A love story for teens by a teen with no love life.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Chapter 21 (post one)

Pre-read note: So, here I am, sitting on my bed, my cat hiding under the drying rack a couple feet away, and what am I doing? Posting on my blog. I had a whole rant here three seconds ago where I went on with my usual sob story about how my own mother has never clicked on the link to my story, but then I deleted it. I realized that if someone is reading this, then I'm not posting for no reason or to no one. Besides, I'm doing this more for my own enjoyment than anything. And to encourage myself to keep writing, cause I don't know if I still would be if I didn't feel obligated to update this blog every couple of days (or hours depending on my boredom level).
NEW YEARS SOON :D Hope everyone is having a fabulous last couple days of 2010! 
Chapter twenty-one, section one (pg 64):
 “Can we talk about it?”
I lifted my head from his shoulder. “About this?”
“Yeah.”
I straightened myself out a little, but still leaned against him. “Ok.”
“As you know, there are strict rules against this. There’s a lot of risk. If we get caught, I could get in a lot of trouble.” Jake talked to the sky above the school yard. When he turned to look at me, I met his gaze with a smile.
“Then we won’t caught,” I said, placing my head back on his shoulder.
The school yard was filled with girls in sweatpants, jogging around the garden in royal blue. They swarmed in kaleidoscope shapes from our view from the roof. I could make out their ponytails bouncing as they went.
“We can’t be affectionate in public. If anyone sees and tells the authorities, they don’t need much evidence to separate the two of us.”
“Ok.”
“We shouldn’t text or write notes that mention anything either, since that’s easy evidence.”
“Makes sense.”
“And if we’re going to see each other more than normal, then we should keep it secretive. We’ll hang out at the beach and here on the roof.”
“Ok.”
He paused here, looking from the sky to me. “Are you afraid?”
“No,” I said without hesitation, “Should I be?”
“Maybe,” he said, “I don’t know what the punishment is; I don’t think they’ve ever needed to punish anyone.”
“Are you scared?”
He sighed, “Yeah, a little. I would hate to never see you again.”
We watched the girls again. They were now heading out onto the field, a coach with a large bag of black and white soccer balls following behind them.
Jake wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me even closer, and rested his head on top of mine. Although he couldn’t see it, my smile was from ear to ear.
“Jake?”
“Yeah?”
“We’ll stay together. It’ll all work out. I know it.”
“I trust you.”

Monday, December 27, 2010

Chapter 20

Pre-note: This section is really quite long, but it's also all of chapter 20. It's quite rough and I need to go back and edit it with a clearer idea in my head. I also think I discuss Cara's history too much, but I'm leaving it in right now so that I (as the author) know the character. I am trying to write more but I'm not getting too far right now. I stayed up until three trying to write last night, but mostly sat with staring blankly at my screen and listening to my ipod. I will keep posting until I have nothing to post, though, since no one really reads this anyways (except maybe you, Gremikin). :P
Chapter twenty (pg. 63): 
My last class was Biology, taught by a younger teacher whose name I only remembered because it was spelt the same way as pigeon, although it was pronounced with a French accent. When my normal seat was filled, I began the trek to the back of the class, but I was greeted by a familiar face half-way down the aisle.
“New Wings,” called Lulu, “Come sit with me.”
She greeted me with a smile I offered back.
“The girl I normally sit with is sick today; I’m so glad you came along so I have someone to talk to!” She chatted easily.
I didn’t want to ruin her mood, but my smile felt fake on my face as I replied, “I’m glad someone wants to sit with me.”
“Oh,” Lulu said, her face falling appropriately. “I heard about that.”
“How much?”
“Just about the thing that happened the other day... I don’t think she has the right to treat you like this, though,” she added quickly, “You didn’t do anything wrong, as long as ...”
“I told him no.”
“Have you tried talking to her?”
“Whenever I get close to her or any of her friends, they just walk away. Besides, something tells me they wouldn’t believe me anyways.”
Mr. Pigeon entered the room, his typical goofy smile spread across his face and his hair combed neatly over his bald(ing) spot.
