Trey stepped through my door later that same day.

"Hello?"

"Hey, comrade," I said, slapping him on the back. 'Comrade' was just one of our random words we liked to use. "It's been too long since we've had one of these."

"Yeah, I know. What happened to the good old video-gaming days?"

"Summer happened, I guess. Let's head downstairs."

"Right behind you."

I trudged down the stairs and into the basement, feeling the temperature drop degree by degree the lower I descended. My basement was always frigid, but that was nice in the summertime.

I knelt down next to a small cabinet with all of the family's video games and scanned through the selection.

"Are we feeling crazy today, or are we going down the road of the classics?" I held up Mario Kart and Super Smash as examples for the latter. I didn't even give an example for a crazy game because I knew what he would pick.

"Eh, why not the classics today?" he reasoned. "For old times' sake, you know?"

"Agreed," I grinned. "So which one?"

"Super Smash, of course!"

I set the disc inside my purple Nintendo Gamecube and closed the lid. I unraveled two controllers and gave one of them to Trey, then crashed on the couch and got ready for an awesome time.

I picked one of my favorite characters (Yoshi) while Trey chose Link. Since neither of us had played in a while, we set up teams with the two of us on one team and some computer players on another, and then the games began.

Trey and I both took a beating at first. It had been months since we had done this together, and it showed.

"We need some more practice," he observed, laughing as he got kicked off the screen. "This is kinda pathetic. Remember how we used to be unbeatable?"

"Heck yes I do. Who could forget?"

"No one who has ever seen us play, obviously." I chuckled. Trey had been my absolute best friend since third grade, and we'd started having these video game marathon things ever since then. This year had been difficult because his family had been traveling a lot for his dad's job, so I hadn't seen much of him.

"How's Angelina doing?" Angelina was his girlfriend, and had been since the beginning of senior year.

"She's doing really well. She's been having a rough summer, though. Just a lot of family emergencies and stuff."

"Like?"

"Oh, her dad got in a car crash and broke his arm and can't work for a while, her little brother had to get stitches because he stepped on a piece of glass and about killed his foot. A bunch of stuff."

"Well that just plain sucks," I sympathized.

"Wait, Angelina's family issues or your playing?"

I slapped him lightly on the head. "Shut up. I was being sympathetic. And you aren't doing that well either, if I do say so myself."

"Why thank you. I don't deserve such a compliment."

"Yeah, you really don't," I muttered. It was Trey's turn to slap me on the side of the head. That was kind of our trademark "I-think-you're-awesome-but-sometimes-you're-really-stupid" sign with each other.

"When did we start doing that?" I asked. "The head thing, I mean."

"I dunno. When did we start being so awesome? Some questions just can't be answered."

I scoffed at him. "You are a character."

"You too, man."

**

Trey ate dinner with us that night.

"Trey, would you like to stay the night?" My mom offered. "We'd love to have you."

"Sure, if it's really okay with you, and my parents." He looked over at me and back at my mom.

"Of course." She smiled. My mom was pretty awesome. She seemed to know when I was really having fun and didn't want it to stop. She was like me a lot in that way, as well as many others. She looked almost exactly like me, too. Same curly hair, same eyes.

Trey's parents said yes, so we continued hanging around the house. We went outside to play some catch.

"So you still like Diana?" he said as he tossed the football to me. Oh yeah, he didn't know anything about that yet. What was it with football and conversations about my love interests?

I hadn't ever really told Trey that I liked her outright, but being the smart cookie he was, Trey had figured out soon enough. After all, I'd liked her since seventh grade.

"Yeah. A lot. And I'm going out with her on Monday." I tried to keep a straight face and lobbed it back to him.

"That's great, man! She's really awesome, I have to say. She's been my friend for a long time. Maybe not my best friend, but a friend. And finally! I was wondering when it would happen."

"You knew it would?"

"Well, when you're watching both of you together, it's kind of hard to miss," he conveyed and laughed, throwing an almost perfect spiral. "I mean, it would be like not noticing a Zebra has stripes."

"I feel kind of stupid then, 'cause I sure didn't see that Zebra's stripes, if you get what I'm saying."

He laughed.

**

By 6:00 Monday evening, I was ridiculously excited.

Okay, what an understatement. I meant 6:00 Monday morning. And I was not just excited. More like ecstatic. I had barely slept the previous night, but I was anything but tired.

If it was possible, Emily was almost as crazy about tonight as I was. She was practically bouncing off the walls.

"It's finally happening!" she'd squeal to herself every five minutes or so.

"Will you can it, Emily?" I rolled my eyes at her.

"No! I can't can it!" I laughed at how odd that sentence sounded. "I'm just so flipping excited! No more keeping secrets from either of you or anything!" She screamed a ridiculously high-pitched scream.

