was Evan.

It had been so long since I had worn my hair down, so I did...sort of. It was too annoying in my face, so I pulled half of it back in an ornate clip-thing behind my head. I decided against jewelry and makeup, except for tiny, inobtrusive earrings--a girl has to look her best. I came bouncing out of my room in time for lunch, during which I proposed the idea of me going to Evan's this afternoon. My parents didn't object, so after lunch I brushed my teeth (several times--Mom was a dentist,) grabbed my first schedule backpack (a little blue messenger bag,) and skipped outside into the cool breezy air.

I had walked my street a dozen times, and it wasn't really busy, but it could get that way around one, so I went along as fast as I could without running. After all, I wasn't built for speed, now was I? As I passed house after huge house, my eyes were drawn to the ones without a gate--about three on this block. One I knew was the opposite way, and I knew the people that lived there. But the others...I had never met them. I was, admittedly, a little nervous...Evan had really seemed to hate them. But maybe he was just a little stressed at the time...right?

Finally, I found the house. It wasn't too far down, set back in a few pines that shaded it attractively, a largish white affair with columns on the wide porch. It struck me as a very un-Evan-esque house, though I didn't know why or how, and I hesitated a heartbeat or two before ringing the doorbell.

Sooner than I had expected, the door opened, and a tall woman appeared in the doorway. "Can I help you?"

"Yes," I said politely, "is Evan home?"

"Evan?" The woman sounded suspicious, raising her eyebrows.

"Um, yeah..."I began to wonder if I had gotten the right house after all.

"What's your name again?" she asked me curiously, as if it was very, very strange for this to happen. Which, I thought, it might have been.

"Kirby. Kirby Emerson."

"Okay, Kirby. Would you like to come in?"

"Um, sure."

She led me into a high-ceilinged sort of room, calling for Evan as I looked around. It was a lot like the other houses on my street; ornately decorated with very odd things, a little too lavish for my taste. I preferred
the down-to-earth messy sort of decoration at my own home, which would, most likely, be frowned upon here.

Evan appeared on the stairs, peering over the balcony. His expression lit up, and he said, "Kirby, what took you so long?"

"Me?" I retorted, both of us ignoring the woman I supposed was his foster mother. "Bet you weren't up as early as I was, I got about four hours of sleep, beat that!"

He was about to reply, but then he caught a look from the creepy blonde woman and beckoned me upwards. "Come on up here, Kirby,"

I followed him up the stairs, across an open hallway and into a small, confortable room, with a television, a long couch and a window seat, which I promptly stole.

"You want something to drink?"

"Hrm," I thought, "depends. Let me guess, there's a Coke machine somewhere?"

"Yup."

"Cool," I said cheerfully. "I might have to try it out later. Not now, though."

"'Kay. Um, you want me to show you around...?"

"If you want."

"Yeah...this is the, um...well, I don't know what it is, really. Just a random room. C'mon, I'll show you the rest..."

He opened a door down the hall, checking inside before he let me see anything. "Damn it, Zach," he muttered, pushing the door open all the way. "I'm sharing a room with their son," he explained as I took a look. "You can kind of tell which half is mine..."

I could: one side of the room was a complete disaster, of the type that only a moody teen could create, and the other half was so immaculate that it appeared untouched. The entire room seemed very heavy-metal-goth type, completely the opposite of what I would have imagined.

"Neither of us like it very much," he commented. "But it doesn't matter. I hardly ever go in there anyways."

"Hmm, I can see why," I said. "He's kind of a slob..."

"Yeah. Come on..."

He showed me around the upstairs, and I found that he had very strange ways of titling the rooms we passed. For instance, as he pushed open one door he said, "This room isn't really anything." Funny...I would have called it a storage room...and likewise, "This is where Tara would have slept, if they would let her." That room was just a plain guest room, but I could tell that the house meant something entirely different to him than it did to me.

"I think Mary's gone by now, so we can go downstairs..."

"Mary?"

"You've met her. That's my foster mother. And her husband's...Steven? Yeah, that's it."

