Letters

Brainstorming

It wasn't long before we arrived home and I was beginning to face a new problem. Somehow Katherine and I were going to have to come with a plan to get ourselves to New York and soon. We were only about 5 minutes from home when I made a split second decision.

"Hey Katherine?" I asked interrupting my mom and Katherine's discussion about high school.

Her brown eyes met mine and I could see them studying me as if she were trying to figure out what I was going to say. "Yeah?"

"Are you doing anything else today?" This time my mom looked at me too.

"No, I don't think so," she replied and something in her eyes seemed to click. She knew I why I wanted her to hang out. "Do you think we should work more on the project?"

I nodded. "Yeah I was wondering if you wanted to come over so we could work on it." I looked at my mom who clicked on her turn signal to turn into the neighborhood. "Can she come over?"

My mom looked at me. "Yeah, sure Katherine your welcome to come over. But don't feel any pressure, you don't have to come over if you don't want to."

I rolled my eyes while Katherine smiled and tried not to laugh. My mom was still confused. "No, I don't mind coming at all. I'll just run over to my house to check and make sure it's okay with my mom."

"Great," my mom replied, pulling up in front of the house. Katherine hopped out.

"See you in a few Zeke." She gave me a light up the world smile and I couldn't help but smile back.

"See you." She shut the car door and I watched as she half-walked, half-ran down the road to her house her brown hair flying around her face in the wind.

"You're very invested in this project," my mom commented all of a sudden, breaking the silence. She turned to look at me, making no move to get out of the car.

Immediately I could feel my face heating up. "Uh yeah." There was a slight edge to my voice. "It's an important project."

"I know," she replied calmly. "It's just you're more into it than you normally are."

By now I could be assured my face was beat red. "I just care about this one. Is that a problem?"

"No." There was a note in her voice that I couldn't put my finger on. It was almost like she was trying not to laugh.

"Then if you don't mind I'm going to go in and grab a sandwich before Katherine comes over." I opened the door to get out.

"Wait Zeke," my mom started. I turned to look at her. "Just be careful, okay?"

Be careful? What did that even mean? "Sure mom."

As I walked into the house I decided to ignore my mom's odd cryptic comment, instead staying true my word and grabbing a quick ham sandwich before heading to my room. That's when I realized that I had even bigger problems. My room was a disaster. My bed wasn't made, my not done school work was piled on my desk, my sweaty football gear was everywhere on the chair, the floor, the window, and to top it all off my closet was opened with half it's contents on the floor after I had desperately tried to find a costume yesterday. It didn't help that that costume was hanging on the back off the door, fake teeth and all.

"Crap," I whispered to myself. The thought of showing this to Katherine made me feel slightly ill. Immediately I began throwing things into my closet like my life depended on it.

I had managed to at least get my football gear and most of the clothes into the closet when I heard my mom shout. "Zeke, Katherine's here!"

"Coming!" I shouted back, throwing the comforter over my bed. I shouldn't have eaten that ham sandwich. It was making my stomach feel weird.