29/08/12: This chapter has been edited.

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“Georgie!”

An unattractive sounding groan escapes my lips as I roll over under the covers. It’s Saturday morning, and after five consecutive days of being forced to wake up at an inhumanly early hour, I’m not really in the mood to be dragged out of my peaceful slumber by my mom’s loud calling.

That’s not going to stop her, though.

It takes all of my strength to push the comforter off me and roll out of bed. The air in my bedroom feels practically Arctic in comparison to the toasty warmth I’ve been basking in all night, but I know that if I don’t go and see what Mom wants, she’ll probably barge into my room with a glass of cold water.

And I’m not really in the mood for a mid-morning freezing shower right at this moment.

“Yeah?” I call back. My trusty pink slippers lay by the bed and I slip my feet into them, padding across my room and into the hall.

When I enter the kitchen, Mom is sitting at the kitchen table, buried between piles of grubby third graders’ homework sheets. Her red marker pen moves swiftly down one of the pages and every so often she’ll grimace at a particularly stupid answer a student has given.

“I’m here,” I say, stifling a yawn and running a hand through my curly hair, only realizing then that I probably have the world’s worst bed head.

She looks up at the sound of my voice, her gaze quickly scanning over my attire – my oversized nightshirt embellished with a mildly embarrassing teddy bear print – before returning to my face. “You finally decided to get up, then?” she inquires with an amused smile.

“Not by choice.”

“Well, you’ve had enough time to sleep.”

I narrow my eyes at her. “Did you just call me to wake me up?”

The corner of her lips tug upwards into a smirk. “Well,” she begins, “yeah. Pretty much. But it’s noon. You can’t lie in bed all day.”

I groan, rubbing at my tired eyes. After an exhausting week of school, homework and extra shifts at the restaurant, all I want to do is crawl back into bed and catch up on five days’ worth of missed sleep. Even if that means not emerging from under the covers until four in the afternoon.

I’m not exactly a morning person, as you can see.

“But,” Mom continues, “I did have something else to tell you. I thought you might be interested.”

You didn’t have to wake me up to tell me, I add mentally, but I don’t voice my thoughts. Instead, I pull out one of the dining chairs and collapse into it. Well, I’m up now – albeit reluctantly – so I might as well hear what exciting news Mom has to share.

But if she’s just telling me she went to Walmart earlier, I’ll be pissed.

She finishes off the homework sheet in front of her by adding a large red C to the top, before transferring it to her finished pile. That’s when she turns her attention to me, the faintest glimmer of mischief crossing her blue eyes.

Okay, so now I’m curious. Whatever it is, she’s obviously dying to tell me. Maybe there’s hope – she wouldn’t be this keen to inform me of her trip to the grocery store, so at least I’m in for something marginally more interesting. At the same time, the smug look on her face does make me kind of wary. Does this story have a potentially embarrassing theme?

Knowing Mom – probably the least conventional mother there’s ever been – it does.

“You remember Julie, right?”

I pause, letting the name register in my brain. I’m pretty sure I’ve come across a couple of Julies before, but it doesn’t trigger an immediate image of anyone I know. Should it? Am I just being incredibly stupid? Mom’s expression implies that I am.

“Julie...?”

She shakes her head at me, pushing the pile of papers away from her and getting up from the table. Pressing a button on the coffee machine, she leans back against the counter, facing me.

“You know Julie,” she assures me. “Julie as in Connor’s Julie?”

Instantly, realization strikes. It must be written all over my face, too, because as soon as she catches a glimpse of my expression, she grins. At the mention of Connor’s name, a whole wave of memories come flooding back to me. Connor: the guy who I’d once been practically attached at the hip to. I hadn’t forgotten – the thoughts had merely been pushed to the back of my mind. It’s impossible to erase his memory completely; he’d been my best friends for eight whole years, after all. And when you’re kids, eight years is an eternity. However, so long had passed since we’d had any contact, and I hadn’t spared him a thought in forever.

Well, until now.

“Oh, right...” I say, trying to keep my voice casual. “What about her?”

The coffee machine’s timer finishes, beeping loudly to prompt Mom to remove her cup. She does so, stirring it a couple of times before sipping at the hot liquid. “She’s back.”

“What?”

If I had a drink right now, I would’ve spat it out. In hindsight, it’s probably a good thing my mouth was liquid-free, because I’m not sure my mom’s third grade class would appreciate my saliva all over their homework.

“She’s back,” she repeats, even though I heard her the first time.

“Back?” I echo. “Back as in... back here?”

The idea seems surreal, but at the same time, I know it’s possible. Just because Julie’s family moved to New York eight years ago, doesn’t mean they’re forbidden from coming back. Although I’m not sure why they’d want to. The heart of Manhattan and small town Indiana are practically worlds apart.

Not that I’ve ever been to New York. My knowledge is purely based on highly reliable sources of information – i.e. movies.

