String of Fate

Chapter Seven

My life had always been full of people. I had my big family, with six sets of uncles and aunts, and I had lost count of how many cousins. Then, I had my two friends from school, and their boyfriends, and my best friend since I was young. I liked how my life was full of people. I mean, Darcy and I had been best friends since I was a toddler. We grew up living next door to each other and we even had the same birthday. Our parents said that we were twins that were just born to different parents, but Darcy and I had never considered ourselves as sisters even though we were so close. We were always just best friends.

The bad news came when we were ten years old, Darcy's dad was being transferred in the summer. She would move away before comprehensive school. It was the hardest time in my life, and Darcy constantly insisted that she didn't want to go, but she didn't have a choice since she was only ten years old. I knew that I was going to miss seeing her daily.

We still kept in touch – a lot. We sent letters and made phone calls from home before getting our mobiles – texting and calling each other since then. Our birthdays always fell in the last half term of the year, so we stayed over each other's house for a few days of the week. We made sure that we continued being best friends.

This time for our birthdays, it was my turn to have Darcy over to my place to stay for our birthdays, and I was really looking forward to it. The half term couldn't come soon enough for me. According to our messages, she was also looking forward to it, and had bought me the best birthday present ever. I knew that I would have gotten her the best birthday present ever.

Finally, the first day of half term happened. It was the day that Darcy was catching her morning train to my house and my parents would pick her up from the train station. I couldn't wait. I was bouncing with excitement while my parents drove to the pick-up point. We were there a little early, but the train wouldn't be long, and I had to wait outside the car for her.

The first thing I noticed when I saw her was that she had grown taller again. She had to stop growing. Surely she should have stopped growing by now. I only came to her shoulder this time. She dropped her bags on the floor and pulled me into a tight hug. I wrapped my arms tightly around her, too, squeezing her to me with as much force as I could muster. I always missed her when I didn't see her.

"I've missed you, Sammy." Darcy said to me, her voice close to my ear as she spoke while we were in the hug. It was nice to hug her again. She always smelled of strawberries for some reason. It must have been the shower gel that she used, but it was a great shower gel.

"I missed you, too." I replied, giving her a quick squeeze before letting her go and stepping back. I picked up her big bag and headed back to the car, putting her bags in the boot. We both got in the back of the car and my parents started driving back to the bungalow while the four of us made small talk, Darcy and I catching up on everything that we had missed since the last school holidays.

When we got back to my home, I pulled the bags from the boot of the car and lead the way in to my room, plonking the bags on my bed. I'd already set up the camp bed, turning to her as she stood in the doorway, looking around like she always did to see if anything had changed since she had last been here. Then, she looked at me as I started talking to her, putting my hands on my hip out of habit. "Right, do you want the actual bed or the camp bed?"

"I'll take the camp bed." Darcy answered, as she usually did, putting her handbag on the bed and shutting the door. She lay down on the bed, looking at the ceiling to look at the glow in the dark stars that were there. I swear she always counted them, because she would lay there long enough.

I sat on my bed, watching her as she looked at the ceiling. I couldn't tell what she was thinking, though. I lay down, too, looking at the patterns that I had painted on there around the stars that my parents had put up there when I was younger. It was nice and quiet between the two of us until Darcy decided to break the comfortable silence. "Sam, are you looking forward to tomorrow?"