“Class, let’s begin today’s lab!” he said, searching for chalk although the smartboard was up and running. “Here are your groups.” He wrote names under group numbers along the black board. My name he placed with who he probably thought were my friends, Amy and Chantel.
“Good luck,” Lulu whispered as we gathered our books and moved to join our appropriate groups.
“Thanks,” I whispered back, “I’ll need it.”
Neither Chantel nor Amy greeted me as I joined them at the lab bench. When the instruction sheets were passed around, they didn’t look me in the eye as they gave me mine.
The lab passed very quietly. All the other groups were chatting away as they mixed chemicals and examined them under microscopes, but as much as I tried to make small talk neither Amy nor Chantel kept it up. The most words they said to me were, “Please pass that,” and, “It’s your turn to mix the dye.”
By the end of the class, my feelings weren’t sad or lonely anymore. I was annoyed, annoyed at their immature behaviour and cold attitudes. When it came close to the end of class, they handed me some things to put away, then talked about what they were doing later as they washed the lab bench together. When I tried to talk to them afterwards, Mr. Pigeon cut me off, instructing the class to answer the response questions as homework and hand them in the next day.
“Hey!” I called when the bell rung and Amy and Chantel started towards the door. I grabbed my bag and caught up with them as they started down the hall. I didn’t want to approach the matter directly, so I said, “Did you guys understand the last response question?”
Amy looked at me as if it were crazy and said, “What?”
“The last response question, I don’t understand it. Do you?” Of course I understood it, but it was small talk.
“Why don’t you go back and ask Mr. Pigeon?”
“Look, Amy,” I said, suddenly blocking them off in the crowded hallway. “What’s wrong?”
Amy flipped her perfect, from-a-bottle blonde hair. “I think we all know what’s wrong.”
“I didn’t do anything, Amy,” I tried to explain, “I told him no.”
“No one says no to a boy, especially a football player.” Amy abruptly turned down 180 degrees. She was halfway down the hall before I even had a chance to say another sound. Chantel gave me a glance backwards as she turned around that I read as “I’m sorry,” but then she followed Amy.
As I stood shocked and watching, someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was Cara.
I stifled my gasp as she whispered, “Come with me.”
I followed her down the hall, although she kept a good distance ahead of me.
When we came out of the building, she led me past the dormitory and into the library. This was the building that I sat on top of so often, yet I had never been inside. It was modern, with high ceilings and simple bookcases. The space was very open, with a reception desk in the middle, but it was completely empty. Although there was no one around, Cara still walked ahead of me across the large space, to the very left hand corner. Here behind a couple of large bookcases were some dusty desktops. Cara pulled two chairs together, sitting in one and gesturing to the other.
“I’m sorry about that,” she said softly, “About Amy’s behaviour and the fact I couldn’t walk with you here.”
I didn’t say a word, but I sat down beside her.
“I heard what you said to Amy, about turning him down,” Cara said slowly, “Is it true?”
I nodded.
“I suspected that, the way he looked when he walked back across the street.”
“But Amy didn’t even listen to me.”  
 “If you want me to really explain, this will take a while.”
“I’d really like to hear everything you have to say.” I replied.
First, Cara told me about her life. Of course, like everyone else here, she didn’t talk about dying, but she told me about her family. Cara had attended an elementary school and begun a high school in the North side of town, an area that she told me was nowhere close to as well off as the West end. Her father had been working for a company that didn’t pay him all he deserved for a long time, until he was laid off. She said that when her family had been struggling, a family member working the government building had been able to get her father a job. Her father had worked hard for a couple years, but enjoyed this job much more, eventually being promoted so he worked closely with the mayor of the city. When he got that promotion, his salary increased significantly. With his new income, he moved his family to the South end, and sent Cara to school here in the West end. She had come to this school like me, without friends and with newly acquired freedom that comes with money. Because her father worked closely with the mayor, the information she was coming to the school had been passed along to his daughter, Amy. When Cara came, she was greeted into Amy’s clique the way I had been.