"What do you call them?" I asked, following him downstairs.

"Nothing. I don't talk to them. I guess Mr. and Mrs. Richards will be fine for you to call them..."

He showed me to the kitchen, moving around the place as if he was unfamiliar with the way things were placed.

"Did you already eat?" he asked me, absent-mindedly rinsing out a glass and putting it in the dishwasher, as if it were merely habit.

"Yeah, I did. You?"

He nodded. "Hey, you came just in time," he told me. "I was just about to go see Tara. You want to come?"

"Sure!" I said brightly. "I made her a present, and everything, I'm glad I don't have to just leave it here..."

"That's nice of you," he said absently, searching around for something. "Oh, here it is." He took his cell phone from the counter nearby and slipped it into his pocket, flipping through the wallet next to it until he found a white, laminated card. "Let's go."

"What's that?" I asked, following him to the front door.

"Hospital card. It'll get us in. I'll be back later!" he added in a shout to the other residents of the house.

"Aren't...aren't they driving us?"

"No, I'm walking. You don't have to come, you know, if you don't want to..."

"But it's like, three miles away..."

"It's not that far." He set off down the street, in the direction of the hospital. "You coming, or not?"

It was more of an innocent question than a challenge, but I took it as such. "Yeah, you're on."

It took us about an hour, even with Evan walking much faster than me, but I wasn't bored at all. Talking to him was like...trying to look up a word in a dictionary with only the definition. You could look for ages, and never find what you wanted to know, but there was a hell of a lot of cool stuff you found out along the way. He was the smartest person I had ever talked to, though he didn't show it at all, only the occasional complex word here and there and the slight tone of more knowledge than he was letting on.

You know, Evan was right--St. Luke's hospital did suck. I knew it was big, and very professional, but other than that I simply could not see why Evan and his sister would be brought here. Unless wherever he had said he was from was really, really close...and very small, too. And it might have been, for all I knew.

He led me to a random building, large but hard to get to...I did not understand hospitals. I followed him up to the front desk, he looking like he owned the place, I trying not to get in the way.

"Hi," he said, to get the woman at the front's attention. "Can I see Tara Hawkins, please?"

"Hi, Evan," she said easily, checking the white card he produced. "She's waiting for you, I bet. You know, you really should be coming with someone eighteen or older..."

"Can't, but you won't tell, will you?"

"Course not. I'll just say that Mary Richards accompanied you...along with...wait."

She looked up at me. "Can I help you?"

"I'm with him," I said hastily.

"Oh, you brought someone else this time?" She raised her eyebrows at Evan before turning back to me. "What's your name?"

"Kirby Emerson."

"And you're here to see Tara too?"

"Yep."

"Have you ever been here before?"

"Well, not in this section. Once for an MRI, and for shots and such..."

"Good, then...E-M-E-R-S-O-N?"

"That's it."

"Okay, you're free to go." Evan had already started off, waiting for me by the stairs.

"Oh, and between you and me," the receptionist said, and I turned back, "you should feel honored. Normally, he comes by himself...he's very protective of little Tara, or so I've been told." She glanced after Evan, a little sadly. "You know, he used to be so cheerful...or so his sister tells us."

"But I thought she couldn't talk," I pointed out.

"Yes, but she's awfully bright, and she picked up sign language in a flash...well, go on, he's waiting for you."

"Um, yeah...thanks," I added as I followed Evan up the stairs and onto the second floor. As he showed me through the gleaming white halls, I thought about what the receptionist had said.

Evan used to be cheerful? That's strange...

"Hey, Doctor," Evan called to a woman in the hallway, "is Tara asleep?"

"Course not, she's waiting for you," the doctor replied with a smile. "You can go on in."

He nodded, carefully opening the door to our left. A tiny black-haired figure was there, reading in the flourescent light--she looked up and smiled brightly as she saw her brother.

"Hey, Tara!" Evan said, smiling too, and he reached down and hugged her tightly. She held up her hands and slowly formed finger positions I recognized as American Sign Language, though I couldn't understand a thing she was saying.

