“Okay, everyone,” Justin’s dad, Randy says. It is now ten-thirty, and he is about to say how we’re splitting up, “This year, I was thinking that we could split up like this. I’ll take Brooklyn and Justin with me, and Lynn and Sara can take Jonathan and Carlos. Is that cool with everyone?” Justin and Brooklyn look at each other and smile. This is going to work out just fine.

“Yeah, this’ll work.” Lynn says.

“And we’re going to Surfside, right?” Justin asks. Surfside is the only mall in Gulf Shores, and it is a really big mall. They are working on a new mall that’s supposed to be bigger, though.

“That’s the only mall here, Justin.” Brooklyn says. He sticks his tongue out at her, and she pulls down on it.

“Ow!” He exclaims, and covers his mouth. She gives him an evil smile. Justin and Brooklyn have been friends since they were three years old and in preschool. They went through the whole girls are gross and boys are gross, and they even experienced their first kiss together. Of course, that was after they were watching a movie and some people kissed, mouths closed, and they wanted to see how it felt. After it happened, they decided that it wasn’t as exciting as they made it seem in the movie. Justin and Brooklyn were only eight years old when that happened. “That hurts!”

“Duh! It’s supposed to.”

“You two stop it.” Randy says.

“Sorry.” Justin and Brooke say at the same time. The two families were so close that it seemed like one big family with one dad, two moms, one daughter, and three sons. Justin and Brooke are like brother and sister, and would never think of dating each other.

“So, whatcha gonna get me?” Justin asks as we walk through the mall with his father.

“I’m not telling you! I have twenty bucks to spend on you and I’m gonna spend it well.” Brooklyn says.

“You don’t know what you’re getting me do you?”

“Not a clue. Don’t worry, though. You are getting something from me for Christmas. I mean, it’s Christmas. I have to get you something.” She says, putting an arm around his shoulder. He copies the action.

“Yeah, just like I have to get you something.” He says.

“Exactly. So, what do you want anyway?”

“I dunno. What do you want?”

“I dunno.”

“Cool, we won’t know what we want together.”

“Yep, just like every other Christmas.”

That evening, everyone splits up into their own separate rooms to wrap and tag the gifts they had gotten for each other. Brooklyn knew to lock her door because Justin seems to like snooping around the house while everyone is wrapping gifts. She had bought him a chain with a cross on it, that is almost identical to hers for him to remember her by if she ever went away. It had taken her a while to decide to buy that for him.

“We’re going to get a Christmas tree tonight, Brooke.” Justin says the next afternoon, bouncing into Brooklyn’s room. She is sitting on her bed, reading Anne of Green Gables.

“Really?” She asks her eyes lighting up.

“Yeah! You act like you’ve never had a Christmas tree before.” He says, sitting next to her. She looks down sadly.

“That’s because I haven’t.” She says quietly.

“Your dad never got a Christmas tree for your family?” She shakes her head. Justin knew about how hard life was for Brooklyn, but he vaguely knew about it. “That’s too bad.” He says, putting an arm around her. “But look on the bright side. This year you do get a Christmas tree, and my dad said that we could pick it out. Last time he let me pick the tree was when I was six, and I picked a tree too big for the door.” Justin says, and Brooklyn smiles. She smiled with the same sad look in her eyes, but she smiled nonetheless. Her friend smiles back. “Let’s go downstairs and watch TV. It’s boring up here. How can you just sit up here and read? Let’s go!” Justin takes the book from her hands, and pulls her up. They race down the stairs to the living room.

“Okay, since you’ve never had a Christmas tree,” Justin says to Brooklyn as they walk ahead of his father, “I’ll help you out. We have to pick the best one this year, you know? I mean, one that fits through the door.” Justin says, and Brooklyn laughs.

“It can’t be all that hard.” She says. “I’ve seen the Christmas specials, and they make it seem pretty easy. All you do is find a tree that’s not too puny, and will fit through the door.” She says, eyeing her friend, “Like, that one.” She points to a tree, off in a corner. See it’s not too big, and not too small. It’s actually perfect.” She says as they walk over to it.

“I thought you said you’ve never done this before!”

“It’s not a math problem, Justin.” She says. They get the tree, and tie it to the top of the car. “At least the tree fits through the door.” Brooklyn says, looking at Justin, and smiling brightly.

Christmas Morning...

Brooklyn walks into the kitchen. “Merry Christmas, Brooke.” Lynn says, and Brooklyn turns around. She is sitting at the table, giving Jonathan his milk.

“Merry Christmas to you, too.” She says, and grabs a zip-lock bag. She opens the freezer, and fills the bag up with ice.

