“I’m going to go read my book for awhile,” Sam said. “I need a break from all this seriousness.” She and Shawn got up and walked toward the jungle gym and climbed to the top.

Mark and I sat in silence. With Sam and Shawn gone I suddenly felt self-conscious. What if I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to talk about? Sure, I had a high IQ, but I was way out of his league when it came to schooling, he was light years ahead of me. I studied the leaves that had fallen from the red oak trees that were scattered throughout the park. During all my research of California, I had seen that in parts of northern California, the trees grew so big and wide you could drive a car through them. My silent pondering was interrupted when Mark finally broke the silence.

“Do you want to take a walk around the park?” he asked. “It’s bigger than it looks. There’s a trail that wraps around back there, behind all the trees.”

“Sure,” I answered. He could have suggested walking to Florida, and I would have gladly followed him.

We set off following the trail. Mark reached over and grabbed my school bag with one hand, and my hand with the other. We walked in silence for a few minutes.

“Was my note too much?”

I stopped walking and turned to look at him.

“No, it all just seems to be happening so fast. I’m not sure what I feel, but I do know that I want to be with you all the time.”

Relief covered his face. “I was afraid I was rushing you,” he said as he pulled me into his arms.

Looking around, I could see that we were in the shadows of the trees and that it was hard to see more than a few feet in front of us. I could see that Mark was also aware of it. He pulled back slightly and cupped my face in his hands.

This was the moment I had been waiting for since I first laid eyes on him yesterday. That’s not true, this was the moment I had been waiting for my whole life.

“So, you like to read?” He asked pulling away. I flushed when I realized he was standing a few paces away from me. I must have read the signals wrong; this is what I got for never hanging out with other people. I didn’t even know when some guy was about to kiss me or not. What a dork, I thought, hoping he had missed the fawning look I was sure must have been on my face.

Swallowing the disappointment that was welled up in my throat, I tried to focus on the question he had asked me.

“Yeah, I love to read,” I said, trying to inject some enthusiasm into my voice.

I found out that he liked to read as much as I did.

“Favorite book?” Mark asked.

“Easy, the sixth Harry Potter book.”

“Really? More than the last Harry Potter book?”

“Definitely, the sixth book was the most interesting.”

“How about you, what’s your favorite book?”

“Well, like you, I like the Potter series, but I still like some of the classics like the Outsiders or Where the Red Fern Grows. ”

“Those books were banned from my house after I read them the first time,” I said with a smile.

“Why?” Mark asked surprised.

“Because, I cried buckets after I read them, and walked around gloomy for weeks. After that, my dad would look at all my books before I read them to make sure no one died in them.”

“How did you slide the Harry Potter books by him?”

“Well, those didn’t turn sad until the last few. He screened the first couple, but after that he gave me free reign on them.”

“Favorite food?” he asked, changing gears.

“Easy, chocolate,” I said with a smile.

“Not favorite sweet, favorite substantial food?”

I laughed. “Chocolate is substantial.”

Mark smiled also. “Okay favorite food after chocolate?’

“Hamburgers and fries,” I said without hesitation.

“Junk food junkie, we’re a match made in heaven.”

“What’s your favorite food?”

“Well, I like burgers and fries too, but I’m actually a pizza man. I love every kind of pizza imaginable. There’s a great pizza place downtown that I’ll take you to sometime.”

I felt my pulse speed up at the thought of going out with him. Sure I was with him now, but the thought of actually going out on a date was exhilarating.

We continued to toss questions back and forth as the path weaved between the trees.

I found out that we both preferred cats over dogs, we liked the same comedies, and we both loved bike riding. He was the easiest person to talk to and we continued to talk as we looped the trail a second time. This time when we reached the shadows of the trees, I did not stop walking. It was obvious that he didn’t want to kiss me. Maybe he was afraid he would be disappointed if he did, or maybe he was waiting for me to make the first move, I just couldn’t tell. Though we didn’t kiss, the conversation between us flowed easily, and we soon discovered that the connection shared between us during our dreams was even more prevalent in reality.

