Lacey sat in the window seat of her bedroom and stared out at the street below. It had turned from a sunny day to a dark, rainy day within the past half hour. She saw car headlights come around the corner and splash throught the puddle in front of her house and she jumped. When she realized it wasn't the Hanson's, she sighed and walked over to her desk and picked up a magazine. She heard a car outside again and bolted back over to her widow. When she sighted that familiar white van she let out an shriek.
"Mom! They're home!" Lacey screamed as she ran down the stairs. She almost tripped on her long skirt as she ran down the steps and into the kitchen where her mom was still cooking for twelve people.
"Why don't you go over and tell Diana that they can come over anytime after they feel setled, OK?" Mrs. Redmond suggested.
"Uhhh....I think I'll pass on that one mom."
She didn't know why she was so scared of seeing them again...she wanted so badly to run over and into Tay's arms, but at the same time she was afraid he'd just give her a weird look. Lacey was just so confused...she figured that since she had changed so much in the past year and a half, the same thing could have happened to Taylor. She walked down the hall toward her room and heard her brother Christian call her name.
"Lacey? Come here and look at this picture!" Christian called out. She opened the door and found him in a mess of college books and old pictures. "I had to find some old pictures for some stupid project in psychology, and I found this one. I'm not sure, but is that you and Taylor Hanson?"
Lacey took the picture of the two blonde-haired twelve year olds and smiled down at it. "I'm gonna take this, K?"
"Yeah, go ahead."
Lacey went back to her room, shut the door, and flopped down on her bed to look at the picture again. It had been taken at a Tulsan amusement park about a week before the Hanson's had left. In the picture Taylor was wearing a necklace with a cross on it...she had given it to him as a going away present the night before. Suddenly Lacey heard voices down in the living room. She jumped to her feet and felt a knot form in her stomache, and battled with herself over whether or not to go running downstairs and attack Taylor like she SO badly wanted to do, or just stay in her room until her mom called her down. She decided to stay where she was. She laid down on her bed and stared at the ceiling. She must have fallen asleep cause the next thing she remebered was some one knocking on her door and quielty asking, "Lacey?".
'Oh my God,' she thought, that's Taylor!' She rubbed her eyes and grabbed her hair to brush it really fast. She ran to her door and opened it to see Tay standing there.
"Ummm....hi?" Taylor said in an uneasy voice. He just looked at her and waited or her to say something.
"Hey, hi. Wow, you look..."
"Different? Yeah...whoa, so do you." Taylor tried to hide his surprise at how much of a girl she was. "Um, your mom told me to come up here, but if you don't want to talk, then-"
"No, it's OK. You want to come in?"
Taylor walked in her room and let out a little laugh when he saw the Hanson posters on her walls. "You too?" he asked jokingly.
"Oh, yeah, you know I'm practically scream-squad material now." Lacey joked and smiled at Taylor.
Taylor laughed and smiled back at her. "So Lacey, what's been up? My God, your hair is long!"
"I know, so's yours!" They both laughed nervously then stared around the room. "Um, well seriously, I've been OK. I eventually got over the initial depression of you guys leaving, then made some friends that were girls we just go shopping and to the movies and stuff, you know..." Lacey didn't want to sound like she'd changed too much, so her voice just trailed off as she looked up to wait for Tay to talk. When she looked up Taylor was staring at her. She looked in his eyes then looked away.
"Lacey-" Taylor said really fast.
"Yeah?"
"Listen, I um....I really missed you."
"Well I was wondering...why didn't you ever call or write?"
Tay stared at her for a few seconds then looked down. "I guess- I don't know."
"Did you forget about me?" Lacey couldn't believe she was asking him these questions. She couldn't help it though...it hadn't hit her yet as to how much she'd really missed Taylor, and sometimes over the past year and a half she'd felt forgotten about. Suddenly she felt angry at him. Taylor didn't know what to say. He ws feeling too uneasy around her to tell her the truth. But then again he hated to see her standing there with her eyes shut, cause he knew he had hurt her.
"Lace...I didn't call you because I missed you and I didn't want to make it worse." Taylor looked at the floor. Lacey looked up and suddenly didn't know if she wanted to hug him or walk out. Then she noticed something around his neck. It was the cross she'd given him...he'd worn it all that time.
"Taylor, your necklace..." she stuttered.
"Oh, yeah. It was like having a part of you with me all that time. Lacey, look, I really missed you. So did Zac and Isaac. You were basically my best friend and I really don't want that to be different now."
"You don't care that I'm like, a GIRL now?" Lacey asked.
"No. I mean, of course you were always a girl!" They laughed. "But seriously, no, I....I think it's- really cool."
Lacey was noticing a change from the way Taylor used to look at her. Actually, what was weird was that he was looking at her at all. The only time he used to really look at her was to aim mud pies at her face...but the way he was looking at her now gave her shivers.
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Chapter Three
