Broken Glass, Broken Hearts part 105

"She used to put her hands in a fist under chin when she was thinking really hard, and then when she figured out whatever she was pondering, she would move her fist away quickly, and her chin would hit her desk." I laughed, remembering this, and replied, "And when she was driving, she would always vocalize all her motions."

"Reverse," Tammy replied, laughing. I smiled, "Accelerate."

"BRAKE!" we yelled together. We both broke into a fit of laughter, and Tammy sighed and said, wistfully, "I miss her." I looked at my feet, tucked in beneath me. "Me too." She sighed again. "You should call them now," she said. "Now or never." I smiled, "Dustin would've said that."

"She would have, yea." I sighed, closing my eyes, listening to Tammy's quiet breathing, Jake's music softly spilling up the stairs. "Ok," I said, "I'll talk to you later, Tammy."

"Talk to you later, Ang." And I hung up the phone and picked up the number I had meant to dial.

My dad was on the phone when I left house. I don't know why, but I just couldn't seem to be able to sit still. How could I sit there, and just act casual, when my whole family was there, in the room, as if we had been like that forever? And so I had left the house, gone for a walk. I hadn't really had any destination, and certainly hadn't been intending on going to the tree house, but I found myself on the path that headed toward it anyway. I walked slowly past the creek, watching the water as it rushed over the rocks, pushing twigs and leaves along with it. Why was it in such a hurry? Why was everyone in such a hurry? I thought about my family, now, and then. We had been in a hurry then, always desperate to move on to a new location, always looking forward to the next activity. Now, though, we all stood there, smelling the roses we had always driven past.

The tree house was really small, when I really looked at it, instead of Angela. It was a simple wooden structure, and not too far above the ground, probably only four feet- and nestled in branches and the trunk so that there really was no chance of it breaking under anyone's weight. I stared at the Orlando Bloom poster and laughed. I was laying their like that, laughing and staring at a poster of Orlando Bloom, when a voice said, "Pardon me."

He was laughing when I walked up- laying in my tree house, alone, laughing. "Pardon me," I said, smiling slightly. He shot up and turned to face me. Seeing my puzzled expression, he broke out into a fit of laughter, laying back down. I shook my head, climbing into the tree house. I lay down next to him and when he stopped laughing, we lay there in silence for a moment, both of our eyes watching Orlando Bloom's eternally unmoving face. "Gosh," I said, after the silence had stretched to half a minute, "He sure is a hunk, dontcha' think?" Tyler broke into a fit of laughing again, and I grinned, turning my head so I could watch his laughing face.

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