Chapter 6

The next few days passed in a blur. It was a novel thing to suddenly have three people to talk to that I felt so at ease with. My friendship with Sam was blooming, and my mom was amazed at how close we had become.

“You guys act like you’ve known each other your whole lives,” she commented on Friday morning while we ate breakfast.

“She’s just easy to talk to and we have so many things in common,” I replied.

“Have you told her about your dreams?”She asked surprised.

“Um...” I was hoping she wouldn’t ask that question.

The four of us had decided that we were going to keep our dreams between us. The idea that we had the same dreams seemed crazy enough to us, surely anyone else would think we were loony. None of us had any desire to wind up in a padded room.

“No,” I mumbled, finally answering her question.

I hated lying to her, but I was doing what was best for her. I could already see the tension lines that had surrounded her eyes the last couple of weeks beginning to ease up. I knew a large part of this was because I was finally making friends, and of course she thought my bad dreams had gone away.

The dreams were still the same, but each morning when I woke from them, Mark would call me on my cell. We didn’t talk about the dreams; instead, we would discuss other things, like our hopes and dreams. Neither of us were surprised that most of these were the same. It was as if he was the other half of me. By the time we hung up each morning, I was pretty much over the heartbreak of the dream, and when my mom woke, all signs of the dream were gone.

“So have the dreams changed?” my mom asked, as if she had peeked in my head and read my thoughts.

“Yeah, they’re better now,” I lied, finding no loop hole for this one.

“I better get ready for school,” I said as I headed up the stairs. “Need to know,” I chanted the overused words to myself.

Sam was waiting in the usual spot when mom pulled up to the school.

“Hi! Mrs. Miller,” she called as I stepped out of the car adjusting my skirt.

“She’s a sweet girl, you should ask her if she wants to come over for dinner tonight,” she said as she waved at Sam.

“Okay. I’m sure she would like that; her parents are working on a big court case, and they’ve been stuck at the office late every night. I know Sam gets lonely by herself at night.” Lying blatantly for the first time, I knew for a fact that Shawn spent all of his free time with Sam and I’m sure she was far from lonely.

“Why don’t you see if she wants to stay over? Don’t you have plans to get together tomorrow, anyways?” she asked.

“Yeah, we’re going to the Boardwalk. Sam’s a ride nut, and she wants to try the roller coaster.”

Shawn and Mark were going with us too, but that obviously fell under the need to know category. Now that the newness of finding each other was beginning to fade, we were all anxious to figure out what tied us together. At first, I had felt apprehensive about going to such a public place, afraid we would run into students from school, but Mark and Sam both laughed at my concern.

“They wouldn’t be caught dead at the Boardwalk. If it doesn’t have the word country club or Gucci in it, they’re not interested,” Sam had said. “Most of them have houses on the beach and spend their weekends partying and drinking.”

“I’ll ask her. Thanks mom,” I said, closing the door behind me.

Sam and I headed up the wide staircase leading into the school. After the incident on Tuesday, we were now in the habit of waiting for the bell to ring on the bench outside of the school library. We had dubbed it ‘our spot,’ and ate lunch there every day.

As we climbed the many stairs, I noticed Mark coming toward us. Even though I had talked to him just a few hours ago, I couldn’t stop the excitement that raced through me at the sight of him. I drank in the sight of him and felt goose bumps pop up on my arms.

He nodded briefly to us as we passed as if we were just merely students. I wasn’t hurt. We had kept our distance at school and the gossip about us had eased up. By Thursday, most students were busy gossiping about some poor sophomore who was gaining weight. Rumor had it, she was pregnant. I felt sorry for this unknown girl, but was relieved that the spotlight was off of us.

Though we pretended to be indifferent, we were both hyperaware of each other every second of the day. Every time I caught a glimpse of him throughout the day, my palms would sweat and my head would spin. Each time our eyes met it was like the first time. With each passing day we became more sensitive to each other’s presence.

