Home & Safe

Prologue

When Anne Link was 4 years old, She attended preschool at New Sun's, a school relatively close to home. She walked every day, hand in hand with her mother. 

Today she had chosen a pink poofy dress, all by herself. It had pretty yellow flowers that shimmered in the light, and mommy had done her hair with ribbons, capturing the beautiful chocolate brown waves in twirls of lavender. 

"Mumma, in my dream there was a big radio, and it was playing soft music!" she giggled to her mom "i cant rememba what it was playing.." she said thought fully. 

"That's okay honey, you can tell me af-" She started, but was cut off by a high wail from behind them. 

Automatically, Mum turned around and let go of Anne's hand and rushed to help the small blond boy with floppy hair, who tripped over his untied shoes and fell down, scarping his entire calf. It was bleeding pretty badly, and Anne's big brown eyes got wide with fear. 

"Annie, were going home." Mumma said "Come on sweetie, I'm going to take you home, fix up your leg, ill even make you some chocolate milk! How's that sound, hun?" She said. He couldn't go to school like that, even Anne agreed it would take at least 100 mumma kisses for the booboo to get better. 

After mumma cleaned the scrape, she made chocolate milk, just like she promised! 

"Now, before you can have this" She said setting the chocolate milk on the counter, and looked down at the both of the kids, looking at it how only children could "Annie, remember the magic words, and...?" Se said, looking at the boy questioningly 

"Luke Robewt Hemmings, Miss Lady!" He said, as if he had practiced it 10 times every night with his mum when he was 3.. witch he did. "Can i please haves the chocolate now?" he gave Anne's mum a huge smile, because his daddy said that smiles win over the girlies, and he wanted to win so he could get the chocolate already! 

"Alright Lukey, my name is Maria" she said and gave Luke the one with a blue straw, "And maybe you could teach Annie here, how to say please! Your very polite, honey!" She said with a beautiful smile, her green eyes shone with genuine amusement as Luke blew bubbles in his milk and laughed at how Anne widened her eyes at the mess. 

He stayed looking at her, how her brown eyes looked just like chocolate, and he wondered: If he likes chocolate, Does he like her eyes? He decided he did, they looked sweet and soft. He didnt like her hair, how it was tied up, his mumma always had her hair down, and thats how he liked it because his Mumma was beautiful! 

So, he reached over and undid the ribbons, letting her hair fall down over her shoulders and almost to her waist, it was even better than her eyes! The brown was streaked with caramel, like in the cookies his family eats on Christmas, and it was wavy and it looked incredibly soft. If he liked her eyes, he loved her hair.

"Why did you take my ribbons?" She asked, looking sad. Luke thought that he didn't like it when she was sad, her eyes got darker and her smile ran away, making his little heart break with each second she wasn't laughing. 

"You look a lot prettier without them, really how would i look with my hair in ribbons?" he said, placing the ribbons in his hair, making a weird face. She giggled at this and her laugh sounded really nice too, like some of the songs you would hear to fall asleep, it was peaceful and calming. 

"You would look crazy! Boys don't wear ribbons!" She said and from that day forth, Luke and Anne walked to school together. They talked about their favorite cartoons, and how the colours in the sky changed when it was night, and they wondered together and dreamed the same dreams. Luke always wanted to see Annie smiling, so he called her BanAnnie witch made her giggle like crazy every time they saw each other. 

The years went by, and they never stopped talking, walking, dreaming and playing together. They were inseparable and their parents started having Christmas partied together, so the kids wouldn't be all sad that they couldn't see each other that day. When Luke was 10 and Annie 9, the boys in his class kept telling him that he was a geek for hanging out with Annie, because hanging out with girls wasn't cool. He got really mad and punched Gabe in the nose, because he had said she was 'an ugly freak'. And when he was in the principles office, looking down at his hands, he didn't regret anything he did. He had defended BanAnnie and that was worth getting in trouble.

He remembered his dad saying that love was trouble. It was being willing to get your hands dirty, and your eyes watery. Right now, he was in a lot of trouble, but that was okay because he was happy Annie was okay and that was all that mattered. He asked himself: Do i love her? And he didn't think twice before deciding he absolutely did.