Count On Me

•• CHAPTER ONE ••

•• CHAPTER ONE ••

The warm, bright sun fluttered through the curtains and shined down on Carter's face causing her to wake up. She groaned as she covered her eyes with her arm and tried her hardest to fall back to sleep. Carter hated mornings and always tried to sleep in.

A loud knock sounded on her bedroom door and Carter pretended like she didn't hear it because she knew it was just her roommate, Shawn, trying to get her out of bed. "Carter!" Shawn sang out as he continued to knock on her door.

"Go away, Shawn!" Carter shouted back and rolled onto her stomach as she covered her head with a pillow.

"Can't do that, because today is the most important days of our lives!" He shouted as he bursted into her room and jumped on top of her. Carter erupted into a fit of laughter as Shawn started to tickle her and she tried to push him away.

"Okay, okay, I'm awake!" She gasped in between laughing and Shawn chuckled as he flopped down next to her with a huge grin on his face.

"I can't believe we're actually graduating college today." He admitted in disbelief and Carter giggled as she nodded her head in agreement. "We've been roommates in this shitty apartment for four years now, Carter. What am I gonna do without you when I move out next month?" He asked her and Carter felt her heart ache at the thought of not living with Shawn anymore.

Carter and Shawn had known each other since kindergarten when Shawn had asked Carter to play 'family' with him and they instantly became best friends. Growing up, they couldn't be any more different from each other even if they tried. Carter was the outgoing, popular cheerleader in high school and Shawn was the average guy who loved to work with computers. But, aside from their differences, they had been best friends for almost seventeen-years and Shawn was moving to New York in July to start his new job as an intern at one of the biggest tech companies in the country and Carter was going to be stuck in Chicago, working at the local hospital as a pediatric nurse. With Shawn moving so far away, Carter feared that their friendship was going to end, and she would lose her best friend.

Carter frowned as she tried to push that thought out of her mind and turned her head to look at Shawn. "Well, you'll just have to get a girlfriend who will clean up after your messy ass." She teased as she jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom with Shawn chasing after her.

"I'm gonna get you for that!" Shawn threatened jokingly as Carter quickly closed and locked the bathroom door in a fit of laughter. "Hurry up and get ready or we'll be late to our own graduation, and I am not going to take the blame from your Mother when she asks why we we're late!" He shouted as he retreated to his own room to get ready and heard Carter giggle as the shower turned on.

Once Shawn's bedroom door was shut, he leaned against it and stared at his room. He smiled at the picture of Carter and him on his nightstand and thought back to when that picture was taken. It was four-years-ago, on Carter's eighteenth birthday. He threw her a surprise birthday party in his parent's basement, and it was filled with tons of their closest friends. In the picture, she had her arms wrapped tightly around his neck as she kissed his cheek while Shawn held onto her grinning like a fool. Whenever he had a girl over to their apartment and they saw that picture, they automatically assumed that Carter was his girlfriend. After assuring them that she wasn't, he always felt a twinge of disappointment after telling them.

Shawn used to be in love with Carter back in high school, but quickly pushed his feelings aside once he realized that they were never going to be anything more than friends and Shawn was fine with that. But he would sometimes think about what would happen if they were ever to date. Shawn had seen Carter date at least three guys throughout their friendship and she always seemed like the perfect girlfriend, but the relationships would never last. He wondered what it would be like to date Carter, but quickly shook the thought from his mind and started to get ready, determined to not think about Carter in that way again.