Chasing Shadows

01 Best Friends

R E A G A N 

Climbing the trellis up to Alec's bedroom window was as easy for me as breathing. I'd been using this trellis since we were seven. I had received my fair share of blisters and knocked off chunks of peeling paint over the years. My hand knew every nock in the wood, every part that needed sanding. His parents would just laugh and watch me climb up even though their door was always open for me. The front door was more accessible, but the trellis felt right.

When we were children, it was an adventurous climb that we could sprinkle with our imaginations. We pretended we were pirates heading up to the crow's nest, or maybe I was a knight climbing a tower to save the prince. It even served as the occasional magic beanstalk. Now, at eighteen, it was merely a comfort. Yet my heart thrilled each time I climbed the trellis. I knew what was waiting at the top. It's not like it would ever change, but it didn't matter. My heart pounded in my chest, and I couldn't help the smile on my face. As always, Alec left the window unlocked for me. I pushed the window open and swung a leg in.

"Hey!" I called.

As I saw Alec turn his head to look at me from the seat at his desk. My heart did a backflip. My palms, so dry a moment ago, were sweating now. There was something within me that wanted badly to run to him and hold him tightly, never letting go. But as I slipped into his bedroom and was greeted with his winning smile, I kept myself steady. Best friends, and nothing more.

"You're late," Alec said, shaking the dark hair out of his eyes. Those eyes. They were what had kept all the girls in our school drooling at his feet. He had been blessed with two differently colored eyes; one blue, one green. As they sparkled, I felt the need to look away. I mentally drooled over him.

I cleared my throat and rubbed the back of my neck "Yeah. It's been a...rough morning," I said, not wanting to get into it. It seemed like every morning at my house was rough nowadays. At least I had this one respite.

"I heard," Alec replied sympathetically.

My face grew warm. Of course, Alec heard. We had grown up next door to each other, and so when my parents fought, all the screams and hurt, Alec could hear it. I was ashamed anyone had to listen to the insults thrown around my house. No one should have to listen to us air our dirty laundry.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

"It's always the same thing," I said, plopping down on his unmade bed.

The sheets were light blue and white to match the wall and trim. As I sat, I caught a whiff of Alec's shampoo wafting from his pillowcase. It's comforting to be here after listening to my parents scream at each other. I wished I could just curl up and stay here, basking in the comfort that was Alec Mason.

He turned his computer chair around to face me fully. Behind him Facebook was up on his computer screen, and the pause screen of a game flashed on his TV. If my mom caught such a thing in my bedroom, she'd cut electricity to my room and make me read by candlelight.

"I'm sorry, Reagan." Alec looked me dead in the eye. His expression was so earnest and caring, it made me want to hug him and fall deep into his warmth. Instead, I nodded and began to pick at my cuticles.

"Yeah, well, by the end of the summer it isn't going to matter, is it?"

"True. You'll be off to college, starting a new life for yourself."

"I guess a state school twenty minutes away is some sort of a new life. It's no fancy college in Delaware." The University of Delaware may as well have been on the other side of the world from North Carolina.

I turned my attention to the TV on which he had paused a racing game. It was one of our favorites that we had bought when we were ten. I smiled at the memory of us dragging our mothers to the store so that we could pool together our allowances just to buy this one game.