“Hello, Jack, is my Tim awake yet?” Tim’s mom asked.

“Yup, we just woke up,” I said and looked at the clock, realizing that it was almost 11:30.

“You just woke up?” she asked. “Have you looked at the time?”

“I just did, but you know us, Mrs. Dillon. Besides, Katie’s visiting too, so we were catching up with what everyone has been doing.”

“Oh, I get it. Well, can I talk to my son?” she asked.

“Hang on, I’ll go get him,” I said and set down the phone. “Hey, Tim, your mom’s on the phone,” I told him, and he went to answer it.

Katie walked in the room, and asked me, “Who in their right mind would call this early in the morning?”

“Look at the clock,” I answered her, “It’s almost 11:30.”

“Well, I’m gonna go get in the shower,” she said, “and then we can finish the pizza for lunch.” She walked out of the room at the same time that Tim came back in.

“Mom said that she would pick me up around 5,” he told me. “She also wants to make sure she sees Katie when she gets here.”

“Yeah, I figured she’d want to I said and smiled. Then added, “Katie’s in the shower. Let’s go warm up the pizza,” and started to walk out the door and down the stairs. As I put the pizza in the microwave, the phone rang again.

“Hello, is Jack there?” a familiar voice said.

“Hi Lexy,” I replied. “Why would you ask if I was here, when you know there’s only two of us who live here?”

“I didn’t think of that,” she responded, and knew she was blushing.

“So, what’s up?” I asked, and looked over at Tim, who was smiling at me. I turned away, as if telling him to mind his own business.

“Well, I just wanted to make sure that you were OK after the fight at the alley yesterday.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Oh, OK, that’s good.”

“Well, Tim’s still here, and we just woke up.”

“That’s how me and Jen are when one of us sleeps over,” she said giggling. “Well, I better go,” she added, “I still have to finish my homework.”

“OK, bye, Lexy.”

“Oh, um, Jack, can you meet me in Study Hall tomorrow?”

“Sure, why?”

“I just need to talk to you about the paper.”

”OK, see you tomorrow.”

“Bye, Jack.”

“Bye,” I said, and hung up the phone. I turned around, and Tim was still there smiling. Katie had now joined us, and she was smiling at me also.

“SOOOOOO, what’s up with this Lexy girl?” Katie asked me.

“Nothing,” I answered. “She’s just a friend.”

“A friend who calls you for no reason?” Tim asked me teasingly.

“Shut up,” I said and smacked him lightly on the arm. “She was calling to make sure I was OK after the fight.”

“Did she call Jake too? He was the one who got hit,” Katie said.

“Oh, just eat your pizza,” I said and went upstairs to get dressed.

The next day, I met Lexy in study hall, just like I had promised. “So, what did you want to talk about?” I asked curious. I was the editor of the school paper, so it weird that she knew something about the paper that I didn’t.

“Well, I lied yesterday, when I said I wanted to talk about the paper.” I just raised my eyebrows at her. She took something out of her backpack, and looked up at me. “I was searching the Internet yesterday, and found something interesting. I thought you should look at it.” She handed it to me, and as I looked down, all the painful memories came rushing back to me.