It just dawned on me, that ick, it's the first day of school. You're leaving me to go be with all your friends, while I'm at work." "Maddie, you're not getting this. This is like the only time in my life I can really go wild, and it makes me feel like the coolest kid in the school. I've made friends at each new school we've been to. And I never miss a chance to hang out with any of them. You know how bad I want to go to your school, to be with all my friends. I've never even talked to my friend at the next school. But you won't let me go because of this one thing." "And I won't be a part of something as destructive as this," Mom argued. "You would be, Mom. Just don't worry about it. I'm not hanging out with anyone like that. My friends will find me," I assured her. "You haven't even gone to school yet. You haven't even looked up any of your friends in the school directory." "I'm sure I know most of them by their last names," I explained. "I'm not going to get caught up in it either. You'll see. I promise you will never have to worry about it again." My mother just looked at me with the same look my father had that time I lost a math test at the beach. "We don't even know what's going to happen at school," she pointed out. "Yes, Mom, we do," I replied. "You need to trust me on this. Okay, I'll call you tomorrow. Love you, Mom." I went back to the phone and hit redial. That time, it was answered on the third ring. "Hello?" "Hi, Jenny," I greeted her. "This is Adam," I identified myself. "Oh, hi," she said with a bit of hesitation. "How was your first day of school?" "We only got there around ten, and I think I'm glad it's the first day. I'm sorry, I've been busy with a phone call, so I didn't get to make much of an impression." "Not a problem. So what's up? You said something about talking to us, but you didn't say what about?" I was feeling some real anxiety over trying to put this all together. I just had to get it straight. I figured, that since I couldn't go back to the end of the summer, I might as well have a look back at the start. "It's nothing that can't wait till you call," I answered. "Tell me, what's going on with Linnie and the guys you were over? Is there anything going on?" I could hear that she was thinking it over, making a huge assumption that I knew what I was asking. And she was right. I hadn't been paying a lot of attention to her life all summer, but her life wasn't mine to know. I could see the question in her eyes. "How do you know about her?" "I just... think of her," I said, not really telling her anything. "I don't know any other way to say it. It's just a feeling I have." "How do you know about her?" "The way you act and the way you say things," I explained. "It's like I've known you forever. You just have to trust me. I know what I'm talking about." "I never thought of you as the psychic type," she said. "Me either," I said, realizing she was still giving a bit too much away. "But I am right about this, isn't it?" "About her and about you and me." "Yes." She paused for a moment. "It's all right, Adam. It was nothing. I've met someone new, and he hasn't treated me as good as I've known you. But what about you? How are you?" she asked. "I'm still here." "Good," she said. "I'm glad. I was worried about you. The whole time I was thinking about you. And I was just ready to get your butt back here where it belongs. I'm glad you've been out in the world, Adam. I was happy to see you so happy this summer, because you never seemed happy before." "I'm sorry, Linnie. I've been feeling down for a while, and I really didn't want to come back," I told her. "And I don't want to tell you I'm sorry, but..." "No, I don't think you're sorry. I think you've just been thinking too much, and now you're feeling sad, and when it comes down to it, you still can't stand the thought of being around your old friends. But you need to be where you are, Adam. You need to be where you are." "I know," I agreed, but only because I was too scared to think of any other options. I hadn't thought about it, but that was exactly what I had wanted. "We'll find a way," she promised. "You need to go back to school, get your feet on the ground, and start looking around for the right kind of person. You're too smart to waste this, Adam." I hung up the phone. I felt really weird. I knew what she meant when she said that she had been looking for someone like me all summer. I knew I'd heard something in her voice that day that made me think she wasn't just talking about a guy she liked. And I knew she had felt what I felt for her when she said that she had been waiting for me to come back. She knew me better than I thought she did. And if she could make her way back to me, then maybe I could make my way back to her too. I had to trust her on this. We were back at the beginning again. We were the same people, standing at the beginning, looking at each other in the same place where we had started before. And the thing was, I was ready. I needed to be back here again. I needed to start the same thing over. I let myself get swept along by whatever force was pulling me and my family together again. We walked in the night air, and the night air pulled a little bit more out of me, and it was like I had been holding onto something and now I could let it go. It made me nervous as hell, and I guess it made Mom nervous too. But I knew it was for the best. I was letting it happen because it was what I wanted. When we got back to the house, I went to my room to finish getting ready for bed, and then I went to the kitchen to get a glass of milk, and I looked out the window to see if anyone had followed us. Nothing moved on the street, but there were no lights on in the house across the street, and the lights in my bedroom only lit up the room. Then I opened the front door and closed it behind me, and I walked right past the car and went straight to my truck. I opened the door and waited a second for my eyes to adjust to the dark again. The moon was bright enough to guide me into my truck, but there was no one else out there. I started it up, and headed home. When I got to the end of my street, I couldn't help feeling a tiny little bit afraid. I would have had to get out and run back into the house. My eyes were already adjusted to the dark, but I still had to hold on to the steering wheel for balance. Once I was on the highway, I knew I was going to be okay. I could feel it, like a power moving through me. I was moving forward, and I was going to let that power carry me all the way home. I was going to make everything okay. I drove along, not caring where I was going, just letting the power work for me. It drove me home, and it got me home, and all at once I was there, at the end of the driveway, and it was only then that I knew I'd been driving for over an hour. I started to feel sleepy, tired of the day, tired of driving, and tired of school and all the people I was so scared of. So I decided I'd just pull into the garage and shut the engine down. I'd go in and get some sleep. It was just after midnight when I pulled in, but the light at the end of the driveway was still on. I was sure Mom had been watching the clock for hours now, waiting for me to come home. And the garage door was open. But I didn't have any chance to look at it before my eyes closed and I was gone. * * * The first thing I remembered when I woke up was that there was something wrong. I wasn't at home in my room. The air was different. I felt like I wasn't on the ground, but it felt like I was in a truck all over again. I just wasn't in my truck. I turned my head to the left and right to see where I was. I was still wearing my clothes, but there were things