"Sorry," he apologized, "I didn't see anything interesting to bring you."

She shrugged carelessly and said something else. Evan glanced at me, beckoning me to sit beside him on a hard metal chair. "This is Kirby Emerson. Kirby, this is my sister Tara."

"Hi, Tara," I said with a smile. Tara glanced from me to her brother and back again, grinning in a very evil nine-year-old way.

"Don't give me that look, Tara," Evan warned her, "she wanted to come."

"Oh yeah, I brought you a couple of things," I added, reaching into my bag. Her eyes lit up, and she leaned over to watch, curious. I handed her a couple of my favorite books, worn with use, and a bookmark I had found, asking while I fished around, "What kind of music do you like? Classical, like your brother?"

She wrinkled her nose, shaking her head, and Evan couldn't help but smile. "She likes old music," he informed me. "Anything from Greenday to Evanescence. I really don't know where she gets it."

"Not a problem," I said cheerfully. "Greenday's best album is in here, in my opinion...American Idiot, wasn't it? And I'm sure I have some Evanescence around here..."

I stuck a CD in a Walkman I had brought, making sure the batteries had not fallen out, and handed it to her. "There you are."

She grinned at me, turning over the books one by one, fascinated. "She likes it," Evan told me, though I had guessed already.

"Oh, and one more thing..." I handed her a small, thin, tissue-wrapped package. "I think you'll like it."

Evan gave me a curious glance as Tara unwrapped the single object that had kept me up all night--a framed picture, the one I had taken just yesterday of her brother. The frame was of my own creation, plain silver with colorful, dull shards of glass interlocked on top of the reflective surface. The glass-working hobby was a result of some branch of ADD--imagine me, bored, with a hundred thousand fragments of a snowglobe on my floor. My short attention span yeilded very interesting results, and after that, I saved everything glass I broke and stored the shards away very carefully, using them whenever I needed to. Tara looked at it, her eyes wide, and then she gave me a hug, smiling happily.

"What is it...Kirby!" Evan said indignantly, "when did you take that?"

"Yesterday."

"Don't do that..."

Tara poked him on the shoulder and signed something, which calmed him down at once. "I do not, Tara, but thanks anyway. Here..."

He took it from her and put it on her bedside table, next to a few other framed pictures--one of her and Evan, he looking a lot happier than I had ever seen him, one of a young couple at their wedding day, the man with Tara's smile, the woman with Evan's gentle eyes, and my favorite, but also the saddest; the one of the entire family at a park somewhere, with a beautiful Asian girl next to Evan, his arm around her shoulders and hers around his waist. That must be Khana...I wondered why either of them wanted to keep that around, knowing how that seemingly perfect day had ended.

As I looked at the pictures, lost in thought, Evan and Tara had a rather one-sided conversation over my head, Tara signing for a minute or two and Evan answering out loud. I fell back into the talking far too late, and I could not understand a word of what was going on between them.

"No, not really...you know how they can be," he said, and Tara nodded and signed something else.

"Really hard," he told her, rolling his eyes. "They put me in all the hard classes, and I barely have time to do my homework..."

She grinned, making a few symbols with her hands.

"You know that this is only for a little while, right?" he said sternly. "Then you're going right back to school. If you want to skip, wait until you're in high school, Sis."

"Hey, um, Evan?" I raised my eyebrows, feeling lost.

"Oh, right," he said, as if he had only realized I was there. "Sorry."

Tara tugged on his sleeve, signing something to him, and he nodded. "Tara said to tell you...head something...oh, I get it now...really, Tara?" She nodded. "She wants you to know that she can't talk because of head trauma--massive head injury, I think--and she's getting better...and something about her doctor telling her that her heart's beating too fast...Oh, he told me that too, it's not a big deal, Tara..."

"Why's she want me to know that?" I asked him quietly.

"I don't know."

But Tara pulled on his sleeve again and made a few concerned gestures. "Yeah, I told her everything," he replied. "Oh, Kirby?"

