Chapter 6: I Want You With Me Now & Forever

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It was a week after the Ghostface attack and Amber and Tara were out going for a walk together. It was a perfect day in late March, sunny but not too hot with a bit of a breeze, just enough to make the wind refreshing. Amber and Tara were walking in the park and took a seat on a park bench. The couple had been reflecting on their relationship; how they met, how they started dating ect ever since the attack. What if the masked attacker had killed one of them? Could they even handle the heartbreak of seeing their soul mate struggle to take their last breath while being mutilated by a knife? People are fragile, like glass, and some things can be so traumatic that a lifetime of healing can't put the pieces back together like it was before. Amber and Tara were at one of those moments of silence in conversation, looking into each other's eyes.

"I was thinking about how we met ever since the attack," Tara began, "it was in grade three... I don't think we were in the same class until third grade."

"Yep, it was grade three," Amber said, joining in the reminiscing with her girlfriend.

When Amber and Tara first saw each other they each instantly had a crush on each other. The teacher gave the kids assigned seats, but there wasn't any particular coherent order such as seating by alphabetical order, and Amber and Tara were assigned to sit next to each other. Tara was the first to introduce herself to Amber, but Amber pretended to not be interested in her at first.

Amber was nervous, and one way to avoid the fear of rejection is to never try something, so she tried her best to avoid acknowledging her feelings for Tara. But, school was boring, so when Tara passed her a notebook during class with "Hi :)" written on it Amber chose to write back, "Hey" and then passed the notebook back.

During recess and lunch Amber kept to herself, but during class Tara was able to get to know Amber through passing her notebook back and forth. Tara was one of the few people Amber wasn't mean to at the time. Tara would hang out with Mindy and Chad during the breaks in the school day but she wanted so badly to be with Amber. Somedays before bed Tara would take out her notebook and reread the conversations Amber and her had during classes, which made her young heart race and hug her pillow wishing it was Amber.

One day, in December, the teacher had given the class an activity, to write what they wanted from Santa this Christmas. The teacher then got each kid, one at a time while remaining in their seat, to say what they were asking Santa to get them this year for Christmas. Woodsboro was a lukewarm practicing Catholic town, not a place known to be religious, but virtually everyone came from a Catholic family with a minority of Protestant Christians. Everything was going as planned until it was Amber's turn.

A shy and embarrassed Amber simply said, "We don't celebrate Christmas," which the teacher, now surprised, had obviously overlooked this possibility, then told her, "oh I understand! Okay Tara you go next."

During lunch break that day Wes and a couple of his friends came over to Amber, who was sitting by herself, and said loud enough for the other kids around to hear, "Hey, it's the girl that's too mean for Santa to even bring her coal."

Tara, who was with Mindy and Chad, immediately froze and looked over to see the confrontation taking place halfway across the playground.

"Santa isn't real, stupid," Amber shot back at Wes, while an angry Wes, who still believed in Santa, assured her he was real. "It's just your mommy and daddy playing pretend," Amber continued, which clearly hurt Wes's feelings. Tara started walking over towards them, to make sure Amber was going to be okay. One thing Tara couldn't stand to see was someone getting bullied, especially not Amber.

"Well at least my parents love me enough to pretend," Wes replied, now smiling that he was able to come up with a good response. He knew that one would hurt.

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