Infinity and Beyond (Magcon/Cameron Dallas)

Prologue

Age 8

I sat on my swing set and as I stared up at the blue balloon caught in the tree branch above me, sadness washed over my every limb. My shoulders slump forward and I feel a frown form on my face.

This always happens. Why does this always happen? Every time I get a balloon, it flies away. How rude is that? Doesn't it love me? Because I definitely love it. All my life I've always loved balloons. Kind of weird, but I admire their ability to defy gravity and how they would just float in midair. I admire how they aren't afraid of heights and would go high into the sky and past the clouds. They proved to me that anything was possible. Plus, they were good company since I didn't have any friends.

"Ugh Cam, not again!" Okay. Except her.

I turn around and watch as a girl with long, brown, messy hair in a white tank top and basketball shorts emerges from behind the fence surrounding my backyard and stares up at the hostaged balloon. She reaches me and stands by the swing, eyes still glued upwards.

She finally turns, looking down at me with a pair of eyes bluer than the balloon and the sky beyond it. While I'm sitting, she's about a head taller than me. "Well, it's nothing Skylar Castellan can't do!" She says, grinning wickedly before walking up to the trunk of the tree, "I think I've still got enough fairy dust to help me out here."

Skylar was really strange sometimes. All right, not sometimes - all the time. She liked to make up stories and she'd make a lot of references to fairy tales. When we weren't together she'd either be wandering someplace she wasn't supposed to be, having "adventures", or at the library reading about adventures. She's got bruises and marks all over her legs and arms from too much running and falling and climbing trees and more falling. Sometimes I'd wonder if she's even capable of being tired; she was always somewhere, always moving, like if she stayed in one place too long she might combust.

I watch in awe as she swiftly climbs from branch to branch to retrieve the balloon, not even slipping or hesitating in the process. Considering I was scared to death by heights, I would have never been able to do that. Her hand wraps around the string and happiness floods through me. She hops down to the lowest branch and extends the arm with the balloon to me, "Give me your wrist." I slip off the swing and walk over to her so that I'm just underneath her. I hold out my wrist and she double-knots the string around it.

She grins, "There. Now it can never fly away. You're welcome." She puts her hands behind her head and lays on the branch while I return to the swing, "So what did you do today?" I ask her with curiosity.

She shrugs in response, "Oh you know, the usual. Took a little trip to Neverland. Check this out," she pulls her hair back from her face, revealing a cut on her forehead close to her hairline, "I got this from sword fighting with a couple of pirates!" Peter Pan was her favorite. She liked the idea of running away and going to a place where the adults weren't in charge.

I laugh and shake my head, "You're insane. I wish I went, though. But hey, look." I pull something from my pocket, "When I went to the dentist, they took this out."

"Nice, you've got a new tooth for the tooth fairy. When you put it under your pillow, put a note with it and ask for 1,000 dollars."

"100,000!" I beam.

"How about a million?" She grins.

"A dozen!" I say with excitement.

She bursts into a fit of laughs, "A dozen's only 12, Cam. But you can put that if you want to instead. We'll add it to our treasure chest!"

"And we'll take it to Neverland and show those pirates who's really in charge!"

"And we can spend all our treasures there and never grow old. And when we run out we can just come back and lose more teeth!"

I smile, "Hey Sky?"

"Yes, Cameron?"

"Do you think we'll still be best friends when we're older?"

"Hmmm... what do you mean by 'older'?"

"Like, until all of our teeth are gone and won't grow back."

"Psh!" She waves a hand, "Much longer than that!" She shifts on the branch so that she's hanging upside down.

"How do you know?" I ask.

"Let's make a promise. No matter what we face or whatever tries to get in between us, we'll always, always be best friends."

"We'll be there for each other."

"We'll fight by each other's side, no matter what."

"We've got each other's back, to infinity." I hold out my pinky.

She locks her own with mine. "And beyond."