“Yeah,” she confirms with a smile. “It’s kind of sad, but she and Richard are filing for divorce. He... well, long story short, he was cheating on her. Of course they weren’t going to stay together after that. She thought about staying in New York, but the only reason she moved there in the first place was for his job. Now they’re separated... well, she and Connor decided to come back here, since she missed it so much.”

The news renders me speechless as I try to comprehend what Mom’s just told me. Connor, my former best friend – the guy I once planned on marrying – is moving back here after eight years of separation?

The idea’s... weird, to say the least.

“And they’re moving back permanently?”

She nods enthusiastically, obviously excited by the idea of her friend’s return. “To the house next door! They arrived late yesterday afternoon, actually, so they’re already here.”

If I’m honest, I’m not sure how I should react. Should I be over the moon that I’m going to be reunited with my childhood best friend? But we’re not exactly kids anymore. We’ve grown up without each other, and we’re both juniors now. It’s not as if we can go back to holding fake weddings in the back garden.

And then, like a hard slap in the face, it hits me. With such force that I probably would physically stumble backwards if I weren’t safely seated on a chair. If Connor’s back in town, and has been since yesterday afternoon...

The obnoxious guy I bumped into…

Surely it couldn’t be...

Was that him?

Oh my God.

I instantly start racking my brains, trying to conjure up a mental image of the guy with the cold stare. Unfortunately, I’m not lucky enough to possess any type of photographic memory, so all that remains in my brain is the realization that he was kind of hot… and the hazy memory of a pair of chocolate brown eyes.

Oh, crap.

It was him?

“Georgie?”

I snap back to reality quickly, where my heart has begun to beat a million times a minute. Mom is peering at me curiously from across the kitchen, frowning at my vacant expression. “Um, yeah?”

“Are you okay? You completely zoned out.”

I shake my head vigorously, trying to cleanse my head of its frantic state. Still, it proves to be difficult – what seems like a thousand different thoughts are whizzing through my mind, the majority of them focused on the revelation of thirty seconds ago. “No, um... I’m fine. Sorry. What did you say?”

“I was saying it’s odd that you didn’t cross paths yesterday. He was outside the house a lot, shifting boxes and stuff. I thought you might have seen him on your way back from work. You would’ve walked that way.”

I take a deep breath. Why am I getting so worked up over this? I ran into my old best friend yesterday evening – so what? Maybe it’s the fact he acted like such a jerk that’s bothering me. Surely he wouldn’t have said those things if he recognized me? Connor’s not like that... or at least he wasn’t eight years ago.

I suppose it’s only normal that he’s changed.

But such a drastic personality switch? I don’t know.

“Well,” I start, deciding to confess to my mom. At least then she’ll know there’s a reason behind all the color draining from my face. “Actually, we did see each other.”

Immediately, Mom’s face brightens. “Really?”

Oh, great. How am I supposed to tell her about our less than civil conversation? Judging by the look of the excitement etched across her features, she’s holding out hope that Connor and I will rekindle our close friendship. I can’t crush that by telling her there’s no way in hell we’ll ever be friends again.

Not in this lifetime, anyway.

“Yeah.”

“Did you two talk?”

“Kind of.” Well, it’s not a total lie. We did talk – it just wasn’t exactly a pleasant conversation.

“And you didn’t recognize each other?”

“Um...” I pause. “Not really. It was dark outside, so we couldn’t really see.”

I’m not technically lying; I’m just skirting around the truth. There’s a difference between the two. I just don’t have the heart to ruin the hope that Mom’s clinging to that Connor and I will go back to our inseparable childhood ways.

Maybe she wants me to date him. Ugh. I can’t bear the thought.

“Oh,” she says, evidently disappointed. “Well, you’ll see each other again soon. They are living next door, after all.”

As if I need reminding. “Yeah,” I mumble, rising from my seat. “Uh, well... I’m going to get dressed, then...”

I move quickly towards the door, eager to escape the room and, with it, the tortures of this conversation. Any further discussion on the subject of Connor is not exactly at the top of my wish list. I can’t wait to escape to the seclusion of my bedroom, where I’ll be able to fret about this in private.

And maybe take a few sneaky peeks outside my window to see if he’s lurking around out there.

Just as I pass through the door frame, under the impression that I’m safe, Mom’s voice calls out. “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she says, setting down her coffee mug and resuming her position at the table, where a pile of untouched homework sheets still lie.

I have an inkling something bad is about to follow.

“I invited the two of them over for dinner tonight.”

Well, what do you know? I was right.

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So here it is... the second chapter is finally up! I can't believe this story has already reached 1,000 reads with only two parts being up. Can I dream so far as getting on the What's Hot list? Maybe...

Anyway, what did you think? For any of you that read my rant in the last chapter about my iPhone... it's fixed! It was actually fixed like an hour after I wrote that, but I couldn't be bothered to go back and change it. Reading on Wattpad is so much clearer now, I love it.

Drop me a vote or comment if you liked it! It will encourage me to write more, which means faster updates for you guys ;) (Bribery? Yup...)