“Amy is the highest social power at the school, and because everyone respects and fears that power, they fall beneath her and follow. To offend Amy means you are offending her entire network, so you will be treated by them all as Amy would treat you directly. I can tell you why she’d upset with you: it’s because you got what she wanted, which never happens to Amy. I know she can be a real bitch sometimes, but she isn’t all bad. The only thing is she over-reacts when she doesn’t get her way, but honestly, I hang out with her because I like the other characteristics about her. She can be really positive, motivating and helpful when she wants to be.”
“I’m sorry,” I interrupted, “But I don’t even know if I want to be friends with her again.”
“You do, though, right?”
I couldn’t completely deny it. “I just want to not be ignored by the whole school and not to be accused of something I didn’t do.”
“I can’t tell you exactly what to do, but I can tell what’s happened in the past. Either the person becomes depressed and withdrawn, and befriends the other ‘outsider’ people, or they give Amy what she wants. I don’t know how you would do that, but maybe you can think of something.”
“Ok, thanks for the help.”
“Also, I’m sorry it took me so long to talk to you. I didn’t think Amy’s act would last this long.”
“I can understand.”
“This school is full of rich, upper-class kids. The popularity scale rules the school, and as much as I don’t like that, I’m in the loop and tend to forget. I never really talked to anyone else about it, since there was never really anyone else to talk to about it.”
“Thanks, B –” Then I stopped myself before I could say Beth. “Thanks so much.”
“Of course, we newbies need to stick together sometimes.”

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Chapter 19 (post three)

Pre-read note: This may be the last post for a while. I'm starting to catch up with my blogging and my writing so I'm basically posting just-written stuff (like the last section and this one are from only a couple days ago). The thing is, though, I feel like I need to stay ahead! And I also need to edit the next chapter before posting it, but we'll see when I get around to that.
Let me know if you feel like this section makes you feel like you're being thrown around or if I transition easily enough. Thanks!
Chapter nineteen, section three:
I woke up to white sheets. They were clean, crisp and pure: homey. Then I looked about and realized I had no idea where I was.
I was in a double bed with white duvet, pillows and sheets. The room was matching white, quite large for a bedroom, with a long, pale wood dresser in a contemporary style to the left of the bed. Above it hung a rectangular mirror. The window to the right was open, with white curtains blowing in the breeze and the sun streaking in like long fingers running across the wooden floors.
I remembered crying in that library-like place the night before, then laying across Jake’s lap. It had grown darker and darker, but we hadn’t moved. I must have fallen asleep, and he’d must have taken me here.
I rubbed my eyes and sat up, taking in my surroundings. Even though I had never seen this place before, it had a calmness to it that I soaked in.
I got up slowly, stretching my toes before placing them on the golden-brown floor. I tiptoe to the closed door and opened it quietly.
It opened into a bright room, also white. There was a kitchen on side and a living room with white couches on the other, separated by an island with four stools. Huge windows covered two of the four walls, showing a vivid blue sky. I walked around the room, running my hand over the simple furniture and noticing sheets and a pillow on one of the couches.
I looked up where I heard a noise, and Jake stepped into the apartment through a door by the kitchen. He was carrying brown bags of groceries and jingling keys.
“New Wings, you’re up!” He said with his usual grin.
He shut the door with his foot and placed the groceries on kitchen counter as I wandered over.
“This is your place?” I asked.
He nodded. “Like it?”
“It’s lovely.” I smiled, circling around the island towards the groceries. I pass him eggs and vegetables as he placed them in the fridge.
“I realized I had no food and decided to run out and get some. I didn’t think you’d be up so early. Have you been up long?” He asked.
“No, not at all.” I passed him a jug of 2% milk.
“I was going to make omelettes, does that sound good?”
“I didn’t know you could cook.” I grinned, passing him orange juice.
“Not too much, but I make amazing omelettes.” He smiled, putting the last of the groceries in the fridge and opening cupboards.
“I can’t wait.” I laughed. I watched him pull a frying pan and cutting board out of a cupboard. “Can I help?”
“No, no, it’s fine.” He darted back and forth from the fridge to the counter, lining up brightly colour sweet peppers.
I headed around the island and sat one of the stools, watching him dice and cut.