“What are you doing?” Brooklyn’s mom asks, walking into the kitchen with Carlos in her arms.

“I, um, I have a headache.”

“Oh, okay.” She says, and her daughter runs out of the kitchen and upstairs to Justin’s room.

She slips into his room, and closes the door. She can’t tell which side Justin’s back is turned, so she picks a side randomly. She tiptoes over to one side of his bed, and slowly lifts up the comforter. Justin is staring right back at her smiling evilly. “Merry Christmas, Brooke.” He says, and sprays her with the ice cold water in the water gun he had hidden under the covers with him. She screams, and starts pulling the ice out of the bag that she had, and starts throwing it at him. “You thought I didn’t know you were coming up here, did you? I came downstairs and saw you getting the ice so I ran back up here and filled up the good ol’ water gun.” He says, still shooting at her. Seeing that she had lost, Brooklyn runs out of the room screaming. Justin chases her out. They run downstairs, and smack right into Justin’s dad. Justin drops water gun behind him.

“What are you doing?” He asks.

“Um...” Brooklyn says. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“No, no, see, you don’t usually come down soaking wet. Justin, give me the water gun.” Randy says, holding out his hand.

“But...”

“Now, Justin.” Justin reluctantly hands the gun to his father. As soon as he gets it in his hands, he starts shooting Justin with the water gun.

“Dad!” He exclaims, covering his face.

“Now, you’re even. Both of you go clean up then come downstairs for breakfast.”

“See what you did?” Brooklyn says as they walk back upstairs.

“Justin! Brooklyn!” Brooklyn’s mom calls out.

“Yes?” We call back.

“If you want to open your gifts come down here!” The sound of footsteps running down the stairs echoes through the house. Justin and Brooklyn come downstairs, and go straight to the Christmas tree in the corner of the living room. Everyone had their own pile of presents with about ten to fifteen presents in each pile. Brooklyn goes over to the pile of presents for her, and stares at it.

“You usually open the presents, not stare them down.” Justin whispers to Brooklyn. She looks at up him.

“I know, Justin.” She says, giving him a half smile. She picks up a small box, and looks at the tag. It is from her mother. She unwraps it and opens the box. A necklace with a ruby, her birthstone, is inside. She hugs her mom. “Thank you.” She says, and Sara smiles.

“You’re welcome sweetie.”

“Open mine!” Justin exclaims. Brooklyn picks up the gift from Justin, which is rather big. She unwraps her gift with Justin not taking his eyes off of her doing it. It is a lot of pictures from their childhood from age four to recently. The pictures were in neat rows, and the entire thing is framed. “My mom helped me make it.”

“Thanks.” She says. “Now you open mine.” Justin picks up the small box, and unwraps it. He lifts the chain out of the box, then looks at the chain around her neck.

“This is almost like yours.” He says, and Brooklyn nods. Justin picks up the note inside the box, and unfolds it. He read it to himself:

Dear Justin,

Love your pal, Brooke

Justin smiles and folds the letter back up. “Thanks.” He says. He puts on the chain, and the two go back to opening their gifts.

“This is so weird.” Brooklyn says, walking into Justin’s room in her pajamas. Justin looks up from his video game.

“What is?” He asks.

“This whole holiday. We never really celebrated it back at my house. I mean, we did, but it wasn’t as special as it seems now.”

“Brooklyn, can I ask you something?” Justin asks, standing up, and walking over to the door. He closes it.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Um, what was up with your life? I mean, before you came here.” Brooklyn takes a deep breath, and tears well up in her eyes. “If you don’t want to talk- -”

“No! I’ll tell you.” Brooklyn says, and she sits down on the carpeted floor. Justin sits down next to her, and looks into her eyes, very concerned. “Justin, it was horrible. The screaming, and the crying all the time. My dad...he, um, he could never, um, control his anger. He beat my mom. He beat her until she bled sometimes. He told us to pack up and leave the house. We didn’t know where to go, Justin. We thought we would have to live on the streets, and Ryan couldn’t even walk, and that made it harder for us. If I hadn’t had you for a best friend, I wouldn’t be here right now.” She says, a tear trickling down her cheek. Justin had never known how bad it was for her. He couldn’t say that he understood because he didn’t. He never had to go through was she had gone through. After she told him, Justin reaches over, and hugs her tightly. He had a newfound protection for his friend, and he didn’t want anyone to hurt her like her father had done.

“I’m sorry.” Justin says, hugging her tighter if that was possible. “I don’t see why you have to go through something like that. It’s not fair.”

“Sometimes, I wish I had your life.” Brooklyn cries into his shoulder. “Why can’t I have a real family?”

