Every Breath You Take

40

He remembered...

I mean, I guess anyone would remember being forced by a six-year-old girl to watch The Princess Bride on replay with her, but he didn't seem like he remembered it miserably at all... And now that I think about it, he'd been calling me buttercup for as long as I could remember—for as long as I'd been in love with Princess Buttercup from the movie.

My lips curled into a little smile.

"Ah-ha! I knew it! You soooo like lover boy! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!" Casey swung her head sassily from side-to-side, "And you thought you could be all mysterious about it too. I don't think so, chica. I know you so damn well!"

"What?!" I whisper-yelled, "Where the heck did you get that idea?"

Casey smirked, "I'm not blind, honey. I see everything."

"I think you're delusional."

"Mm-hm, that's what a guilty person would say."

Rolling my eyes playfully at her, I flopped back onto my bed so I was staring at the white ceiling above me, "He's just a friend, Cas..."

...Was he though?

Wait! Where the heck did that question come from? Shut up! Shut up! No, he was just a friend. I mean there was just no way I could ever like Kaden Alexander Reyes. It was Kaden! The idea was just... It was just...

"She's right, Emmy." Nolan whispered from the space he occupied by the foot of my bed, "Something's happening... You're different..."

Sitting up, alarmed, I looked down at Nolan who lay on his back, his hands resting beneath his head as he stared up at the ceiling, "What do you mean different? I'm the same person I was a month ago! Two years ago for that matter!"

"You're different," Nolan laughed a little under his breath, gently tipping his head towards me with an odd gleam in his blue eyes, "Not in a bad way though..."

I was different? How was I any different than I was before Kaden came? I still loved blueberry pancakes, hot chocolate, fuzzy blankets and socks, and Tiny Tina III. I still had nightmares and missed mom just the same. So how was I different?

"I second that statement." Casey chirped, crawling towards Nolan's nest of blankets and plopping down next to him.

"I don't get how I'm any different though..." Lifting my hand from the bed, I examined my palm closely, at each crease and line that hadn't changed a bit in the last seventeen years.

Nolan laughed, shaking his head at me, "You don't understand now, but you will."

"Yeah." Casey agreed, yawing obnoxiously and snapping her sleeping mask onto her face and burrowing into the covers beside Nolan.

Oh, that little tutu wearing traitor!

"Hey!" I pouted, "I hate it when you guys keep secrets from me."

"It's not a secret, baby, it's as plain as day if you ask me, but you're a smart girl," Nolan winked playfully, snapping on his own sleeping mask, "You'll figure it out soon enough."

Figure what out? I was no different than a week ago!

I would've argued further on the matter, but frankly, I was too exhausted to say anything else to them, plus, once those two had made up their minds, it was probably just as hard to persuade them otherwise as it was for me. We were all so darn stubborn...

"Why don't you just sleep on the bed?" I laughed, examining the two with their matching sleeping masks.

"My back is so sore, I need to sleep on the ground and I'm sure you can imagine why Casey is here."