“Did I really fall asleep at that library place?” I asked, placing my hand on my hands.
“Yeah,” he laughed, “You fell right asleep in my lap. I had to carry you to the car.”
Things were frying in the pan now, filling the room with sweetness.
He turned and looked at me, “Do you not remember anything?”
“No, not after laying in the couch. Why?”
He smiled again, pouring whipped eggs into the pan. It complained loudly for a moment then fell silent, bubbling. “You must have been talking in your sleep then.”
My mouth dropped open. “What? What did I say?”
He looked at me and laughed. “Nothing too bad, don’t worry. You were just mumbling about colours and pastels. Something about an art show and a drawing of a dress?”
He tilted the pan, filling every edge with egg, and I watched. “Yeah...” He added pinches of salt and pepper, my eyes never leaving the colours swirling in the pale yellow of the egg. “There was an art show my art teacher wanted to display one of the drawings in. She was asking me about it the day I.... fell. I never gave her an answer.”
Silence fell over the kitchen as Jake froze. “Oh,” he finally said, folding the omelette over. It was a perfect golden yellow. He placed two pieces of white toast in a black toaster, the only black in the room.
I sighed, running my fingers through my hair. “It was a just a sketch, a rough sketch compared to some of my other drawings. It was a 1800s ball-gown, with lace up the front. The girl wearing it was a brunette. The dress moved in a sweeping motion as though she’d suddenly turned towards you. I’d sketched it at a Chapters, based off the cover of a book I’d seen. Only parts of it was in colour because I hadn’t completely finished it. The only reason my art teacher saw it was because I was short a figure sketch and decided to use it.”
The toast popped. Jake placed them on plates and put half the omelette beside each piece. I watched as he passed me forks and knives, then butter. Finally he carried the plates around to my side of the island, placing one in front of me.
“Thank you, Jake,” I said, “It looks amazing.”
“Of course.” He paused as he sat down beside me. “Do you wish you’d finished it?”
I stopped  buttering my toast. “Yeah. It could have been so much better, you know? The way my teacher gushed over it even though it wasn’t complete bothered me a little. It was as though she was giving me credit I didn’t deserve, in a way. I don’t think I can really explain it.”
Jake nodded, cutting his omelette into pieces although he didn’t lift them to his mouth. Then he stopped and just sat watching me, me with my buttered knife in one hand and my toast in the other.
“What?” I asked.
“I wish you didn’t remember. It would all be so much easier if you didn’t remember it all.”
I pulled the knife across my toast, spreading the butter thickly, nodding as I did so. “But then I wouldn’t be sitting here, in your kitchen, after having stolen your bed for the night.”
This made him smile. “You’re right.”
“Jake...” I started.
“Yeah?”
“I know you can’t tell me a lot of things,” I said to my toast, avoiding his eyes, “But yesterday, when you...” I trailed off, unable to finish my thought.
“When I kissed you?”
“What did that mean?” I glanced over at him and he was smiling. He tucked stray hair behind my ear before answering me.
“I honestly don’t know. It just felt right.”
“And that?” I asked, watching his hand falling away from my hair.
“That also felt right.” He was still smiling.
I shook my head and squished my eggs beneath my fork.
“Listen,” he said, placing his hand on my knee again, his voice serious, “I don’t know what it meant. But I’m not trying to confuse you.”
“You are though,” I sighed, my eyes never leaving my breakfast.
“I know I said no before, but what I’m trying to say is that I’m saying yes now.”
I didn’t look up from my plate, processing this. I wanted to ask him why, I wanted to know what had made him change his mind, I wanted to know why I should trust him this time. He’d said it’d felt right, though, and I was afraid to break that, because although I had this urge to push him away, I had this bigger urge to tell him that I was saying yes too.
When I looked over at him, he still hadn’t touched his food and was watching me. His patience with me nearly broke my heart.
“I just...” I paused, searching for the words.
“Yeah?”
