Chapter 1
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Caroline falls back on her bed, kicking her pink and silver Nike running shoes into the corner by her hamper, which is full of clothes since she hasn't had time to do laundry lately.
She runs her hand over her forehead, which is sticky with cool sweat. She takes her ponytail out, letting her long blonde locks cascade down to the small of her back.
Caroline has hair that any girl would kill for. It’s shiny, like what you see in the shampoo commercials, and the color is a soft natural honey blonde. She turns on the shower, making sure that it isn’t to hot, since she just came back from a run.
While she waits for the water to heat up, she goes back into her room, which is connected to her bathroom. She grabs a light blue tank top out of her dresser and sets it on top while she digs around for some shorts to wear.
‘CRASH’, comes from down stairs, Caroline just rolls her eyes, not even a little worried. She knows that this means her mothers been drinking again.
Caroline’s mom isn’t exactly an alcoholic, she just gets extremely tipsy after only one or two drinks. She’s been drinking more than usually lately. Her brother passed away only five months after both of her parents, who died in a car crash. Everything just seems to stressful for her lately.
Caroline hates it when her mom drinks, she never hits her or anything like that. She just can never have friends over because she’s not sure if her mom will be sober or not.
She looks up at her bookshelf, where there sits tons of trophies and medals. Cross country and track are the only things that she lives for.
Sure she loves her friends, but she lives to run, to feel the wind whizzing past her, and her feet moving like a steady song. She’s only sophomore, but she was the best runner at her old school, in Wisconsin, she just hopes that it stays that way at her new school.
Running is her only way into college, or working everyday of her life until she graduates. Just as she’s about to step into the shower she hears a knock on the door.
She quickly throws her robe that’s hanging on the back of the bathroom door, over her self and opens the door. Her little sister Heather is standing there.
“Mom said that if I want to play outside then you have to go with me,” she says to Caroline.
“I’m about to take a shower, so either you can wait or ask mom if Rylie can take you she’s almost thirteen there’s no reason why she can’t,” Caroline tells her six year old sister.
“But I don’t want Rylie,” she pouts, looking upset. It's not much of a shock that she doesn't want Riley. RIley's going through her phase where she thinks that she's cooler than everyone because she's barley a teenager.
“Okay, well then you just need to wait then,” she tells her a little annoyed, but she can’t say no to her sad little brown eyes. Caroline seems to have to do everything around the house, except when her dad’s home which isn’t very often.
She always gets stuck doing the laundry for everyone, and cleaning up after everybody. Sometimes her little sister Rylie helps out, but that’s only when she’s lucky. She steps into the shower, letting the water soak into her body, letting go of the stress she’s been having.
With having just moved to a new town and starting school next week, she’s really stressed out. She takes her shower quickly, knowing that Heather isn’t the most patient person in the world, all tough she’d much rather stay in the shower a bit longer. She turns off the water and grabs her towel, and wraps it around herself.
She goes back into her room realizing that she had left her clothes in there, instead of bringing them into her bathroom.
“Ready?” Heather asks her enthusiastically, jumping up and down on my bed, her brown hair bouncing along with her.
“Almost, just let me change first,” She tells her going back into her bathroom. She dries herself off as quickly as possible, and throws on her favorite pair of jean shorts and her top. She looks in the mirror and notices that a little mascara had run off from the shower.
She quickly wipes it away with a q-tip, she leaves her hair the way it is, deciding to let the sun dry it for her.
“Alright, I’m ready,” Caroline tells her sister, making sure she turns off the lights to the bathroom.
“Yayy,” Heather cheers, jumping off the bed and heading out the room. Caroline grabs her book off of the side table by her bed. It’s her summer reading book for school that she’s yet to finish, even though she’s already written the four page essay that’s due next week.
She goes downstairs to discover her mom sitting quietly on the couch, watching Oprah or Dr. Phil, one of those shows.
The sight of her mom just sitting there doing nothing, while she has to do everything infuriates her.
“Come on, Heather, let’s go to the park instead,” She tells her sister, grabbing her car keys from the kitchen counter. Her eyes light up with excitement,
“Can we bring Max with us?” she asks pointing to their adorable beagle that’s lying on the kitchen tile.
“Why not,” Caroline agrees with a sigh, not really caring what they do anymore since her days pretty much ruined already.
“Yayy, even better,” she cheers skipping out the door to the garage, where Caroline’s car sits, a brand new Lexus.
Her parents think that they can just buy her things to make up for her mother’s behavior and her dad’s absences, but what they don’t know is that she would trade her Lexus, or her Chanel purse, to have a normal family.
“We’ll be back mom,” Caroline shouts loud enough for her mom to hear her, not that she really cares if she does or not.
She gets Max up off the floor, herding him toward the door. She unlocks her car, so that Heather can climb in the back, since she’s not old enough to sit up front.
Caroline locks the garage door behind her before getting into her car, and putting Max in the front seat She drives only about two minutes in her neighborhood, to the park.