"Yeah?"

"Tara says not to tell anyone. And I agree."

"About your family?"

"Yeah."

"I promise, I won't."

Tara turned to me, signing something, and Evan translated for me; "Do you play music? What's high school like? Are you coming back next week, too?"

And so on, a constant barrage of childish, innocent questions raining upon me. I answered them, soon realizing that Tara was every bit as intelligent as her older brother, and a lot of fun to talk to.

After a while, she asked me something else; judging by her expression, she was very serious. Evan flushed, not translating for me this time. "Tara, stop," he muttered, avoiding my eyes. Tara grinned and signed it to me again, but I couldn't grasp any of it.

"What's she saying?"

"Never mind," Evan said hastily. "She's just being annoying..."

Before Tara could form an indignant reply, a nurse opened the door and said to us, "Evan, visiting hours are over. It's time to go."

He sighed, nodding, and gave Tara a goodbye hug. "I'll see you as soon as I can, Tara," he promised, ruffling her hair gently.

"And me, too," I added, waving to Tara. "It was nice meeting you."

She held up a ahnd, ordering me to stop, and I didn't move as she tore a piece of paper out of a notebook and scribbled something on it, folding it and handing it to me. I took it, thnking her, and followed Evan to the door.

"What was that all about?" he asked me, curious.

I hid the note from him as I read it, smiling. "Nothing," I said vaguely, "just girl stuff."

Kirby,

I was trying to say before that you're the only one who can make my brother smile like that.

Life sucks.

I collapsed on my bed the moment I arrived home, sighing.

So many meetings, so much homework, so many failed promises. I missed a debate tournament...Spanish homework up to my nose...my karma seemed to be reimbursing me for my happy weekend and my early-completed and extremely adorable Geometry project. Stupid karma...

I had miles of homework to do. I had everything in the world to do after that. I had a piano to play, animes to watch, a writing contest to complete, a couple of undead zombies to beat up on my Gamecube. And yet, I was bored.

Life was pointless. Homework was pointless--it led to a better GPA, a better college. a better education, a better life, which was pointless.

Alone with my mournful, unsatisfied thoughts, and bored to no end, I didn't even notice when I fell asleep.

When I woke up, it felt like I had only blinked. I rolled over and peered groggily at the clock; Mom would be home in five minutes to check and see if I had done my homework, as always. Sighing, and with much grumbling and dissent, I got up and pulled out my English book.

A few minutes later, when the door opened and my mom called for me, I had not finished a single question. As far as I remember, I had merely gazed blankly at the paper before me, pen dangling limply in my hand.

"Kirby, is your homework finished?" Mom asked, as predicted.

"Yeah!" I lied, letting out a breath as I stared at the textbook. I pushed it away, frustrated, completely bored out of my mind.

I needed to do something.

What to do, what to do...

Barnes & Noble's, anyone? creative, fun self answered. I agreed.

But who to take with me?

Whitney, of course, was my first thought...but she was sure to be busy. I thougth about it for a second...and then I picked up the phone and dialed a number.

Ring...ring...ring...

"Hello?"

Take a second. Who did I call? You can guess, you know this one. After all, who is this story even about? Certainly not me. My life sucks, remember?

"Hi, Evan! What's going on?" I said brightly.

"Oh, hi, Kirby."

"So, look, it's really boring around here, you want to go to Barnes & Noble's with me?"

Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease?

"Sorry, I can't," he said at once, crushing my newborn hopes.

"Why not?" I demanded.

"No one's home, I don't have a ride...sorry..."

"I can bring you!" I offered right away, cheer returning.

"No, it's okay--"

"Yes, I am. They don't really care where you go, right?"

"But--"

"Leave a note or something!" I didn't really care if I was being rude. "I'll pick you up in a couple of minutes--nah, we can walk, it isn't far. Meet me there, okay?"

"I guess..."

"Okay, cool!" I said happily.

Click.

I twirled around and laughed with sheer joy--hah, no more boredom! Yes!

