To The Moon And Back

Chapter 1

My eyes seem to burn a hole in my textbook, struggling to remember the whole unit before the big test tomorrow. I grab another pretzel and pop it in my mouth, momentarily enjoying it before reading the confusing words again. I feel a light tap on my shoulder and ignore it. Then I feel a second tap, this one harder, and look up from my book, annoyed.

Sitting next to me, and the culprit of tapping my shoulder, is Braden. "Hey, Evelyn. Want to play a game? All this reading has made me bored." He whispers, and I roll my eyes.

"Braden, we've been studying for only an hour." I look across the table, where Emily is still nose deep in her textbook, trying to cram in all of the information that's going to be on the test tomorrow.

"Yeah, and an hour of studying is already too long for me. I need some enjoyment. Can we please play a game?" He carries out the please in a whiny voice.

I think about it for a moment, then sigh and push my book away. "Fine. But only for a little while. Then we get right back to studying."

By now, Emily has pushed her book away as well. "Oh thank God!" She sighs in relief. "My brain is fried from reading all that information!"

I nod in agreement, then stand up to get more pretzels. "So, what are we playing?" I head to my kitchen in my apartment. I fill the bowl with the remaining pretzels, then throw away the bag and head back into the living room.

Emily and I share a two-bedroom one-bathroom apartment right next to campus. I didn't like living in the dorms and was in my second year of college, so my parents allowed me to rent an apartment, as long as Emily moved in with me. So here we are, now studying for our world history test in our nicely decorated apartment.

I plop myself down on the couch, then eat another pretzel before Braden takes away the bowl and snacks on some. "I think," he says as he stuffs more food in his face," we should play Would You Rather."

"Aw come on, that's such a boring game! couldn't we play cards or something?" Emily groans.

"I'm with Em on this one. Oh! We could play Uno!" I get up and grab the Uno deck from the game cabinet.

Braden sulks for a moment, then makes a face like a lightbulb turned on in his head. "How about the loser of Uno has to tell a secret or do a Would You Rather."

I nod. that actually sounds like a fun idea.

"Yeah, that sounds totally fun!" Emily exclaims, lightly bouncing in her seat as if she was a toddler.

We play the first round for about seven minutes, with Braden coming in first place, Emily coming in last place.

"Okay Emily, I'm going to flip a coin. Heads for a secret, tails for Would You Rather." Braden takes a quarter from his wallet, then flips it. It twirls in the air for a second, then lands. We all lean over to look at the quarter. It landed on heads.

"Ooh, secret time!" I clap my hands together excitedly.

Emily makes a small scowl at me, then sighs. "Well..." She starts, and Braden and I lean in more like little kids listening to their parents read a fairytale. "I've been seeing this really cute guy lately and am really interested in him."

My mouth drops open in shock. "What! How could you not tell me?" I all but yelled. Why is my best friend keeping things from me?

"I didn't tell you because this relationship may actually be serious." She said calmly. My mouth is still hanging open, and it starts to become heavy, so I close it.

Emily did have a reputation for not having any relationships that would last for more than three weeks. "Em..." I reach across the table and grab her hand in mine. "I'm so happy for you. I really hope it works out well between you and whoever this mysterious, hopefully sexy, smart, lucky man is." I wink, and she laughs in response.