"And that's my cue to leave." I put my fingers in my ears in case there was more. It was getting close to seven anyway, so I grabbed my cell phone and keys and almost skipped out the door (I'd never really skip, I mean who would embarrass himself like that? But, I felt like doing just that).

"Have fun!" Mom called from the kitchen.

"Will do."

**

I rang the doorbell, shaking slightly with anxiety.

Diana answered the door. "Oh, hi, Aaron!"

"Hey, Di." I smiled as she walked out the door, calling back to her family so they knew she was leaving.

I opened my car door for her, waiting for her to slide inside, then closed it and got in the driver's seat.

I started the car after slipping a CD into the stereo.

"How are you?" I asked.

"I'm just dandy. How are you?"

"I'm not too bad myself. Are you psyched for the Fourth of July like I am?"

"It's still a few weeks away, but yeah, I guess I am. What's making you so excited?"

"Well, my family invites some friends over every year and we watch the fireworks from my backyard. It's pretty intense," I laughed. "Hey, you should come!"

"That sounds intense," she laughed with me. "And I'd love to go. I don't think I've met any of your family besides Emily. I've met Ryan once or twice, but I don't know him that well."

"I don't know if you really want to know Ryan..." I trailed off. "Haha. No, I'm kidding. Ryan's great. Come to think of it, I don't know your family either. You have an older sister, though, right?"

"Yep. Liz is her name."

"What's it like, being the youngest, anyway? I'm in the middle, so I'm the younger and older sibling, so I wouldn't know."

"I think sometimes its easier, because Liz was kind of the guinea pig child, if you will, so by the time I was born, my parents kind of knew what they were doing."

"'Kind of,' eh?" I grinned.

"Yeah, kind of." She laughed again.

I pulled into a small parking place. It wasn't really a parking lot because there were only five or six spots and not a lot of people visited the location.

"Oh, we're here?" She looked around in surprise. "I forgot to be curious about where we were going."

"Haha. Well, we're not actually there, so you've still got time to be curious. We just have to walk a little ways." I rushed to open her door for her again.

"That's fine with me. I like walks." We looked at each other meaningfully and laughed. I really enjoyed hearing her laugh. It was a light, musical sound.

We began hiking up a small hill-like slope. Aspen and pine trees surrounded us, only ceasing to grow on the dirt path ahead. The air was crisp, fresh, and clean, and smelled like wildflowers and grass. This was my favorite place to come, especially when I was disappointed or just needed to get away; my escape. I had come here a lot in the past few years when I was getting discouraged about Diana. How ironic that now I would be there WITH her tonight.

"This is a beautiful place," she wondered aloud, enchanted. "It seems like anything could happen here. It has a magical feel to it."

"It does, doesn't it?"

"How often do you come here?"

"Depends on if I'm having a good week or a bad week. If I'm feeling annoyed or things like that, I might come here every day. If not, I might not see the place for a month."

"So this place is to you what the park is to me, kind of," Diana inferred.

"Yeah."

She rubber her arms with her hands. She was getting cold.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," she shivered. "Just a little chilly."

I wrapped my arm around her without really even thinking about it. I would have given her a jacket, but I never wore them.

We reached the top and sat on a rock, my arm still around her.

Diana took in everything around her in awe. "This place is amazing!" she told me.

"Sure is," I chuckled.

I observed the now familiar place. We were on a rock and dirt ledge with an almost circular shape. All the trees stopped growing at the edge, so you could see the city below. The sun was just starting to set. I smiled at my timing.

"I love this place! How did you find it?"

"I was just driving around one night. I was angry and had nowhere to go, and it caught my eye. I've come here ever since."

"Wow," she sighed again. "It's really beautiful. Thanks for taking me here."

"My pleasure. You feeling any warmer now?" I asked, even though I didn't want to remove my arm from where it already was.

"Nope," she laughed.

**

"Thanks again, Aaron. I had a really great time." Diana waved and disappeared into the dark night, walking slowly back to her house.

"I did too. See you later."

I waited for her to open her front door and vanish inside, then drove off leisurely back to my own home.

I was deep in thought and was pulling into our driveway when a phone call scared me out of my wits. I stopped the car quickly and answered after checking the caller ID.

"Mom?" I said, confused slightly.

"Yeah. Where are you, honey?" She sounded nervous. I had told her I was going on a date. She had even told me to have fun. Why did she not know where I was? It wasn't past my curfew; it wasn't even 10:00, and my curfew wasn't until midnight in the summer.

I opened my car door and headed towards the front door, walking in. "I just pulled into the driveway and now I'm inside. Why?"

"Something happened..." She got very quiet and hung up.

"Mom, what is it?" I yelled, not knowing where in the house she was.

Mom dashed down the stairs, pulling on a sweater and looking very hurried. "Get in the car and come with me. We need to go."

"Mom, what happened? What's wrong?" I was getting annoyed.

She grimaced, as if she were debating whether to tell me something.

"It's Trey."