We continued to meet at the park every day after school and I felt like he knew me better than I did myself. There were no secrets between us. Each moment we were together was spent catching up on all the years we were unable to talk in the dreams. Sam and Shawn were always with us and made good chaperones. Not that they had anything to chaperone. Mark had yet to kiss me, and by Friday I was beginning to think he never would. Sure, he would touch my face or hold my hand, and each of these caresses always gave me the same warm feeling of familiarity that made my heart race, but I would give anything to feel his warm full lips on mine. I wanted to ask Sam for her opinion, but was too embarrassed to admit that maybe Mark didn’t want to kiss me.

Though we had all discussed it exhaustively, we were still no closer to figuring out the bond between the four of us. Sam and I had been surfing the web endlessly, searching for some link that would tie the four of us together. We found a few short articles related to my rescue when I was a toddler, but we were unable to gain any new information from the archives. Without the internet or amber alerts, the authorities had no luck locating my parents, and after a few months they had given up. Shawn and Sam had both wound up with the state, but Shawn, like me, had being adopted. Out of the four of us, Sam by far had it the worst. Not that you would have been able to tell, she was definitely the most upbeat one in our group. I think she was just glad to finally have people she cared about that felt the same way about her.

“So, my mom wants to know if you want to stay over tonight?” I asked Sam as we waited for the first bell to ring.

“Definitely, it will be my first sleepover.”

“Mine too!” I quipped.

We both burst out laughing. We were nothing but a bunch of misfits. My mom was right; we acted like we were long lost sisters, which was one idea the four of us had discussed.

“No way,” I had protested loudly. “I would know if I was related to you.” I said looking at Mark.

“Not us,” Mark stated. “I mean you and Sam. Maybe you’re sisters or something like that.”

“I thought about it,” Sam said. “But our coloring and build are way off.”

“Sam’s right. I don’t think we’re related,” I added. “The connection has to be something else.”

“Is Mark meeting us at the park today?” Sam asked, breaking into my thoughts.

“No, not today,” I answered with disappointment clouding my voice. “He has a staff meeting this afternoon. He said he would try to come over afterwards for awhile. My mom’s going to an art show so it will be safe.”

“Your mom’s really taken to the art thing.”

“Well, she hasn’t started any projects yet, but she’s definitely into learning about it,” I replied with a laugh in my voice.

The bell rang.

Still laughing, we gathered up our books and walked down the busy hallway toward homeroom. We were both on a giggly high from the anticipation of our first sleepover. It felt good to be like a normal girl for once.

The morning classes passed quickly. We spent the time passing notes back and forth to each other. Getting good grades in school came naturally for both of us and neither of us had to pay much attention in class. We only bothered tuning into the lessons when we knew the teacher was watching us.

After lunch, we both headed off to history class. Though Sam was a good distraction, I was still keenly aware of every minute that passed until I would be with Mark again. My heart acted as an internal clock and every beat seemed to count the minutes for me.

When we entered the room, he was already there. I noticed that he was missing his usual smile. I looked at him questionably. He shook his head slightly. I sighed, ugh. This whole secrecy thing was becoming a big old pain in the butt. I hated waiting on things and hated surprises even more. The next hour stretched out endlessly ahead of me.

“What’s up with him?” Sam whispered, leaning toward me.

I shrugged my shoulders, trying to act blasé about it. Something was obviously bothering him, but I would have to wait until later to find out, and we didn’t want to give the gossip hounds anything new to talk about.

The next fifty minutes crawled by. I checked my watch almost every minute and it seemed to be moving backwards.

I gnawed on my thumbnail as I waited for class to end. Maybe he had decided to break off the relationship with me, and that was why he had not taken our relationship to the kissing stage.

Briiiiiiiiiing

“Finally!” I mumbled to Sam. “I never thought the class would end. I’m going to try to talk to him once everyone leaves the room.”

I gathered my stuff slowly as I waited for the room to empty. Finally, the last student left the room.

I approached Mark, noting that he still wore the same grave expression.

“What’s the matter?” I asked concerned.

“I had a meeting with the Dean this morning. It appears Matt followed up with his threat.”

I gasped. “What did he tell him?” I asked, disgust rimming my voice.