𝘔𝘺 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘎𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘢 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘥.

𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘴, 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘳.

"Someone kissed me today."

"Huh?"

I turned my head away from him.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I found who the diary belonged to. It was this girl. And she liked me. And during art class, she kissed me. And I kissed her back. I don't know why. But I did."

He stared at me for a moment. I felt his hand lay on top of mine, and his fingers curled around mine. I looked back at him and stared into his chocolate-drop eyes.

"Well, do you like her?"
"That's the thing. I don't even know her that well. Like, at all."

He scooted closer towards me. He took my hands and placed them into my lap. But he didn't let them go. He still held them in my lap.

"Well maybe you should tell her."
"Okay. I will."

I didn't want to tell Elli. But I had too. Even if it would make me feel bad. And make her feel terrible. But I couldn't keep this to myself. Suddenly, Zachary broke my thoughts.

"Oh I know!"

He ran away, saying he'd be gone for just a second. I was left to my thoughts for a while. Was telling him the right thing?

He came back a bit late, with something cupped in his hands. He climbed up carefully and sat close to me.

"Here."

I took my hands and cupped them beside his. He gently placed whatever it was into my hands.

It was a tiny little frog. A green and brown little guy, with big black eyes. I carefully held him so he wouldn't jump away. I wanted to keep him forever. He was just so adorable.

"Does that count?"

I looked up at him, still holding the tiny frog.

"Well, you gave me a frog ring. So I gave you a real frog."

I looked back down at my hands. I opened my hands a tiny bit to peek at the little frog.

"Zachary. I love him."

He rubbed his arm.

"Well, I mean it's something."

I rubbed a finger on the frogs back very carefully.

"He's so little and cute."

"Yeah I know right." He leaned in to look at him.

"Are there frogs everywhere here?"
"No. I was actually had no idea what I was going to find. And if I didn't bring anything back, I would've just told you I'd thrown up."

He laughed. I set the frog down in my lap. It looked around. Then it turned and hopped off my lap. We watched it fall and hit a leaf below. It hopped a couple more feet, getting harder to tell where it was. I looked back up at Zachary, and he looked up at me. We just sat there for a while before we heard his mom call us in for dinner. We ran inside and sat down to eat.

"So," His mom gave us each a plate with a couple peices of pizza on it, "how was it out there?"

"It was pretty fun. We found a frog." Zachary said as he picked up a peice.

"Well I hope you two washed your hands." She said. We both looked at each other and smiled.

"So where's Damion?"
"He's taking Chris to look at colleges." She started washing extra dishes. Zach stuck his tongue out and rolled his eyes.

"Oh, sorry Gloria. Damion is Zach's step-father. And Chris is his step-brother."

"He's not my step-brother." Zachary stared at his mother angrily. She sighed.

"Zach, I know you two don't see eye to eye. But me and Damion are getting married next summer. And you two will have to try to be nice to each other. Okay?"

Zach stared at his plate. He looked like he was about to cry.

"Okay."

"Good. Now if you two are done, you can go play in the creek."
"Ok mom."

Zach stood up and started to walk outside. I didn't want to say I wasn't finished. I got up and walked after him. He started walking faster towards the creek. I had to run to keep up with him.

"Zach wait!"

He stopped, but didn't turn around. I reached for his hand, but he jerked it away.

"I'm sick of my mom! I'm sick of her not paying attention!"

"What do you mean?" I stood beside him and looked at his face. He was crying.

"Chris hits me all the time. He makes fun of me, and bullies me. And she doesn't even know."

He clenched his fist tightly. I knew I needed to do something.

I wrapped my arms around him in a hug. I squeezed him tightly. He unclenched his fists, and reluctantly wrapped his arms around me too. He rested his head on my shoulder. I felt his tears soak into my jacket. I didn't know what to do, so I just held him.

Soon he stopped crying, and raised his head up to look at me. I let him go.

"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm ok."

I had a feeling he wasn't okay.