As I woke up to the sound of the telephone ringing, I rubbed my eyes, popped in the contacts, and physically pushed myself out of bed. I, Ally, officially hated going to school. I hated getting up in the morning, I hated taking all this time to “look good”, and it even got to the point where I hated to shower morning after morning. The only reason why I even tried in school was to basically please my parents. Show everyone in the school that I was as smart and as talented as my perfect sister, Sara. 

            It was about eight a.m. and as usual I was running late. At about this time every morning, I rush down the stairs, grab an apple, say goodbye to my mom and slam the door behind me. I run in my car scream out of the driveway, and to my luck,  in the direction that I was going, there was a u-haul blocking the exit off my street. I guess someone had to pick that morning to move in across the street, but, being the bad driver that I am, I did a little u-turn and sped off to school.

            After spending the whole day in jail, I came home and immediately went upstairs.  Up in my room is where I usually spend my time. My family never really talks to me in the first place, the only one that really does is my seventeen-year-old sibling Sara. “Ally, come down here. Hurry!” says my sister at the bottom of the stairs. As usual I thought my sister was just going to show me something that means no interest to me. Every time I leave my room for her, I usually leave to see how nice her nails look or which shirt is more of her color, but I just ran downstairs like I always do. As I trampled down the steps I found my sister looking out the window. “Hurry!” she screams. “Look. Look at him.” I went to the big kitchen window and looked across the street at the new neighbor. And I guess what Sara was showing me wasn’t too bad. Actually, I liked it a lot. Out the window, there was a glare, but from the view that I had, he was really good looking. Tall, brown hair. I’m the type of girl that doesn’t get all into guys. So I really didn’t think much of it.

            Day after day I would see him outside either playing basketball or heading off to school. Even though it’s only been a week, I still haven’t met him. I don’t know his name, and I really haven’t seen him up close. Just from the view of my window is the only time that I ever get a glimpse of the new neighbor boy.

            It was in the middle of December and I swear it was 50 below that morning. And as usual, I was running late. I ran down the steps, grabbed an apple, and then, something stopped me. Feeling like a complete stalker I glanced out the window to see the boy under the hood of his car. Maybe he had car trouble. Maybe he needed a ride? Figuring this was my chance, I ran out the door, jumped in the car and went out the driveway. I drove up next to him, trying to act my coolest, rolled the window down, and said, “Hey… do ya need a ride?” I looked at him for the first time ever up close, which was a lot better then from my kitchen window. He sounded surprised, but took my offer and got in the car.

            There was an awkward silence when he first got in. But we exchanged hello’s and names. His name is Cade. He’s a lot different then any other guy that I have ever met. He acted like he didn’t care by the way he dressed, but tried to stand out as someone different. And I liked that. After that day, he got  a ride from me every morning for school. Sometimes I would get ready as fast as I could so we could go to school early and take our time on talking. I really enjoyed talking to him since my family never really did. As the end of my sophomore year ended, we were best of friends. He knew everything about me. And I knew everything about him. Every girl that he ever liked, I knew about. He always gave me advice. He was unlike someone that I have ever met. Every night we were with each other. I honestly don’t remember one night that we didn’t hang out. And I remember, at the end of my sophomore year, we promised each other that we would go to prom together. No matter what.

            Prom is basically the biggest event that you go to as an upper classman. Cade and my parents got so into it. My sister was graduated by now, but she’s always there for you when it comes to beauty tips and having the most fashionable dress. Sara was always there when you needed her, and that’s why I loved her. It really didn’t help much that I hung out with boys all the time, but Sara was the one that taught me how to be a girl. And she told me that on prom night, she couldn’t believe her eyes. My nails were done, my hair was done, I was tan, and she said that I have the prettiest dress on that she has ever seen. She was obviously the one that picked it out.

When 5:30 rolled around I decided to walk over to Cade’s and see how he was holdin’ up. There were many of his friends cars parked outside his house, so I was expecting every guy to laugh when I stumbled through his door. But as I opened the big glass entrance, the laughing, loud room turned silent, and everyone stared. It was the most embarrassing thing, but I was glad that Cade had caught the awkward silence and rushed over to me. “You look… you look awesome.” Said Cade trying to act his coolest.

 After taking hundreds of pictures and eating tons of snacks, me and Cade went with our group of friends to the prom dance. But Cade wasn’t acting himself. The only thing that he would say to me the whole night was, “ Wow.” And then he would give off his “cool giggle” and then turn away. It wasn’t until when he was dropping me off at my front gate when he said, “lets talk.” Whenever Cade said something like that, it meant trouble. It meant he was being scandalous or sneaky. It got me all nervous but, since he was my best friend I said ok. Then the weirdest thing happened. Cade leaned over and kissed me on the lips. And being sly, he said “never mind.” And just walked away without saying another word. I stood there, without moving for 5 minutes thinking about what just happened. Cade and I never even talked about kissing. Kissing him never before crossed my mind.

After that night, It was almost like Cade didn’t care, because , he would just kiss me like it was no big deal. And everytime he would, I always wanted to say something like “Do you like me? Why are you doing this,” but something always stopped me. I just thought that maybe it was just a friendly kiss, or maybe it was just like saying hello, but it was just getting me all confused. But then I thought to myself, and I called him. I asked him if he liked me. And why he was always kissing on me and why he was doing this to me and getting me all confused. Cade replied “I have liked you ever since the first time I saw you, in that car ride, Ally, I just couldn’t say anything to you because I knew that if I did, you would get like this, you would act all weird, you would be shy about it. So I laid off, and I became best of friend with you, and I never lied to you and I never wanted to hurt you because, I love you.”

            I took the phone off my ear in complete surprise and said back, “ I don’t know about this. I don’t know about anything anymore. I love you for who you are, and lately when you have been kissing me I guess I feel something, but I just get so confused cause you always change your mind and you always make me feel so different about myself. I have changed so much because of you and I don’t know if I like who I am now. But I don’t know, I’ll talk to you in the morning.” As I hung up  the phone I ran upstairs thinking about what I just said could have hurt him more then I thought it could, but I guess it’s just something that I should have said in the first place. Then I ran upstairs and went to bed.

The next morning, that Sunday, everyone was at church and so I immediately went in the kitchen to get an apple. As I was half way down the steps the telephone rang, I answered and the voice at the other end said, “go to your kitchen window,” then hung up. So, glancing over at the window sill, I saw a red rose, and out the window stood Cade. I picked up the rose and opened the window and the first words that came out were, “ I have lied to you Ally… I lied when I said the first time I loved you was when the first time I saw you in your car. But…the first time I ever saw you, was in this window, looking out.” At that moment was the first time that I ever felt something for Cade. And I knew right then that I loved him. And that being something more then just a friend wouldn’t ruin anything because it wouldn’t change anything that we have together. I looked at him, in the eyes, and he looked at me. He reached over through the window, grabbed my hand, and kissed me on the lips.