“Can I just say... that I’ve been saying yes all along?” With this I looked him in the eye. His smile spread slowly across his handsome face. Then he leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. My smile was ear to ear as I leaned towards him and our lips met.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Chapter 19 (post two)

Pre-read note: MERRY CHRISTMAS. My present to you is some explanation to Annika's death. This section is pretty long and is sad for a Christmas post, but it explains a lot. 
Enjoy.
Chapter nineteen, section two:
I started to talk in the car ride back to school, and I talked and talked until my mouth was dry and yet the words were still spilling out.
My life story came tumbling out in bursts. There were memories that had come back slowly since the day I looked out that window and then there were memories that came without warning in that car ride, the ones brought on by telling the others. I told him of the places I’d lived from age three, the cars my family had own since I was five, the family Christmas parties from since I was eight. There was the day my dad brought home my hamster, the day that that hamster died, the day I opened a noisy box to a small, furry kitten face. Then there were the days of hiding in my room while my parents yelled and screamed below my feet, the nights when my dad drove away and my mother hid in the bedroom with the door locked. The day they sat me and my sister down and told us what they had decided; the day I realized I was just another stereotype and statistic:  a broken family.
Here, the tears started again. Jake looked me with his eyes all big and his mouth crooked like he was biting his tongue. He glanced at his hands on the steering wheel and back at me. When he carefully went to place his hand on my knee, I shook my head no. He nodded and watched the road again. Then I covered my face with my heads and my mouth started moving again.
There were summers spent at my grandmother's and summers spent with the aunt who lived in the middle of nowhere. There were Thanksgivings spent with grandparents and Thanksgivings spent eating Chinese food around the coffee table. There were Halloweens collecting candy with friends and Halloweens spent with Beth, handing out candy and reminiscing about the good old days of childhood. There were snow days spent shoveling the driveway and snow days spent reading books in bed until five. There were Christmases spent with family and Christmases spent with friends families, feeling out of place, knowing that if my family weren’t so complicated we wouldn’t be surrounded by someone else’s.
I told Jake of the family I knew inside out, the family I only saw a couple times a year, the family I used to know and the family I’d never met: grandparents and their histories; aunts and uncles that would come and visit; cousins I’d met only once and cousins I’d never met at all. The complexities throughout the years I tried to explain the best I could. These people did this, these things happened, these people decided this and these people decided that, these people didn’t talk to these people afterwards. Repeat for the other side of the family.
When I finally wiped my tears from my cheeks and took a deep breath, I looked out the windows and noticed I had no idea where we were. 
Jake, who had hadn’t said a word for the whole trip, was watching the road in a determined fashion. He had been nodding and uh huh-ing occasionally, but he’d let me ramble, and for that I silently thanked him.
When I asked him where we were going, he replied that he wasn’t quite sure yet. I almost pointed out that I was supposed to be back in residence by eleven since it was Saturday, but then I remembered Jake normally bent this rule anyways. So I watched the city around me, the sun only a slight glow on the one side of the sky as the moon hung shadow-like on the other and the buildings casting darkness across the streets as they sparkled in the low light.
This reminded me of the city I had lived in, and the next thing I knew, I was telling Jake the history of my hometown. Jake smiled at the right details and nodded at the sad points, and I watched it all. His eyes were the road’s but his ears were all mine. I watched his hands on the wheel, smiling as I rambled on.
We came to a building with a parking entrance and pulled up to the entrance. The barrier stood in our way until Jake fished an ID card out of his wallet and swiped it across a black box. We drove down into the basement of the building, a large cement parking space without another car in sight. We parked in a spot closest to a heavy set of metal doors, which we headed through.
I had stopped talking at this point, but Jake still hadn’t said a word. He led me up stairs and into sterile white halls.
“Where are we?”
“Just wait.”