They discovered the park about a month ago; it’s only a seven to ten minute walk away from their house. They get to the park and park on the side of the road, by a large house since there’s no actual parking lot.
Heather jumps out of the car and races to let Max out of the front seat. Caroline slowly makes her way out of the car, making sure to grab Max's leash from the back seat.
"Max," Caroline calls for the dog with a little whistle. He comes trotting over, waging his tail happily.
She slips his leash on over his small head, and heads in the direction that Heathers walking towards the playground.
Heather already has herself sitting on a swing by the time Caroline makes it to the wooden benches that sit across from the swing set and monkey bars.
The park has a relaxed feel to it. There's trees all over, but not to many so the sun still shines brightly. There's a pond in the middle, so the pathwalk loops around it, a perfect place to go running.
Caroline cracks open her book to where she left off almost three weeks ago, she's not really a big fan of reading to say the least.
She props her legs up on the other end of the bench, in hopes of getting a little bit of a tan before school starts.
Caroline is quickly drawn into Nick Carraway's adventures in 'The Great Gatsby', by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
She's quickly snaped back to reality as she feels a sharp tug, and the sound of a barking dog, which she quickly realizes is Max.
She looks up to notice a big dog, well bigger than Max anyway, walking closer and closer to where she sat. Before she realizes it Max gives one last pull and sets himself free, galloping towards the other dog, who's owner is a pretty cute looking guy about Caroline's age.
"MAX!" Caroline screeches, leaping up from her spot on the wooden bench, leaving her book and purse behind. She rushes over to where Max is standing, growling at the other dog who just stands there calmly, obviously not the least bit intimidated by Max, which is understandable since he's about three times his weight.
"I'm so sorry," Caroline says to the boy, leaning down to get Max. The boy has medium length hair, it's not to short, but it's also not long or shaggy. It's a deep blonde almost light brown in the sun.
"Nahh, don't worry about it," he says likes it's no big deal, looking at Caroline for the first time. "I'm Andrew," he tells her, with a quick smile, revealing perfectly white and straight teeth.
"I'm Caroline," she tells him, returning the smile. Her green eyes meet his blue ones, and they both seem to freeze for a moment, neither one moving a muscle.
"Sooo, ah, are you new around here? I've never seen you around before," he asks her, being the first one to break the silence.
"Uh, yeah I am. I just moves in two months ago actually," she says, her checks feeling like they are on fire, she just prays that they don't look like they feel.
"So have you had the chance to meet anyone yet?" he asks her, leaning down to pet his dog's head.
"You, that's about it. Oh and my neighbor," she adds, remembering her next door neighbor she had meet a few weeks ago named Jill Packers, she's nice sure but so is a pony, she's just a little bit on the odd side of things.
"Well, I'm glad I could be your first," he tells her, before realizing how what he had just said came out. Caroline stood there trying to contain her giggle for his sake.
"I didn't mean it like that," he said still smiling, though a little embarrassed.
"It's okay, I knew what you meant," she reassures him.
"Caroline," they both turn at the same time to watch as Heather comes running up the sidewalk. And at that moment Caroline wishes she were on only child so she could actually talk to a cute guy for once in peace and quit.
"What's up?" Caroline asks her little sister not trying to sound to disappointed that she had just ruin probably the best moment she's had since they moved to Virginia.
"I'm hungry!" she says a little whiny, but that's just the way that Heather is most of the time.
"Okay, well we can go in just a minute,"
"NO, I'm hungry now," she says crossing her tiny arms over her chest.
"Actually, me and my little sister were just headed to go get some ice cream, do you guys want to come with us?" he asks them, looking mostly at Caroline.
Instead of answering, she doesn't want to look to egar, she looks at Heather to answer praying that she will say yes.
"Can we go, Car?" Heather asks her hopefully.
"Sure if you want to, why don't you go grab my book and purse on the bench over there." she tells her, holding on to Max's leash tighter as she notices that he's just spotted a duck walking towards the pond.
"I parked just over there," Andrew tells her, pointing over to where she parked also.
"Oh, so did I," she says excitedly.
"Oh, no that must have been your car that I hit when I was parking," he tells her with a completely serious face.
"What?" she asks him her eyes about to bulge out of her head.
He starts laughing after seeing her reaction. "I'm totally kidding," He tells her with a charming smile.
"That's not funny," she says pretending to be mad, playfully putting her hands on her hips, "I thought you were serious,"
"See, and people say I'm bad with sarcasm," he jokes with a flirtatious grin. Just then Heather comes back, looking as though she's going to topple over at any moment carrying all those things.
"I'll wait in my car and then you can just follow us there," he tells her and she agrees, grabing her purse and book from heather, handing her Max's leash.
"OHHH, Car, you have a boyfriend," Heather says a little to loudly, making Andrew turn around and laugh.
"Heather," Caroline says scolding, putting the collar back on Max and heading for the car.
Maybe Heather is right, or at least Caroline hopes.