Her Mysterious Ways

Chapter 19: Nothing Will be Enough

"No!" Andy yelled at me, although she was giggling.

"Oh come on, what's so bad about it?" I made another attempt to grab the mysterious black book, but failed again.

"It's... personal." She got out before climbing over the couch to escape my arms that were flying towards her.

"Oh sure. What could a little notebook like that have in it that's so personal? Is it your diary or something?" I teased. We were upstairs in the family room I guess you could call it, while I tried and failed to see inside the notebook that she tightly clutched in her skinny arms.

"Are you kidding me?" She stopped behind the couch so I halted for a second, plotting how to hurdle over the couch. "I'm not that kind of girl. You should know that."

"Well I would probably learn a lot more about you if you let me see that book." I pointed towards the notebook in her hands, flinching to make her make a move.

"Well I guess you'll have to deal with not knowing me then." She gave a crooked smile that made me stand up straight for a second. She took advantage of it and booked it to the stairs, but when you play football for three years, it does you well, so I jumped and tackled her to the floor, careful not to hurt her, of course.

"Cole, you are the most difficult person to be friends with." She said half serious, half sarcastic.

"Why thank you." I beamed just to bug her.

"Could you get off of me?" She tried to push me off, but I didn't budge.

"I will for a kiss." I smirked, lowering my head so that her breath tickled my nose.

"Get over yourself." She continued to struggle underneath me. I was balancing on my elbows, so she tried to push one so that I would fall, but it did nothing.

"Okay fine. How about that book that you have your little fingers so tightly wrapped around?" I raised my eyebrows and waited for an answer.

"In your dreams, pretty boy." She joked, and with one swift movement, her head ducked under my arm and she was free. She stopped at the staircase, flashed a quick smile, and flew down the stairs to where Gracie, Grandma, and Mrs. Naomi were looking at an old photo album of ours.

A few days previous, Gracie found them in my closet and wouldn't let them out of her sight. It was pictures from after the day that my mom left and on until we filled the album about a year ago. I have no idea why Gracie was so in love with the pictures of her when she was little and me when I was about twelve years old and on, but she did. Maybe it reminded her of a much simpler time, when we had money and nice clothes and real food. A better time.

"Wow Cole, did you take this?" Andy asked when I was at the bottom of the staircase. She held up the book and pointed to a picture of Gracie in the summertime a few years before.

It was nice out that day, I remembered. The sun was shining and so was Gracie's smile. We were on a picnic, just the two of us. Grandma had to work that day, so we packed peanut butter and banana sandwiches and headed to a pond that wasn't too far away from the house. I took my camera, hoping to see some ducks or something that I could take some pictures of, and there were, but the best picture was the one I took of Gracie. She was looking at birds flying in the sky when I took it. That was one of the good days.

"Yeah, I took it." I scratched the back of my head awkwardly. I always found it weird when people that I knew looked at my photographs in front of me.

"It's really good. Like, amazing." She stared at it like it was a new language, and maybe it was to her, but to me, it was like the only language that I had ever fully understood.