He swung open a pair of sterile green doors and we walked onto hardwood into a dark room. Jake found a light switch on the side and soon lights flickered on. Only a couple lights lit the room, as though Jake had missed some switches, but it was enough to light the large room to see where we were going. It was as big as a church, with fifteen foot ceilings and wood detailing. It was as if we’d walked from a hospital into a 18th century university library. Bookcases lined the space in neat rows from one end of the room to another. They were dark and wooden, standing over eight feet tall. Jake silently led me down one of the aisles, almost to the very end. The shelves were covered in leather-bound books from about halfway upwards, and below were wooden filing cabinet-like drawers. We stopped and Jake opened one the drawers; I couldn’t make out the label in the low light. Past the shelves on the other side of the room I could see brown leather couches and a couple of tall, dark lamps, all lit by the moon light coming in three tall windows with thick panes of glass. When I looked back to Jake, he was shuffling through files. He slowly lifted one out, examining the date hand-printed on the corner. Then he handed it to me.
Thursday October 28th, 2010
I opened the file to find newspaper clippings.
School Shooting, One Death
Schoolgirl Lost in Shooting
Tragedy at Middleton High
Teen Killed in School Shooting
Then in the low light I noticed the pictures accompanying each one: two young girls, the one with blonde hair loose falling past her shoulders, her smile large but fake, her dark eyes large and sparkling. Me.
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach and bent forward a little. Jake grabbed me and led me over to one of the couches, where he sat down beside me. I ran my hands down my face, the folder open on my lap.
“Listen, New Wings,” Jake said slowly, “I know this is hard. But at the same time...”
I looked at him, his green eyes catching mine. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“I’m not trying to tell you anything,” he slid his hand over my knee, “I’m trying to help you.”
I lifted the first newspaper clipping up. It was black and white, cut from one of those low-budget local papers from my city. I could make the words out in the moonlight coming in from the windows. My stomach twisted when I saw my name and skimmed that part of the article. Then I learned how I’d died.
The noise I’d heard had been a gunshot, set off by a grade ten boy. There had been tension growing between rival groups of the grade tens and nines. One boy got into a fist fight with another, then the one had pulled a knife. That’s when another member of the group had pushed their way through the crowds in the hall, and pulled a gun from his jacket.
I remembered the hallway, the way you couldn’t see through the people. There had been noises, noises that I now realized were the boys shoving each other against lockers and others yelling. I remember the way silence had hit the group of teenagers, the way it seemed to knock the breath out of everyone, even me, even though I had had no idea what was going on. I remembered the way that everyone had moved away from something in the hall, backwards, forcing me up against the glass wall. I remember the noise of the gunshot. He’d shot the window by accident, simply shooting upwards to try and frighten the boy with the knife off of his friend. I remembered the shattering of the glass and the way my stomach knew what was happening before my mind did. I remembered the weight of falling backwards, knowing that I shouldn’t be possible, that something solid had been there only a moment ago. I remember a rush of wind, then I remember nothing. Three other students almost fell with me, but they grabbed people and people grabbed them. They were saved. One other girl fell with me, and was rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries. She'd been saved; it had been close, but she’d been saved too. It was me who’d fallen to my death.
I placed the newspaper article on top of the others and closed the folder on my lap. I sat still as stone, until I couldn’t take the tension inside me and I leaned over, placing my head on the folder on my knees. Jake removed his hand from my knee, then I felt him rub my back.
“New Wings...”
I didn’t answer.
“Oh, New Wings, I only wanted you to know it’s really over.”
The tension in my stomach rose to my throat, choking any words back. My eyes threatened tears again, but none fell. My head spun.
“Please, please just breath.”
I listened to Jake, taking a long shaking breath and pulling myself into a sitting position again. I looked over the dark room, the shelves casting shadows and the leather shining in the moonlight. Then my breath started to shake harder and harder.
“New Wings...”
The tears were falling again. I wondered how there could still be tears to fall, how they hadn’t already been all used up, but they defied me and my logic, dripping down my face.
Jake wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close to him. I sobbed quietly into his shoulder.
When I finally looked up, taking slow breaths and trying to stop shaking, Jake wrapped his hands around mine.
I caught his eye. “I never used to cry this much,” I sighed, wiping my cheeks.
He  nodded.
“I didn’t cry when my parents divorced or when my hamster died. I didn’t even shed a tear at my great-grandfather’s funeral.”
He nodded again.
I bit my tongue until I said, slowly, “I’m dead, aren’t I?”
“Yeah,” Jake said gently, “I’m sorry.”
