Now I know you

Chapter 4: To Climb a Tree

ALEX

I ran down the street as fast as I could. I have a few hours before I have to be home. I looked up at the house in front of me. It's Zach's house. For the last few weeks I've been visiting Zach. It's weird to have a friend, but I like it. Zach said I could come over today. I wasn't going to, but he said no one else was home, so I agreed. It's not that I don't like his family. It's just... complicated. I sigh and knock on the door.

Zach opens it and grins like a fool, "come here!"

"Should I be scared?" I ask suspiciously. I'm curious what he wants me to see.

I walk in... and am greeted by a dog, "this is what you wanted to show me?"

"Isn't she adorable?"

"Yeah, I suppose," I reach down and pet her, "what's her name?"

"Leia, she likes when you scratch under her ears."

"Don't all dogs like it when you scratch under their ears?"

"Yes, but she likes it more."

I roll my eyes and look at Leia. She's a medium-sized black and white dog, her nose looks all scrunched up, but it's really cute, "what type of dog is she?"

"She's a cross between german shepherd and a bulldog. She's 20 pounds." Zach reaches down to also pet her and our hands meet, it's nothing crazy, but I don't know. I think- I-I mean maybe. I sigh, I don't know. I turn and look out the window. The stars look so pretty. I'm so nervous right now.

"Hey," Zach says, "we should go outside."

"Okay, but what are we gonna do?"

Zach shrugged, "I don't know." And he ran outside. It's quite windy out right now, my hair is blowing everywhere. Zach has a large back yard. His family's house is really hard to get to, it's the dead center of their property which takes up a lot of space. They have so much property  you could lose someone on it. There were plenty of trees, keeping the area secluded. They almost had a whole forest in the backyard. I ran to catch up to Zach, but he kept walking and I followed him to a tree just barely in a cluster of trees far away enough from the house no one would notice if you were there, but close enough you could see if anyone came. I shivered. It was dark outside and Zach was leading me away from everything. He also is being strangely distant.

I glanced up in time to watch Zach jump into a tree and start climbing. I gaped. What is Zach doing? "Zach?" I asked, "why did you take me over here?"

Zach looked over at him then smacked his head and started to laugh, "oh! Sorry this is probably really weird so you wanna climb a tree?"

"Umm, what?"

Zach laughed even more and said between breaths, "Man, this has hot to be one of the weirdest things you've seen me do."

"So then, why did you bring me here?"

He gave me a toothy grin, "to climb a tree."

I stare at him blankly and sigh, what have I got to lose? I grab the nearest branch and start to climb after Zach.

Zach cheered and called down, "try and catch me!" I groan, Zach is surprisingly competitive. I've never even climbed a tree, so I'm not very good at it. Clearly Zach is an expert because he's halfway up the tree by the time I get to my third branch. "Don't go that way you'll get stuck there," Zach explained, pointing to a few branches ahead of me that are too far apart from any other branch to go any higher. Perfect. I continue to climb in the direction Zach said not to go in. Zach doesn't notice, because he's too busy looking at the stars.