Forever

Chapter 3-Leaving

With almost every eye in the tenth grade on me, I slowly crept through the path made for me by the crowd and stopped just before my newely decorated locker.

The rusty blue door had been transformed with splatters of my favorite color, green. Bows, ribbons, stickers, and pictures were all taped to the front of it. Small balloons worded with "Happy Birthday"   were fighting for space on and around my locker. "We'll miss you" cards were wedged tightly into the slots hidden beneath the new accessories of the locker door.

I felt a small push on my back and stumbled forward, only just realizing that I had been gaping at the sight before me. Unbelievable, I thought. It seemed that everyone knew that I was going away, everyone but me.

I quickly put a smile on my face, and turned to look at the crowd gathered behind me, trying to make up for stupidly staring at my locker. Chloe appeared at my side and gave a little squeal.

"Do you like it?" she asked, smiling so big that I thought she would start jumping up and down.

"Yeah!" I told her, "It's really great." I turned to everyone else. "Thanks guys!" I said just as the bell rang. Everyone laughed and took turns coming up to me and patting me on the back, hugging me, wishing me a good birthday and a safe trip, and saying bye as they passed me on their way to class.

Chloe recieved similar treatment as we walked to our first block. "AMBER! CHLOE! WAIT!" Chloe and I turned around and saw two of our friends, Alex and Rebekkah, dashing though the sea of students toward us, Rebekkah was clumsily shoving people out of their way while Alex help a cupcake high about her head. I laughed at them as they caught up to us.

"We've been looking everywhere for you!" Alex whined. "All...morning.." Rebekkah panted, clutching her side. I looked at the redhead trying to catch her breath. "How far did you run?" 

She glared at me as she straightened up. "From.. the parking lot!, I tried...to get to you.. but I parked so far behind you...and when..you got inside..too many people.." she trailed off and let go of her side to reach into her tote bag and pull out another bar of kit-kat, my favorite vanilla mint lipgloss that I had been running out of, and a mix tape she had been promising me.

"Awh thanks Bekkah!" I cried, pulling her into a hug. She laughed and handed me the gifts and then grabbed my hand and pulled me through a door in front of us, into our English class, when the second bell rang. Alex and Chloe followed right behind.

"Oh and by the way," Alex said as we took our seats in the back of the room, "The presents are from both of us." I glanced at Rebekkah and she nodded, still trying to catch her breath. "Oh right..I forgot to mention that." .

Alex handed me the cupcake. It was vanilla with rainbow frosting "well, thanks guys" I laughed. They smiled at me, "Happy Birthday!" they whispered back, as our teacher started to speak. Mrs. Campbell looked up at her class and smiled sweetly. 

"I guess since all of you have been good this week, and two of our fellow classmates will be leaving us today, it will be a movie day." The whole class erupted in cheers, but turned to Chloe and me with sad looks. 

"We have two movies to choose from, Tangled and Monsters Inc." I rolled my eyes at the childish choices, but Chloe immediately stood from her seat so fast that Im surprised she wasnt dizzy.

"TANGLED TANGLED TANGLED!" she shreiked. "PLEASE!" 

I laughed along with the rest of the class. My mom had rented the movie last week for us to watch and Chloe had instantly fallen in love with it. 

Mrs Campbell chuckled and glanced around the room. "Any objections?" she asked. When no one answered she turned to the small TV in the corner and popped the movie in while turning on the projecter hooked up to it. "Tangled it is."

My blonde bestfriend took her seat with a satisfactory grin on her face, showing no sign of being embarrased. I leaned back in my seat as the movie started and took the wrapper off of my cupcake just as I got a pounding headache.  

I already wanted this day to end. 

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The remainder of the school day turned out to be filled with more movies, birthday wishes, and goodbyes. After promising our friends for the millionth time that yes, we would keep in touch, Chloe and I were finally in the car on the way to meet my mom at her work. I rested my head in my hands the whole ride, trying to ease my headache.

Chloe glanced over at me every few seconds, but she didnt seem to be really worried. I wasnt in the mood to argue with her over this anyway, so I just continued to shut my eyes and rub my temples.

After parking and stuffing all my gifts and cards in the trunk, we made our way through the front door of the office building. We walked through the multiple hallways until my mom's door came into view. When I opened the door, I found her typing away at her computer. She looked up as we entered but didn't stop typing.

"Hey, girls, I have some stuff to finish up and we are leaving at six, instead of four so you can wait in the conference room until Im done."

"You changed our flight time?" I asked. "Something like that." my mom mumbled. Before I could ask what she meant, Chloe grabbed my arm and pulled me through the door, closing it behind her. I followed her into the a room a few doors down from my mom's.

We walked past the long table that  meeting's were held at, to the wall at the back of the room where a medium sized TV hung on the wall. An x-box that my mom had set up for us a few weeks ago was resting on the floor under it, still plugged in.

Chloe and I picked up two of the chairs around the table and dragged them to the front of the TV. I turned the x-box and TV on, while she grabbed the controllers and we started our ritual for whenever we came to the office. The only game we ever played here was Halo 2, our obsession.

We were on the fifth or sixth level, (we always lost track), and this was the level that we could never move past. When we had first started to play this game, many attempts were made to move past this level, but we had finally given up hope and just decided to restart the game whenever Chloe threatened to have a mental breakdown from getting so frustrated.

'DIE!" she shrieked at the TV while jabbing away at buttons on her controller. 

"We can never get past these guys, C." I said referring to the giant alien things on screen. I hesitated. "Maybe we should...start ov-"

"NO." "I am going to beat these things if it's the last thing I do!" Chloe stated determidly.

Two hours flew by in the same manner, but we managed to kill two more aliens than usual. The trick was to shoot them where they had no armour, by their belly or neck. 

My mom walked into the room and I paused the game when I noticed that my head no longer hurt. Mom looked at us and said "It's time."

Chloe quickly got up and started to put everything away, while I walked over to my mother. She had her long honey blonde hair, so much like mine, pulled into a tight ponytail that fell over her shoulder. Her jade green eyes, not like mine, watched me with kindess in them. 

She grabbed my hand as Chloe joined my other side and we walked away from yet another part of my life.