I walk into the school with Hadley holding the door open for her. "Are you going to tell me at some point today what we could possibly be doing tomorrow?" She's been asking me for the past like three days what my plans for her were, of course I refuse to spill.

"Not even a thank you for holding open the door, my how the young act these days. So ungrateful." I shake my head in a disappointed way.

She smacks me in the arm and rolls her eyes. "I'm literally only a year younger then you." She says " oh the old so forgetful nowadays." She smiles mocking my precious tone.

"Okay, nice one" I say as we continue to walk down the corridor. We stop at Hadley's locker. She puts all her stuff on the selfs and places her bag on its designated hook. I wasn't going to go to my locker but decided I should, my math is in there, I have the class first and I'm so tired of looking off off someone else.

When I open my locker door I hear a gasp out of Hadley's mouth. I look at her quickly." What's wrong?" I ask extremely concerned.

"Dustin, your locker is a mess." She says. I guess she's not a fan of the crimped up test on the ground or the endless amounts of water bottles and food wrappers on the top shelf? Not to mention I have my gym shoes inhere and they don't exactly smell the great but, I'm never in my locker anyways.

"Hadley I'm never here anyway why does it matter?" I ask looking under all the paper that had somehow accumulated on the floor of the locker for my math textbook.

"Because it makes it easier to find stuff." She says placing her hands on her hips. She knows I'm looking for something and having difficulty. "Not to mention it stinks, and don't you organize your notes, keep old tests as study guides. If your locker was cleaned you'd feel a lot better about going to it, maybe might even start using it for what it was given to you for." She says glancing back at my apparently disgusting and messy locker.

"Okay?" I don't know what she wants me to say, I do not have the patience clean this thing out right now.

"We're cleaning it." She says bluntly.

"Um.. with what time?" I ask as I finally find the textbook." See I found what I was looking for, no need to clean up." I say holding up my book then standing up to close the door.

"You would have found it a while ago if your locker was neat and organized. We clean at lunch. Hope you didn't have any important plans." She says then saunters off to who knows where.

I lean against the lockers and knock my head against the thick math textbook a few times.

"Dustin, I don't think that's how you get the math into your mind." Someone says from in front of me. I lower the textbook and see some girl standing there. "Hey." She says and smiles at me.

"Hi." I say awkwardly.

"Riley, remember. I know it's been a while, and I can tell you recognized my face. Forgot my name it's alright. I'm bad with names too." She smiles at me, Riley, right the freshmen. I don't tell her that I didn't even recognize her face.

"Right." I say as confident as I can. "How've you been?" I say trying to not look completely stupid.

"You know, alright." She pauses for a moment. "So do you maybe want to hang out a lunch today? I thought.."

"I actually have plans." I cut her off. Her face drops. "Sorry " i shrug trying to be sincere.

"That's alright. I'll just find something else to do." She says. "Unless I can tag along, what are your plans?" She asks the excitement returning to her face and voice.

"Uh.. my friends making me go through my locker." I say. "I don't know if you should, you know she's not the kind to make friends fast and she's never met you so I don't think it would be a wise idea." I say trying my best to be polite in telling her no.

"Her?" She ask as if I'm not allowed to have friends that are of the female gender.

"Yeah her. Now if you'll excuse me Rachel I've got to get to my math class." I say and push past her.

"It's Riley." She says from behind me.

I roll my eyes. "Whatever."

~ ~ ~

I sit with my legs crossed and my back against the lockers across from mine, watching Hadley as she picks through my locker throwing things out, from water bottles to old paper.

"What about this? Is this really needing to be kept?" She asks me unfolding a blue paper with three words on it, so smudged it's hard to even make out why the words are.

"I guess not." I say to her. "Not like the words are legible anyway." I say honestly.

"Oh my gosh Dustin this is a mess." She says grabbing another two water bottles and throwing them in the bin.

She grabs the large stack of paper off the floor once she had cleaned out the top shelf. She sits on the ground and starts sorting the papers into piles

"What are you doing Doll? Sorting them before you throw them out. Kinda pointless isn't it?" I ask her stealing one of the papers and seeing it's an old history test from like a month and a half ago.

"Oh dear Dustin," she says shaking her head, but like really sassy like. "I'm organizing them according to subject, then we can place them neatly in those fun binders that you have and don't utilize." She says point back to my locker.

Alright I'll admit I had every intention in actually using those binders I even had one of those fun shelves you put in for more shelf space to put them on but I never got to it. The poor shelf was all folded close on my locker floor. Hadley turns around and grabs a black binder and hands it to me. I open it up and pop the rings so I can put paper in it. She hands me papers from one subject and I place them inside. She does another then we repeat. She props up the shelf and takes the two binders from me placing them on the shelf. She moves to sit next to me across the locker.

"See, much nicer now." She says.

"Whatever you say." I smile. She knows it's nicer and I like it clean and organized. Makes it look like my life is more put together then it actually is.

"Is if okay if I stop in after school, like at your house?" She asks

I look at her and furrow my eyebrows in question. She's inviting herself. "Sure, why not?" I say

"I have something to give you." She smirks slightly, oh she just entered the game.

"What is it?" I ask her hoping she'll tell me but with that gut feeling that it's not going to happen.

"Tell me what we are doing tomorrow and I'll tell you what I'm bringing over." She says crossing her arms over her chest. Well played.

"Guess we both have surprises in our near futures."

~ ~ ~

I don't want to admit that I'm acting like a child that's waiting for his birthday arty to start but I am. Hadley told me before we left the school that she shouldn't take to long to go home and grab my surprise. Of course her place I sent exactly close to mine but she has the tuned up car now. I slump on the living room couch. It's like watching bread toast, if I watch it's slow. Then there is a knock on the door.

I race to the door but not to fast, I don't want her thinking I was waiting for her. When I open the door there is Hadley holding a tinny little grey kitten.

"Meet Gizmo." She says petting the kitten on the head. The kitten lets out a small meow like saying hello.

"You have a cat?" I ask her. I am extremely confused right now.

"No silly it's for you." She says "you know so you won't be as lonely anymore." She's serious. She got me a cat so I wouldn't be lonely.

"How..." I want to ask how she got it but she cuts me off walking into the house and dragging a bag of cat stuff I assume.

"My dad's boss cat gave birth a bit back and he said if I ever wanted one, I can't have one because I don't have the time or money to take care of it properly. I asked if I could give one to a friend and he said yes. Since it was a gift for someone else he helped me out a bit with a few things to start off with."

I take the small animal from her arms and pet its little nose. So cute, little Gizmo. He gives the same feeling to me that my old cat did.

"Thank you Hadley."