Seas Between

Chapter 1

It was Saturday and the moon was full and gleaming. The stars were twinkling and the crickets were chirping. It was the night that I got the call. I was on my back porch, taking in the night when my phone vibrated. A picture of Alex, my closest friend, lit up on on lap. His smile lit up the night like a campfire, warm in the pale moonlight.

I answered immediately. "Hey, Alex, I wanted to talk to you. What's up?"

I heard tension in his voice. "You're not going to like this."

"Oh no, what is it?"

He paused, took a deep breath and answered. "I'm moving..." He trailed off.

"What? You can't be serious." I remarked in disbelief, feeling a flow of shock and terror spreading through my veins, back through my arteries and into my pounding heart. I pet my husky pup, Ava, at my side. She looked up at me with her adorable furry face.

"Far away..." He was quiet after that.

I took it in with a deep breath, filling my lungs with the unpleasant news. "Where are you moving?"

He sighed. "I'm moving to Spain."

"Spain?" I cried, tears starting to form. I wrapped my arms around Ava and pulled her close, burying my head in her soft white fur.

"Yeah... Spain"

I tilted my head so I could talk into the microphone and with a shaky voice replied."Why don't you stay behind? I'll help find you an apartment. Could you room with anyone until then? Please don't leave, please!"

"Katrina, I'm so sorry. I don't have that kind of money. I can't just move out like that."

"Don't your parents have enough to pay for your first month's rent or anything?" I was sobbing by then.

"I can't live on the other side of the world from my parents."

I couldn't speak; I couldn't say a word as I took it in. Slowly, but surely, I grasped the fact and replied. "This is really happening..." I wiped the tears off my face and let Ava climb onto my lap.

"Yep, and there's nothing I can do, nothing either of us can do, to stop it. My parents want to travel, explore." Alex sighed.

"When?"

"Tomorrow afternoon, apparently they wanted to surprise me." He said with annoyance clear on his breath.

"So, will I get to see you before you leave?"

"I hope so; meet me for breakfast at Dawn, the Café?" He invited as I laid down in the damp spring grass, Ava still on top of me, paws resting on my collarbone.

"Of course!" I nearly screamed.

"Great, so... what's up?"

"Besides my best friend telling me he is moving thousands of kilometers away? Oh, not much..." I huffed.

"Well, I guess anything else would seem like nothing when something big like that happens. What were you doing before I called?"

"Does it matter?"

"Of course it does, you are always doing something that means a lot."

Watching the stars, listening to the silent hum of the night and the chirping crickets, you know, me stuff..."

"Ah, that again, I should try that sometime. Maybe in Spain I can watch them from some rooftop or along a harbor or something."

"Look at you, trying to find something positive in everything."

"That's me." He laughed and I laughed with him. He could always make me laugh.

"Okay, so now you know what I was doing. What were you doing?"

"I was just looking through old pictures. You were only seven and I was only eight." That made me think about Freddie, my brother who was recently hospitalized. He was only eight. I loved him so much. He wasn't even born yet at the time that Alex had been reliving through the glossy pictures.

"Nice, any pictures from that day when there was a summer party-"

He joined in and we both recalled. "and everyone had water guns."

"You got soaked!" Alex exclaimed.

"No more than you! Those were not your cheap dollar store water guns."

"I know, they were huge. One squirt and your whole top was drenched."

"Yeah, and remember the obstacle race afterwards?"

"The pictures from that day are priceless. You have to see them sometime, maybe after breakfast?"

"Sounds good" I smiled, picked Ava up and drowsily got on my unsteady feet. "So, as much as I want to hear about Spain, I'm tired. I need to get to bed." I checked the time on my phone; it was nearly 12 am.

"So you do, I don't want you to miss breakfast and never see me ever again."

"Don't say that, I'll see you when I get my ticket."

"What ticket?"

"My plane ticket, duh. I'm going to visit you as soon as I have enough for one, which will probably be payday, a week from now." I swung open the screen door and carried Ava inside.

"Whatever you say," Alex laughed and said goodnight. I whispered goodnight and sneaked off to bed. I curled up in my fleece sheets and puffed up my pillow. I thought for a long time before I finally drifted off about Alex and Freddie, my job, even Ava.