Rick sighs and leaves. Zam takes a long swig from her water bottle and motions to the door.
"Ready to go?" she asks. I nod, and Viv walks towards the door. Andy smiles and waves a good=bye.
We grab our bikes and ride back to Vivian's. Her mom waves as we pull in.
"Hey, Shannon!" I call. Viv's mom, like mine, insists on being called by her first name.
"Hi, girls! Your're back soon, went down to the store to harass Andrew?" she smiles.
Vivian nods, smiling. I fell better now, and we race up stairs to the attic. Vivian pulls out the italian ices and spoons she had in her backpack and hands us each one. We eat and the conversation matter is boys, music, friends, enemies, and who's doing what Friday night. We start singing, naturally, Music's always been around, I've always sang, and in the Hanson house, there is always music considering three boys in a band, plus the two younger sisters and my best friend are all dancers. This time it's and old Aerosmith song,"Livin' on the Edge."
We sing for a while, then Zam glances at her watch, "I have to be home in half an hour," she sighs.
"OK, let's go, we'll all walk," Viv gets up and heads for the door. We pick up our trash and head to the kitchen. Throwing the stuff out and tossing the spoons in the sink, Viv hums the Backstreet Boys' "It's Gotta Be You."

We head out the door and Vivian shouts to her mom. We run down the driveway to the road. We cruise to the other side. Zam's house is next to Rick's. He lives in the house diagonal to me. The sun is still high, we have two hours of daylight left. We talk as we walk, and laugh at Vivian's jokes, Zam's impressions and my accents. Soon enough we come to Zam's house. She waves a good-bye and runs up her driveway with her bike. Her brother opens the door and smiles.
We keep walking, until we're across from the Hanson driveway. Nobody's home yet, and Rick's orange and green bike is leaning against the garage. Viv waves goodbye as I run across the street. 78th Street isn't too busy, and now it looks deserted.

Leaving my bike in the garage, I open the door and walk in Rick and Tay are laughing and talking, but Tay has his arms around Sara. They're all on the couch, watching MTV. Rick simles at me, and Tay looks up to see who he's looking at.
"Hey!" Rick gets up, and follows me down to the basement. "He actually paid a lot more attention to me this time. She talked, too, and kissed him a lot. Poor guy, I went in the kitchen for a minute, and that girl will never stop hassling him! He looked so uncomfortable. But the look on his face was interesting, he looked so funny and pathetic."
"He must have been funny, I still feel so bad for him, though. She's such a bitch. If she really loved him she wouldn't push him around." I respond, I'm annoyed, like almost every one of Taylor's friends.
"And she doesn't have the right to take over his life. I didn't think he'd ever let a woman do this," Rick snorts, and almost laugh, "I hope they split soon, it feels like I've lost my best friend."
"I thought he'd dump a girl before she could drag him away from his soccer games and his keyboards," I sigh.

We head back upstairs. Tay's sitting at the table, with Sara on his lap. Rick glance at me, disgusted. I have to laugh, his face is funny. Taylor's face is turning bright red.
Rick laughs, but its bitter. "You look good in red, Tomato Face," he sneers.
"Thanks," he grins, embarrased, "I like red, thank you."
She smiles an evil smile at us, and kisses him. Rick gags, I try to hide the hurt look creeping across my face. Tay's cheeks turn a darker shade of red, and he looks at Rick helplessly, but Rick just looks disgusted. She grins like she thinks she has won, but Rick and I sneer back, she may have won the battle, but not the war.