“You do. You have your mom and your little brother. They care about you more than words can say.” Justin says. He lets go of her, and looks at her. She just stares back at him. Brooklyn sniffs and wipes her eyes.

“I need to stop being a baby.” Brooklyn says, smiling. That’s why she was his best friend, she could bring herself through some tough situations, but sometimes, that wasn’t a good thing. She just keeps it inside, and doesn’t tell anyone, and tries to seem like it wasn’t a big deal. Sometimes, Justin would go into her room in the middle of the night, and she’d have tearstains on her face from crying, and she even cries in her sleep sometimes. He felt bad for Brooklyn. He felt bad about the way she had to live. Brooklyn never got to experience a perfect childhood. Every opportunity she had was thrown away, and she could never get it back.

“Guess what?” Justin says after school, walking into Brooklyn’s room three weeks later.

“Chicken butt?”

“No. In two weeks, my birthday is in two weeks. I’ll be thirteen years old. An official teenager.” He says.

“Wow, Justin. That’s nice.” Brooklyn says.

“Nice? Nice? This is better than nice, this is great! I can do more stuff!”

“Like what? You’re still illegal.”

“Um, like, I can pay full price at the movies?” Brooklyn looks up at him and cocks her eyebrow.

“That’s a good thing?”

“Well, yeah.”

“You have to pay more money at the movies, and you’re saying that’s a good thing?”

“Okay, I see where you’re coming from, but you know what I mean.”

“What are you doing for your birthday?”

“I dunno yet. I was hoping you could help me out with that.”

“Okay, I have something. Have a party, and invite your friend, JC. He’s hot.”

“I should’ve known. You’re a girl.”

“Not going back into the cootie stage are we?” Brooklyn asks him.

“No, I’m not. Girls are hot.”

“So, I’m hot to you now?”

“No, you’re like my sister.”

“Well, that’s not nice.”

“Okay, okay. You’re cute, but in that brother/sister kind of way. Know what I mean?”

“No.”

“Whatever. I don’t wanna explain this to you. You’re complicated.”

“You need to hit puberty.” Justin’s jaw drops.

“You’re gonna regret sayin’ that.”

“Yeah, right. Whatcha gonna do.”

“I’m not tellin’ you.” Justin says, walking towards the door. “Come outside with me.”

“No.”

“I promise I won’t do anything to hurt you.”

“Yeah right, Justin.”

“I promise.”

“Okay fine.” Brooklyn stands up and get my jacket. Then, she goes outside with him. They walk a little.

“I’ll be right back. Stay right here. I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Okay, fine.” Brooklyn sits in the sand, all of a sudden, ice cold water comes all over her head. She screams. “OH MY GOD!!! I’M GONNA KILL YOU, JUSTIN!!!” She gets up and runs into the house. “Where is he?” She says, running into the kitchen, shaking.

“I don’t even wanna know.” Her mom says to Lynn. “He’s somewhere upstairs.”

“JUSTIN!” Brooklyn says, running upstairs. Their relationship was gonna be the same forever.

The day before Justin’s birthday rolls around and he happily bounces into Brooklyn’s room. His face drops. “What are you doing?” He asks. Brooklyn is in the room, packing up her things.

“I’m going home.”

“I thought that you were going to stay here.”

“Well, my dad is here right now, and he said that life was going to be different for us. We’re going to have a real family now, Justin. Just like your family.” She says brightly.

“And you believe him?”

“Of course I do, but don’t worry. I’m going to show up for your birthday tomorrow. I just won’t be living here anymore.”

“But that’s no fair!”

“Justin, I’m going home, and there’s nothing we can do about it. My father is going to take care of us now. He has a new job and new opportunities for all of us. That’s what he said. He’s waiting for Mom and I right now.”

“Brooklyn, you can’t go! You told me what he did to your family, and he’s going to do that again.” Justin cries, his eyes getting glassy.

“My father isn’t like that Justin. I’ll see you tomorrow. It’s going to be just like old times. We can still see each other at school.” Brooklyn pushes a box out of the room, and Justin follows her. “Dad! Here’s my stuff.” A tall, dark-skinned man comes and picks up the box.

“Hey Justin.” He says in a deep voice.

“Hi, Mr. Smith.” Justin says, not looking up. The man carries the box downstairs to the truck waiting for his wife and his children.

“Bye, Justin.” Brooklyn says, hugging him. “I’ll see you tomorrow for your birthday. Best friends for life.” She walks downstairs, and Justin comes with her.

“Bye...Brooke.” Justin says when they reach the door. Brooklyn looks back at him and smiles sadly. Then, she leaves. Justin’s dad puts a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugs it off.

“Justin, honey...” His mom says.