~Chapter 1~




She sat alone in the tan room next to her bedroom. Her green eyes watching her hands as they fly along the key board. Her long blond hair flowing down her back. Her eyes glance at the alarm clock next to the monitor. Last time she looked, it had been 7:00 P.M. but it now read 1:33 A.M. She had been doing what she loved doing. Writing. Her mom would check to make sure she was in bed at two. She had twenty-seven minutes. Her phone beeped and she jumped. It was a text from her best friend and crush. He had text her wanting to make sure she was awake. Every night at 3:30 A.M., he came over to hang out and draw. He was a very talented artist and loved to draw her.

It was Christmas break so she did not have school in the morning and no homework to do, not like she ever did it any way. The clock now read 1:54 A.M. She turned off the monitor so it would look like she wasn’t on it and ran quietly to her bedroom. She could hear her mother’s footsteps as she walked to the stairs and down to her room. She flipped off her bedside lamp and through the covers over jeans and tank top. Her door opened slowly letting the hall light slip into the room. Once the light fell on her face the door snapped shut silently. After five minutes, to make sure her mother was back upstairs in her been, she slipped back into the tan room and turned back on the monitor. Her sixty five-page story popped onto the screen.

She had been working of over a week on this story and wasn’t about to let it stop. It was about her secret romance with her best friend. He hasn’t read it yet but she wanted him to when she was done. The tan room was plastered in drawings of her on the computer and lying in the bed that would soon not be there. Her friend had been coming over for close to a year now every night at 3:30 A.M. They stay up until around five when her mom gets up at 6:30. She sleeps from 5:00 till’ about 8:30 then she would get up and get ready for school that starts at nine. Her computer loaded down with music for over the years and pictures from the time she was a baby to the present day. She had just gotten a new computer, but it wasn’t set up yet and the computer person had to come transfer all the files over. Her new Dell was still in the box.

Page sixty-five came and went fast. She was now on almost eighty-nine. Her phone beeped again causing her to jump. Her friend was almost outside. He was early tonight. It was only 3:15. She saved and closed out of her story. She opened the story her friend had seen her working on of the almost year he had been coming over. Now on page 409. She ran to the emergency window right outside her workroom. She started to open it right as her friend dropped down into the whole. He was holding a new sketchbook, having finished off his last one the night before, and a bag of her favorite chocolate bears. She gave him a quick hug then led him into her office.

Her office used to be her brothers room before their step sister moved out when their parents got a divorce and she moved into her step sister’s room and her brother into her room. Then it became the guest room. Her mother’s friend and son moved in when her mom’s friend and husband got a divorce. The upstairs office moved into the dinning room, that became her mom’s friend’s room, and the downstairs guest room became the son’s room. The son now lives with his real dad and the friend moved out. This room became vacant except for the bed the son used, which is soon going to another friend. So her computer was moved from her room to the now empty room. The bare walls were quickly covered in her friend’s sketches and her new computer still in its box occupied a small corner.

"My god Storm, how long are you going to make this story?" The girls’ friend asked sitting down on the small bed next to the computer.

"I don’t know Dallas. I kinda wanna make it long and maybe publish it. You liked it so far so maybe I could go somewhere with it. I mean I still need help with a title. But that normally comes last any way. Now get to drawing, and hand me my chocolate." Storm closed the door and sat back down at the computer. She re-read what she had last typed about the young girl and her father being chased by her mother. Her mother was crazy was trying to kill her family. The young girls name was Alex, her father was Mike, and mother was Taylor. She ate a chocolate bear and then stared typing. Her fingers were moving faster and faster every day.

Dallas opened his new sketchbook to the first page. He loved the smell of new paper. He pulled a small pencil out of his pocket and started drawing. He would soon need a new sketching pencil, which Storm kept a box of in her desk drawer. Page 409 didn't last long as the words flowed onto the screen. Dallas started to draw Storms eyes. He loved them about her, although he would never tell her that. She just thought he liked drawing eyes. He almost never colored his pictures; he liked the black and white look to much. Her eyes glued to her hands, almost never looking at the screen. She didn’t have to. She knew when she made a mistake. She paused only to turn on some light music. Soon enough "Weekend Warriors" by A Change of Pace quietly play out of the computer speakers. Dallas rolling his eyes has had to listen to this song every night since Storm fell in love with it.

"Storm, do you ever think of what you might be doing after high school?" Dallas asked slowly. He had just graduated the year before and she was a junior. He was about to start college in January at the local community college.

"You know I want to be a cop, and write, and dance, and wow. I guess I never stopped to think what my major goal was." She stopped typing and put her hands in her lap. She stared at the brick wall in front of her. Her eyes catching on a picture of her talking on her phone. Dallas had drawn that one just a few nights before and it was one of her favorites. She couldn't believe that she hadn’t thought about it before that night. She was dance captain with her best girlfriend Sami as her co-captain. Her writing was improving as the days went on and she was getting all A's in her Criminal Justice classes. Although she went to therapy, she was very smart and very talented.

"I think you could get your stories published in a heart beat. Ask around school. Half the school has read some of your stuff online plus your amazing poems that you put in each newsletter. Babe you could go far with that mind of yours. Plus, I might have asked a friend of mine, who works in a publishing building, to read one of your stories. And she said she would just get her one within the next few weeks and she will read it over." Dallas who was still sketching while she was talking finally put down his pencil and looked at her. He gave an evil grin and laughed. Strom was frozen in place. She almost couldn’t breath. This could be her big break. Now she only needed to pick one of her stories to send out. The clock read 4:00 A.M.

"Dallas, please tell me you’re joking." She turned and looked at him He was still smiling. "Oh my god Dallas, What story am I going to do? You’re crazy, you know that right? Oh my god, Thank you!" Storm jumped up and tackled him. She gave him a big hug. They were lying on the bed the sketchbook tossed aside along with the pencil. They laid there until the clock read 4:53 A.M.

"I need to go soon Storm, Storm?" Dallas looked down; Storm had fallen asleep in his arms. He easily picked her up and carried her into her pink and green bedroom. He went back into Storms office and started to clean up their mess. His sketchbook and pencil was set by the window while he went, saved her story, and shut off the monitor. He made the bed, took her phone into her room, and plugged it into the charger. He shut off all the lights then slipped out the window into the night.