The Girl Who Never Spoke

Chapter Six

The days had passed and Matt had gone back to the army. Mom still wasn't home. 2 weeks. This is the longest she's been gone! I didn't worry too much though, she always came back.

Rory and I had started working on our photography project. We had to show a thing that represented life. What we decided to do, was to take pictures of people's hands. People of all different ages. For example, for our first 2 pictures, I took a picture of one of Matt's hands (before he left of course) for someone who's in their 20s (well he's 19 but same difference) and Rory took a picture of his little sister Everleigh's hands for someone 5 or under (since she's four). That's all we had done so far, but I was feeling pretty good about our pictures!

    The next time photography club met, we hit a problem. "Alright my photographers," Miss Carol said with a smile " you will no longer have time to work on you projects in the allowed club time! We need to move on!"
Crap
"So," Rory started, " do you wanna work on the project at my house or yours?"'
"I don't care, Rory." My voice was barely audible.
"My house it is then! So if tomorrow works for you, she since there's not a club meeting tomorrow, we could head to my house after school to plan out the rest of our ideas, then we can head downtown and find some people that could be hand models!"
" Yeah okay..."

                                •••

    "Hey Renée!" Rowan squealed as she sat next to me in the back, 1st period. I nodded to her, acknowledging her presence. "Sooooooo, are you going to the freshman-only dance Friday?"
    I shrugged. I'd never really been to a dance.
    "You should go!!! I'd come with you! And help you pick out your outfit! If you give me your number we can video chat, or text!
Well, Rowan seems nice enough, maybe I'll go hang out with her. Like Matt said, I can't hide forever.
     I took out a piece of paper and scribbled my number down.

    At lunch that day, I sat with Rowan. Or she sat with me. She had plenty of other friends, but they never sat with her if she came to eat with me. " So I was thinking," Rowan started, " that maybe we'd pick you up at 5 on Friday, we being Rory and I, since the dance is at 5:30. We'd go, have a great time, and stay until either we were tired or the dance ended, whichever comes first. And then I was thinking , please don't kill me, that you could come to my house and sleepover with me! And you'll already be familiar with my house since you're coming over today!"
    I stared at her. Had she gone mad? I haven't had a sleepover with anyone since I was nine! I don't even remember any of the sleepovers I'd been to! But then I saw the pleading look in Rowan's eyes. Maybe, just maybe, a sleepover wouldn't be so bad!
This girl is breaking me! I thought as I looked at her and said "Yeah, sure."
Today was Wednesday. I only had 1 1/2 days to prepare for this. What have I gotten into?