Again, as always, I was waiting on Trish to hurry up so we could leave.  I didn’t understand her obsession with having to repeatedly check herself out before leaving any household.  It aggravated me to no end.  What was wrong with looking natural?  There was seriously too much plastic in this world.

“Piece of crap!”  I heard coming from next door.  I decided to go check things out when I noticed the storage shed door was open.  I found a rather flustered Amelia, sweating bullets, looking rather cute as she endlessly tried to get that old dilapidated mower to start.  I couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped my lips.

“You might want to pull the emergency shut off button up.”  I tell her as her head snapped up, the rag she held slipping from her grasp and a hand going up to shield her eyes from the sun that beat down on her.  I moved toward her to show her the button I was speaking of, pulling it up.  She flushed red.

“Well look who it is.”  She said smugly.  “Our very own Christian Masterson.”

“Still bitter, I see.”  I smirked at her.

“Wouldn’t you be though if you had been the source of ridicule in front of the entire school?”  She spat at me.  She was referring to the first week after she had moved permanently to Port Hope after the horrible loss of her parents.

“Can we talk?”  She had come up to my locker to ask me.  Surrounded by my guys, I looked at her from top to bottom.  I had to admit that she was a hot one to trot.

“W-w-what-ever for?”  I made fun of her from that day on my doorstep a week ago.  Her face paled and her eyes registered anger.  I hadn’t realized it was her until she started fidgeting with her necklace like she used to when she felt uncomfortable; that, combined with her eyes told me it was Amelia Reed, the girl I had been missing since the age of eleven.

“Forget it.”  She told me and turned around with her head down.

“That’s right!  Walk away!”  I said aloud so that the students that were in our remote vicinity heard it.  “It’s what you’re good at!  Then again, I guess you learned it best from your parents, now, didn’t you?”  And this is where, if any hope remained for our friendship being rekindled, it was completely snuffed out.  She turned around, glared and walked back so she stood right in my face pointing her index finger at my nose.

“Don’t for one minute think that my not coming back was ever my decision.  As for my parents, you bastard, if you had chosen to pay attention and ask, you would have found out that they had died!  They didn’t leave me behind you self-centered dick!”  She yelled at me with tears streaming down her face.  I hadn’t the slightest clue what to say, so I stood there dumbfounded.  “Next time, maybe you’ll educate yourself on the situation at hand before opening that smartass mouth of yours.”  And that’s when I watched her walk away knowing that if I ever were to see her again, friendship wasn’t going to be on the menu. 

 I resorted to taunting, teasing and plaguing her very existence through the rest of our high school years; even though, all I wanted to do was look her in the eye and tell her I was sorry for the hell I had put her through.  Labeled as being the little orphan girl, the subject of rumors and whispers everywhere around her, I had watched as Amelia had retracted so far within herself until everyone pretty much ignored her, calling her a snob; a rich brat.  After graduation, I hadn’t seen her again, that is, until now.

“Listen…  About that...”  I started saying.  After nearly ten years later, I revered myself as a changed man.  After graduation, I had sworn that if there was a day that I’d see Amelia again, I would make sure she knew of the guilt that had been plaguing me since that awful day in the Port Hope High’s hallways.  “I know there’s nothing I can say or do.”

“You think?”  She looked at me sternly before attempting to walk past me and back toward the house.  “There is a point where saying ‘I’m sorry’ just doesn’t cut it Chris.”

“I know.”  I say as I watch her walk away from me even further.  She was now half way to the house from the shed.  I turned on my heels and followed her.  “I guess…  I guess, I…”

“You guess what, Chris?”  She stopped and turned to face me, her face every bit as red as that day in the school’s hallway.  My mouth opened and then closed with nothing coming out seeing as all words had left me and my throat went dry.  I shrugged hopelessly but continued to make my way closer to her but she held her hand up firmly, motioning me to stop.  “I think you need to go.”

“Can’t we talk?”  I scrambled to gather the words out of my head and spit them out before I lost the nerve or the time to do so.

“I think we’ve done enough of that to last me a lifetime.”  She turned and started back towards the house.

“Come on!”  I pleaded and just as I thought I had lost my chance, she stopped again but kept her back to me, her head bend towards the ground.  I walked up so I stood a few feet behind her.  “All I ask is a few minutes of your time.”  And she huffed as I noticed her wipe her cheeks with her hands.  She looked down and over her shoulder, too proud to show more weakness than she already had.

“Funny how you are the one asking me for time when you couldn’t have been bothered to give me any of yours back then.”  She said as she proceeded up the steps to her back door and then paused, turning slightly with her hand on the knob.  “Fine.  Where?”  A surge of hope came over me.

“Our old spot.”  I tell her.  I knew that she’d know what I meant.  “In two hours.”  And I ran off before she could protest or change her mind.

I got back to my car with an incredibly annoyed looking Trish waiting for me by the passenger side door.

“Where’d you go off to?”  She asked.

“Nowhere.”  I tell her and jump in the driver’s side as she followed me into the car.  I sat there listening to Trish whining about a look my mother had given her earlier, bringing up the fact that she didn’t think my mother liked her after the way she had watched her hug ‘that girl from next door’ as she so eloquently put it.  I smirked at the fact that she seemed jealous about my former best friend.  Mom had always had a soft spot for Amelia.  After I absentmindedly agreed with each and every one of her points, I thanked my lucky stars that we had reached our intended destination; my house.

After a quick half hour romp in bed with Trish the Priss as some of the guys had begun to call her, I jumped in the shower while she finished packing for her trip toLas Vegaswith the girls.  I knew I was going to enjoy this weekend without having to deal with her.  As of late, it seemed more like this relationship was out of convenience for both of us.  I got laid and she had a hot guy from the right side of the tracks that her parents approved of.  Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t always like this, hence why we’re living together; but the minute she found out my net worth, things began to change.  I know I should put her out on her ass but she always had a way with me that prevented me from ever following through.  She was a master manipulator in all senses of the word.  As the saying went, I basically had learned that money does change people.  What they neglected to say is that it’s not always for the best.

Trish had left for the airport in her Lexus she absolutely had to have, shortly after we moved in together.  I watched her drive off and when she was clear from sight, I jumped into my car and headed back to my parents house.  Where did you think ‘our spot’ was going to be?  We were eleven the last time we saw each other, well, when we were still friends that is.  The properties on my parent’s side of the street, including Amelia’s grandmother’s house backed on a bit of a forest, that is, until you end up at the water on the other side of it.  Nestled in that forest, was an old fort that she and I had built ourselves that last summer we were together.  She made me promise her that it was our spot and that no one else would know of it.  Pinky swore, I did!  And I lived up to that promise; I never took anyone else back there either.

I sat outside our old haunt, waiting for her to show up with butterflies fluttering about in my stomach.  Just like a scene out of a movie, she came, fashionably late.  Her strawberry blond hair hung long and loose except for a few strands that were pulled back and away from her face.  She had on a white sundress and had put on a bit of makeup.  Her bright blue eyes popped.  I watched her as she smiled faintly at the sight of our old fort.

“I completely forgot about this place.”  She tells me.  Something tells me she hadn’t.

“Liar.”  I chuckle nervously.  “You look wonderful, by the way.”

“Please don’t.”  She tells me, averting her eyes from mine and crossing her arms at her chest.  “Your time starts now.”  And that’s when the tick-tock of a clock sounded inside my head.