Chapter 10
“Love,”
The next day, I walked over to the Hanson’s
house. When I knocked on the door, Diana answered.
“Can I please talk to Taylor?” I asked.
“Sorry, he’s grounded,” she said.
“Can I talk to Zac then?”
“Hang on.” She disappeared into the house and Zac
appeared.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” he returned quietly. “Sorry about getting
Taylor into trouble yesterday. I seriously hadn’t meant to.”
“I guess it’s all right. How long is he grounded?”
I asked.
“A week.”
“A week, for pulling his arm back? For all your mom knows,
he could have been stretching!” I cried.
“Well, I told her that he did more than that,” he
confessed.
“Why did you do that? Does Taylor know?” I questioned
him.
“I don’t know why, I guess it’s because I can
almost never get him in trouble, so I finally had my chance. And
no, he doesn’t know,” he said, spilling his guts.
“That’s kind of a long time,” I said, “but it
should go by fast, hopefully.”
“Yeah,” Zac said. “Do you want to go
rollerblading?” I looked at him and thought, Just because
Taylor is grounded, doesn’t mean I am too.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll be right back. I’m
going to go get mine.”
“Okay,” he said and turned to his house and walked in.
I ran across the street and slid into my rollerblades, then sat
down and wrote Taylor a
note, hoping I could give it to him sometime today. When I
returned, Zac was going nuts because one of his rollerblades had
busted and no
one told him.
“Looks like we’re not going rollerblading today,”
he said.
“Can’t you borrow someone’s rollerblades or
skateboard or something?” I asked, trying to find a
solution.
“Come with me!” he cried and ran into his house. I
quickly slipped my rollerblades back off and followed him to his
room that he shared with Isaac and Taylor. Taylor was in there
sitting at his desk.
“Wow!” I cried, walking into their room.
“Sorry about the mess,” Taylor apologised.
“No, it really doesn’t bother me because my room looks
like this...no wait worse! But the fact that bothers me is, there’s
three people in here and only one in my room, and yours looks
better! Oh, God, help us all!” I laughed. Taylor laughed,
but stopped when Zac said,
“Taylor, can I borrow your rollerblades so Ashlee and I can
go rollerblading?”
“No,” Taylor said firmly.
“But-” Zac started.
“All right then,” I said for him. “Zac if he doesn’t
want you to borrow them, forget about it. You can skateboard
remember?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said. Zac grabbed his skateboard
and walked out of the room saying, “Come on Ashlee.”
I handed Taylor the note and walked out the the room. “Bye,”
I said.
“Bye,” he returned, quietly.
Just as Zac and I started down the street, Taylor read the note,
it said:
Dear Taylor,
Zac said he was sorry for getting you into trouble. Did he tell
you that?
Also, I’ll go out with you, that is, if you still want to.
Love,
Ashlee
“Where do you want to go?” Zac asked.
“I don’t know.....somewhere,” I replied. An hour
later of roaming the town, Zac and I became bored, so we decided
to go back to his house. “That wasn’t very fun,” I
admitted.
“I know what you mean,” Zac said, exhausted.
“I think I’m gonna go back to Aunt Lynn’s now,”
I said. “Tell Taylor that I said hi.”
“Okay,” he said and went in. I was only laying on my
bed about five minutes when Josh came into the room and said,
“Zac just dropped this off.” He handed me a white
envelope with my name on it. He left as I tore it open. I started
reading, it said:
Dear Ashlee,
Yes, Zac did tell me that he was sorry. And I’m glad that
you said yes. It makes me happy
and I hope it does you, too. I have to go.
Love,
Taylor
P.S. I have a late night surprise for you.
Chapter 11
The Late Night Surprise
I spent three hours trying to figure out what
Taylor’s P.S. had ment. Finally, I decided to not worry
about it and go to sleep. Later on, I was almost asleep when I
heard light tapping on the window. I bolted upright and went to
the window. I found Taylor tossing tiny rocks up to the window.
I opened the window and whispered loudly,
“Taylor! What are you doing?”
“I have to talk to you!” he whispered back.
“Hold on!” I ducked in the window, closed it, slipped
into my robe, and ran quietly downstairs to the front door.
“What did you want?” I asked him when I got down there.
“Were you serious about saying yes?” he asked.
“Well, I wasn’t kidding,” I said. He hugged me and
then kissed me. It started messing with my robe, but I thought
nothing of it. A minute later, we parted and he said he had to
go.
“Me, too,” I said. I turned towards the house after
saying good-bye. Back in Josh’s room, I had just layed down
when I felt something hard underneath me. I felt around on the
bed, soon realizing that it was in my robe. I checked my robe
pockets and there was a little case. I opened it and found a
beautiful ring. There was a slip of paper that said, “From,
Taylor.” I smiled after setting the ring on Josh’s
desk, and went to sleep.
Chapter 12
The Flu become the ‘Flu’
A week later, I didn’t feel very well. I
always felt drowsy. Aunt Lynn took my temperature and told me
that is wasn’t good and I probably had the flu. I didn’t
like the idea of the flu, that last time I did, it turned out I
had leukemia instead! We called the doctor and he made an
appointment for me later that day. After taking tests and
checking me over, we found out it was the common flu, no worse.
