"You were supposed to take care of the bills." My mom yelled at my dad.
"You know what Susan? I can't do everything around here...you can do something too!" My dad yelled back.
I shut my door and turned my cd player on full blast. Limp Bizkit's "Nookie" blared out of the speakers and i sang along at the top of my voice. I figured that if I could sing loud enough I wouldn't be able to hear my parents fighting.
I got so into the music that I was jumping around my room in my own little mosh pit when suddenly the music stopped.
I turned around to see my sister Julie standing by the cd player with the phone in her hand, "I'd hate to break up your little concert but the phone is for you."
I went over and picked up the phone and she walked out of my room.
"Hello?" I asked.
"Hey, it's Zac."
"Hey Zac, what's up?"
"Well, Isaac got back from college and some of his friends here invited us all to a party and i was wondering if you wanted to go?" Zac asked.
"Well, sure I guess. Who all is going?" I asked.
"Well, me and you, Isaac and Julie, and Taylor and Tara."
"Wait a minute my sister is going?" I asked in horror.
"Yeah, Ike invited her."
"Ok, well even though I'm not to fond of Tara, I'll go and keep you company....I'll be over in 10 minutes."
"Bye."
"Bye"
*****
"This sucks!" I yelled over the loud music,
"Wanna leave?"
"What?" Zac yelled back.
"Let's leave!"
"Ok!"
Zac followed me through the huge crowd of people to the door. We stepped out into the night and I breathed in a breath of fresh air.....after being in a crowded room with about half the people smoking this was a nice change.
Once I'd gone over to the Hanson's house (with Julie at my heels) we had all walked to the party since it was so close. The walk over there was nice but the party was beyond revolting. 100 or so people in a tiny house guzzling beer and doing drugs didn't qualify as a good time to me....Julie on the other hand enjoyed it. Even though she was younger then most of the kids there she joined right in with them. I'd even seen her drinking a beer! Sometimes I wonder if we're really even related.
Thank God Zac wasn't into that partying stuff either, or else I'd have no one to talk to. Isaac was with Julie and her new friends....and Taylor and Tara had disappeared upstairs and were now doing God-knows-what.
"Where do you want to go?" Zac asked.
"Home?" I suggested.
We walked in silence back to the Hanson's house. We didn't go inside though...without talking we walked straight back to the guy's tree house. Everyone always hung out there when they weren't quite ready to go home or when they were bummed out.
We'd all pitched in to decorate the tree house with movie and music posters. Sometimes it seemed more like home than our houses....we'd even spend the night in it sometimes.
"I don't know why we even went to that party to begin with." I pointed out to Zac, "We hate those kinds of parties."
"I know. Did you see your sister?" Zac asked.
I nodded, "She's going to have a serious hang-over when she gets up tomorrow."
"No offense Alison but you're sister is kinda...out there, ya know?" Zac asked.
"Yeah, she's always been different but tonight she was acting really weird." I said.
There was silence. 'What's wrong?' I wondered, 'This never happens! We always have something to say.'
"I don't really want to go home....want to stay here tonight?" I asked.
"Sure." He agreed.
We both reached for the sleeping bags rolled up in the corner causing us to bump heads.
"Are you ok?" Zac whispered looking into my eyes.
"Yeah, I'm fine." I whispered back, "What about you?"
In answer to my question he leaned down and kissed me. At first I was shocked but then felt the need to kiss him back.
When we finally pulled away I looked at him, "What was that?" I asked.
"I don't know." He said quietly.
"Let's go to bed." I said quickly trying to avoid his stare. It was to weird having kissed Zac...I mean he was my best friend and I would never think of him in that way.
I quickly grabbed a sleeping bag and crawled into it, pulling the covers up around my neck. I tried as hard as I could to fall asleep but I kept thinking about the kiss.
Why had he done that and why had I kissed him back? I mean, there had to be some kind of feeling there if I kissed him back, but I didn't love Zac like that. I loved him like a brother. I worried myself to sleep that night with Zac in a sleeping bag right beside me. I made sure i wasn't facing him and finally drifted off to sleep.
We never told anyone about what happened in the tree house that night, and we never talked about it again. I guess, it's just one of those things you're supposed to try to forget but for some reason I couldn't stop thinking about it.
