3. Annie

ANNIE

October 2010 - Annie is 14 Sam is 16

I sort of have the house all to myself tonight. Mom's out at a party and Noah is at work, but it's Halloween, so the doorbell keeps ringing.

I throw my book onto the couch, wishing more than ever that I could just enjoy a quiet, relaxing evening, but I don't think that's going to happen. When I open the door, I see the entire Holland family gathered. The two girls—Sam's younger sisters—hold up their pumpkin buckets. "Trick-or-treat," they say together.

Against Mom's wishes, I put a handful of chocolate bars into each of their buckets. Mom's not here, so she won't know how much candy I'm giving away.

"You're the cutest little Dorothy," I say to his youngest sister, Jodi. I've only seen her a few times because mostly I stick to myself, but she seems nice and cute with her two missing front teeth.

"Thanks." She gives me a big toothless smile. "I love my red ruby slippers! They sparkle." She sticks out a foot to show me.

"Do you know who I am?" Amelia huffs. She's wearing all white and has two buns on either side of her head.

"Princess Leia of course," I say. My knowledge of Star Wars is fairly limited, but I have seen the movies once and I know who she is. Amelia grins.

Sam is watching me interact with his sisters. I've felt his gaze on me the entire time, and I finally let myself look at him. The same butterflies I felt back when we first met a couple months ago swirl in my belly. I don't know if I'll ever be able to squish these weird feelings I have. "And you must be Clark Kent."

He grins at me and pushes the glasses he's wearing—the ones with no lenses—up his nose. "How'd you guess?"

"The glasses, the button-up shirt that's slightly opened revealing your Spiderman shirt," I say.

His mom chuckles.

"Superman, but close enough," he says. I feel myself go warm all over. Superheroes aren't my thing. "You stuck here handing out candy?"

I nod.

His mom frowns and his dad is already walking down the path with the two girls to go to the next house. "You shouldn't be alone on a night like tonight," she says. "You should come with us. Leave the bowl of candy out like we did, and come trick or treating."

I can't remember the last time I went trick-or-treating. Mom has almost always had some sort of party with her friends on Halloween, so Noah and I were left to our own devices. And usually, for me, that meant curling up with a good book. I could get candy when I wanted it, but a night reading without Mom's interruptions? That didn't happen very often these days.

"Um."

"Come on," Mrs. Holland says, smiling encouragingly at me. "It'll be fun."

I glance at Sam. He and I have hung out a couple of times, and by hung out I mean that I was in the room doing homework or something while he and Noah hung out. And it's not like we'll be alone, but maybe I can get to know him better. "Sure."

I grab my jacket and dump the rest of the candy bag into the bowl. I set it on our front porch and lock the front door.

"How long have you lived in Kersey?" she asks as we walk to the next house to catch up with the rest of Sam's family.

"My whole life," I answer.

"I grew up in the same place too, a little town in Vermont," she says. "But we move around a lot now."

Sam laughs. "That's one way to put it." He falls into step with me when we reach his family and his mom moves to be with her husband. "I don't think we've stayed in one place for more than a year my entire life."

"Oh yeah?" I look up at him. He's not too much taller than me, maybe five inches or so, but I still have to look up to meet his eyes.

"Yup." He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "Dad's a bit of a dreamer. And he gets bored easily so we're always hopping around from place to place so he can try new jobs."

"Oh." I'm not really sure what to say to that. My dad also got bored. So bored that he left us when I was younger. I don't think about him much, because I don't really remember him. But my mom grew up here. "Mom doesn't ever want to leave."

"Yeah, that's what Noah said. Do you want to leave here?" he asks.

I shift uncomfortably. "I don't know. Kersey is home, you know?" And even with all the fights I have with Mom, I can't really see myself going anywhere else. I've never even left the state of Colorado. The world is huge and intimidating.

"I don't." Sam grins at me. "I've never stayed in a place long enough for anywhere to feel like home."

"That's kind of sad," I say. I can't imagine not having roots somewhere. I feel like it would be awful to not know how long you were going to stay somewhere.

"They just gave me a king-size Twix," Jodi yells with glee as we cross over to the next street. I smile and while I miss my book, I'm glad I decided to come. It's nice not being alone on Halloween.

"Dad is a dreamer," Sam says, making me look back up at him. His jaw is tight. "His latest dream that brought us here is to be a cow farmer. Does the man know anything about cows or farming? Not until we moved here a couple of months ago."

I laugh. A full belly laugh.

"You think that's funny?"

"I think it must be nice to be able to pick up your life and do whatever you want." The truth of the words hit me as I say them. I'm only fourteen, but I wonder what I want to do with my life. Maybe there is a future for me outside of this small town.

"It might be, if you weren't the one who had to keep starting over," Sam grumbles quietly so his parents don't hear him.

I resist the urge I have to reach out and touch him. To offer him some sort of comfort. But this is the first time we've really had any sort of conversation, so touching would probably be weird. "I bet it's hard, moving so much."

"I'd love to have a place to call home, you know?" His eyes twinkle under the streetlight we're standing under. "I can't ever get too attached to a place or to people. It makes it hard to make friends."

"You and Noah seem to be good friends."

Sam shrugs. "Noah's easy to get along with."

"I hope that we can be friends, too." I have to glance away after the words come out. I'm never this forward with anyone except maybe Emily. But there's something about Sam that makes me want to be around him, to be his friend. Sure, he's cute. But that doesn't have anything to do with it. I want to be his friend because something about him makes me want to be close to him.

"I'd like that."

When I look up at him again, he's smiling. So I smile back. "Friends then."

"Friends."

We fall into an awkward silence. "I should warn you, I don't know how to be friends with a boy. Emily is my only friend, besides Noah, but I don't think he counts because he's my brother."

"Well, then I guess now's a good time to tell you that I don't really have friends that are girls. Most girls tend to look at me like I'm some sort of new plaything because I'm always the new kid."

"That's dumb." I roll my eyes. "There's more to life than romance and kissing and all that stuff. Because we can be friends without all that stuff. Kissing I mean. We don't need to kiss."

Shut your mouth, stop talking about kissing. Why are you even thinking about kissing? Maybe because Emily was just telling me about her new crush and how kissable his lips are. Gross. I don't need to be kissing anyone. Especially not Sam. He does have nice lips though.

Gah. Stop it.

I force myself to look at Sam. He's watching me with a bemused expression on his face.

"I haven't ever thought about kissing you," I blurt. Until now. Now I wonder what it would be like to kiss him—or anyone really. "Sorry, I'm making this awkward. Can we stop talking about kissing?"

He smirks. "I think you're the only one talking about kissing. But yes, we can stop."

"Thank you," I breathe in relief. "Friends still? Even though I blurt out awkward things?"

"I like it." He gives me a shy smile. "Makes me feel less awkward for the moment when I'll blurt out something awkward. Cause I'm sure it will happen. This is new territory for me. Making real friends."

I smile back. "Well, we can be awkward friends together, I guess."

"Perfect."

And just like that, I have my first boy friend.