“But,” he started, “if it doesn’t get better
in a week and a half, you come and tell me.” So far,
relieved, Aunt Lynn and I nodded and headed back to her house,
where we found AJ, Josh, and Taylor sitting on the couch, waiting
for good or bad news.
“It’s okay,” I started, “I just have the
common flu.” About then the phone rang.
“Hello?” Aunt Lynn asked. pause. “Oh, hi, Diana.
Yes, Taylor is here.” pause. “Okay, I’ll tell him.”
pause. “Talk to you later. Okay. Bye.” And then she
hung up.
“Taylor, that was-” she started.
“Yeah, I know, my mom,” he said, for her.
“She said she needs you home now. She’s going to take
you and your family out to eat,” she said.
“Okay, well, I’d better go!” he said. Before
leaving the house he added, “Ashlee, you get well, now you
hear?” I nodded and he walked out the door.
“Hey,” Linny said, as she walked into the house.
“Where the heck have you been all day?” I asked her.
“With Isaac Hanson,” she said.
“Oh,” I said, scooting over on the couch. I patted the
seat next to me and said, “Give me details!”
“Okay,” she replied sitting. “But first, what
happened to you?”
“I came down with the flu,” I explained. “When
Aunt Lynn and I went to the doctor’s, he said it was just
the flu, maybe just for now. It could always get worse.”
“And also, where is everyone?”
“Josh is upstairs reading a book, Aunt Lynn is in her room
doing bills, Uncle John is still at work or something, and Uncle
Johns friend left today with all of his stuff, but Aunt Lynn said
I didn’t have to move yet, since I was sick and am not up
for it,” I said, all in one breath.
“Okay. Are you ready for details?”
“Ready!” I cried.
“Okay, this morning, I stepped outside when I woke up
because, well, there was nothing else to do. Across the street at
the Hanson house, I saw this really cute guy with long hair
outside with two other guys with long hair younger than him. They
had water guns and were shooting each other.
“I walked to the end of the sidewalk, watching them, when
Isaac looked my way, I turned and pretended to be interested in
the house. Just when I thought is was safe to turn around, I was
suddenly hit in the back with water.
“I turned around and saw Isaac standing there with this evil
grin on his face. The middle brother, your friend Taylor, handed
me his gun and I shot Isaac right in his face. He then chased me
around the yard squirting me. After that, we went rollerblading
the rest of the day, talking and getting to know each other.”
I looked at her with a weird look.
“What?” she asked. “What’s wrong with what we
did?”
“Nothing,” I said. “You have your facts wrong.”
“What?”
“Taylor isn’t my friend!” I exclaimed.
“Huh?”
“He’s my boyfriend,” I explained.
She rolled her eyes and said, “Whatever.”
“So, are you and Isaac going out yet?” I asked.
“Not yet, but I hope soon,” she said, smiling. When I
looked at her with a puppy-dog face she added, “And you’ll
be the first to know.” I smiled and hugged her. She then ran
up to her room.
One week later, there were signs of me getting better, but by the
next day, those signs were gone and it was getting bad again. Up
in her room, Aunt Lynn took my temperature, but there were not
very many signs of improvement.
“I’m scared,” I told Aunt Lynn. “What if in
three to four days, I don’t get better?”
“Honey, I know that you are scared. And I know that you know
what it means if you don’t get well,” she said
politely, brushing my hair out of my eyes.
“Yeah, but Mom said that if I didn’t have to go back
into chemotherapy, then I could go home half-way through the
school year,” I said. “Then she said things would be
different if I did go back into chemotherapy. Aunt Lynn, when
will I get to go home?”
She looked as if she was about to cry. She looked at me with her
chocolate-brown eyes and said,
“Baby, I don’t know.” I walked down stairs a
little while later and layed down on the couch. I cried. Taylor
came to see if I was okay. But I didn’t want to talk, I didn’t
want to do anything.
Four days later, Aunt Lynn took me back to the doctor.
“Sure enough,” he said. “You are back out of
Remission.” I looked at Aunt Lynn and a tear rolled down my
cheek as she hugged me and said,
“Well, we had better go pack some things.” I nodded and
we went back to her house. I packed a few things, hoping that I
wouldn’t be there long, and was ready to leave for the
hospital. Hugging AJ, I said,
“I wish I didn’t have to go into the hospital. I will
try to be out by our birthday.”
“Promise?”
“Promise,” I said, smiling.
“I hope you don’t stay, but a week,” Linny said,
as she hugged me.
“Just like last time. I’ll be there to visit you as
much as possible.”
“It’ll be lonely in my room without you. I’ll try
to visit you when I can,” Josh said. I hugged him.
“I’ll visit you everyday,” Taylor said, hugging
me. “And that’s a promise.”
“I’ll hopefully see you around, Zac,” I said
hugging him.
He hugged me back and said, “I’ll miss you.”