The idea took a minute for me to process, and another minute for me to stomach.
Then I was shaking and Jake’s arms wrapped around me as the salt water soaked my face again.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Chapter 19 (post one)

Pre-note: This chapter was written a long time ago and just changed, so Gremikin, you may have already read pieces of it. However, it gives Jake's background story.
PLEASE NOTE: That I have not put the effort and research into Jake's background yet, so his story is not based on solid facts. Thanks.
Chapter nineteen, section one:
“What about this question: how old are you, Jake?”
We were sitting on the beach again, although the day was cloudy with a cool breeze.
“Eighteen.”
“No, I mean, how old are you?”
“I died in 1945.”
“That’s all I get?” I crossed my legs on the blanket, brushing sand off my knees.
“Are you asking for my life story?” Jake laughed a little, trying to lighten the mood.
“Come on,” I said, “Please?”
He repositioned himself on the blanket, crossing his legs like mine. He looked at me, the smile gone and his face set in his serious look. “I remember how I died only because I am a Guider. That is a burden that we have to carry. But since you remember, despite the fact you’re not supposed to, I will tell you my story.”
 Looking at the patterns of the fabric by his feet, Jake started, “I was born on June 29th, 1927. I lived in Holland, in the same small village from the day I was born to the day I died. I grew up during the Great Depression, and even though everyone helped each other out, we didn’t have much. The Second World War started when I was thirteen. It was terrifying, because we lived not too far from the German border and they invaded us quickly. Each day we lived in a town patrolled by Nazis. I was the oldest of four children; I had three sisters --”
 “How old were they,” I cut him off suddenly, “When you..?”
“Fifteen, twelve and nine.”
Pictures of Noel and Izzie filled my mind for a second, then he pulled me back from my thoughts into a war torn Europe. 
“The Nazis treated us horribly, even the girls. My mother was a nurse who was forced to work at our hospital treating Nazi soldiers. My mother used to be a really talkative, kind person, but after each day of work she’d come home not speaking a word.” He paused for a second, watching the waves lick the shore, and then continued, “Anyways, in 1945, the allies made progress. Our town secretly received the news that they were pushing the Germans back towards their border. My family, especially my parents, were so relieved. They thought we were going to survive the war. But, in September, the Germans began to panic. On the 25th of September, 1945, they decided our village wasn’t worth keeping. We hid in our cellar from the troops, the screams and the gunshots outside, but they found us anyways. My whole family was forced to stand in a line outside the little house we’d lived in all our lives. We were shot one by one: my sisters, my mom, me and then my father.”
Jake paused here. I didn’t know if he was going to say more. He seemed to be back in Holland surrounded by German troops.
Silence fell. I pulled my knees up into my arms and dug my toes in the sand.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, trying to catch his eye, but he was watching my feet being covered in sand. I think he tried to say something back, but was lost for words. His face was blank and distant.
I laid my forehead on my knees, pulling myself into a ball. My thoughts were a jumble of distant memories from my childhood and pictures of a family lined up in front of a cottage, awaiting their death.  
The tears came without warning. They soaked my navy dress with little black dots.
I cried silently, so Jake couldn’t hear, but didn’t try to stop them.
The splashing of the waves was the only indicator of time passing. The wind blew my hair into knots and the sand to dance around my ankles.  Eventually someone put their hand on my back.
I jumped, startling Jake, who pulled his hand away quickly. My dress was soaked, my face was a mess, my nose was running and my hair was everywhere. I tried unsuccessfully to wipe my face with my hands, but only managed to cover myself in little bits of sand.
The tears, which had stopped momentarily, returned with a steady beat. I watched them drop onto my dress, one by one.
I saw Jake from the corner of my eye as he reached over and ran his fingers along my cheek, catching my tears. His hand lingered at my chin, and then gently lifted my face up.
He’d moved right beside me, his thigh almost touching mine, and our faces were only inches apart.  My tears finally stopped, but my eyes never left his.
The next thing I knew, his hand was back under my chin as his lips brushed mine. Without thinking, I leaned towards him ever so slightly, and we kissed.