"Mom, I'm going to Barnes & Noble's, all right?" I called, as I shot into something cute.

"Says who?" Mom had obviously had a rather cruddy day herself.

"I have my cell phone with me!"

"Okay." It was as if that was the answer to everything.

I dashed out of the house and skipped down the few streets between my house and the bookstore, enjoying the cool day. Just like the movies, Kirby. What better cure for boredom than to meet a really cute guy for coffee?

It was time to replace my boredom with good literature and creme soda. Foolproof.

I grabbed a soda, a scone, and the first issue of Love Hina and sat back in a fluffy chair, immersing myself in the manga while I waited for Evan, who had yet to arrive. It might have been an hour or only a few minutes--I had no way of knowing--when I was finally distracted from the black-and-white Japan-based world. I glanced sideways on instinct, spotting a hand resting on the back of my chair...slowly, I raised my eyes upward.

"Evan!"

He grinned. "About time you noticed."

"Don't do that!" I protested weakly. "How long have you been standing there, anyway?"

"Since Keitaro got his a** kicked by Naru...the first time. I got here before you, though."

"Long time," I noted; the first instance of that event happened way back in the first chapter, never mind how many times since. "What've you got?"

"The newest Artemis Fowl."

"It's out? Sweet!" I exclaimed. He dropped the book onto the chair beside me.

"You can have this copy, I'll get myself one."

He drifted away--I was already immersed in the tale, and hardly looked up when he came back.

"Here," I said, pushing the barely-touched scone at him. "Saved you some."

"That's okay, I'm not hungry."

"Oh, but you are. I even got you your own fork, so you better help me eat it, got it?"

"What is it?"

"A scone. It's good, and I don't have AIDs or anything, so shut up and eat it."

He obeyed, breaking off a piece; I returned to the story. After a while, I glanced up again as he was flipping through Love Hina.

"You pervert," I accused. "You shouldn't be reading that, it's set in a hot spring. Go find Eureka Seven or something..."

"The manga's really complex," he said at once. "And besides, I've read it before."

"You like anime?"

He shrugged. "It's all right."

"What're your favorites?"

"I don't know...I like most of them, I guess. What about you?"

"Hrm, .hack, Fullmetal Alchemist, Eureka Seven, Trinity Blood, FLCL...oh, and Elfin Lied. "

"Elfin Lied? You?"

"Yeah, but I'm never watching it again. Some parts were just too strong...like that thing with the dog. You've seen it?"

"Sure, but I didn't like it as much...you like a lot of guy animes, don't you?" he said with a smirk.

"What's that supposed to mean? They aren't guy animes, you can spot those a mile away. And FMA was written by a girl..."

"FLCL's pretty messed up, though..."

"Nah, it just has no point. But I like it that way..."

And so the hours wore away, as we talked about whatever came to mind, books forgotten. When closing time came at 9, I was reluctant to leave, but it couldn't be helped.

"Want me to walk you home?" Evan offered politely.

"Nah, your house is closer, I'll walk you home."

He nodded, and we started the walk home. I tried my hardest not to shiver as the wind sliced through my sweater. Evan kicked a rock gently with his faded black Converses as we walked in silence. The night was soft and the stars shy to come out, and no cars passed us to spoil the quiet.

We stopped in Evan's driveway to go our seperate ways. "Hey," I said. "Tomorrow, you come over to my house, all right? Right after school, just walk over. And...well...no offense, but I don't like your house much--"

"--neither do I."

"Yeah. So the next day we'll meet at my house again, all right?"

He nodded. "Sounds good. See you tomorrow."

It wasn't a question. I felt my cheeks redden; what was this? Kirby Emerson did not blush, especially around adorable members of the opposite gender.

"Great," I managed. "G'night."

"Night."

I watched him for a moment, finally turning and continuing the walk home, kicking the same rock and smiling. All in all, that had turned out rather well...

Managing to shrug off questions about where I had been, I went back to my room, where my English book was waiting for me.

It was totally worth it.