Gabriella

Mack kills me sometimes. It doesn't really matter how she does it, she just always does. And now Annabelle knows my 'secret'. Or whatever you want to call it. Annabelle just stared with her mouth agape and it didn't really close for quite some time. Finally, she came back to planet Earth and plucked my phone from Mack's grasp.

"Why in the world would you do that?" Annabelle asked.

"To make something interesting happen." Mack said contently.

"Well, you did quite a good job of it." I growled. Then, my phone buzzed. I felt Annabelle's eyes looking to me for clearance to look. I gave her a slight nod.

"It says," Annabelle read aloud:

Derrick <3 5:23 A.M.

Hey Gabriella:)

"Wow, he's original." Mack huffed.

"What should I say?" Annabelle looked to me for instruction.

"Say: 'How's life at 5:00 A.M.?'" I managed to croak out. It's hard to speak when your heart is fluttering faster than the speed of light.

"Andddd, sent." Annabelle announced.

"How are we on time?" I said to no one in particular.

"5:25." Mack replied.

"We're gonna be cutting it close guys. How much longer 'till we get to Mack's?" I bit my lip. If my parents found out that I was out this late at night all night, let alone driving, I would be toast. And Mack's and my parents are pretty lenient. If Annabelle's parents found out, she probably would never leave the house again. Like literally, she would be homeschooled from that hour forward.

"We will get to my house at 6:40." Annabelle said.

"Can we focus on something else? Like Gabriella's 'friend'?" Mack smirked.

"No, no we cannot, because..." I desperately tried to come up with a reason about why we couldn't talk about Derrick. "Because... I just remembered Annabelle and I have a partner term paper due tomorrow and we haven't even started!" I sighed in relief, and then started to panic when I realized what I had said was true! Annabelle and I hadn't even thought about the paper, and it counted for 45% of our grade!

"Oh shoot!" Annabelle hopped on her phone and started scrolling through her assignments on her digital agenda book.

"What was the topic again?" Mack asked with a knowing smile. "I mean, I got mine

done so long ago, I couldn't possibly remember." She said in a sappy tone. My stomach started to knot itself. And with perfect timing, my phone buzzed. Annabelle read the text aloud.

Derrick 5:30 A.M.

Pretty good, but driving is hard.

"Awww, he's driving too!" Mack cooed.

"Awww, your nose is never gonna look the same when I'm done with it." I growled, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles were as white as snow.

"What do you want me to say?" Annabelle's fingers hovered hesitantly over the keyboard.

"Just don't say anything, I think our term paper is a bit more important." I replied in my notorious annoyed monotone.

"Oh yeah! The topic was 'Fact or Fiction?' It says basically we have to free write a story about whatever we want, and when the teacher grades it, he'll decide whether he thinks it was true or false."

"What do you want to write about?" I mindlessly asked as my brain pondered the options.

"I think we should decide fact or fiction first." Annabelle offered up.

"We should do fact cuz that way we don't have to take time making some ridiculous story up," I laughed.

"Okay... What should we write about?" Annabelle bit her lip in thought, an awful habit of hers.

Then Mack piped up. Usually, this wasn't a good thing, but she actually had a good idea! "You guys should write about tonight!"

"That's actually not a half bad idea!" Annabelle jumped on board the usual crazy train that runs through Mack's brain. "Are you in, Gabriella?"

"Yeah sure, I guess. Where should we start?" I asked.

"The beginning. Right at the beginning. From the moment you put that key into the ignition to the moment when we get home." Annabelle just let those words flow from her mouth, and Mack and I just kind of stared in awe.

"Where did you learn to string words together like that?" Leave it to Mack to ruin the moment.

"I don't know, practice?" Annabelle laughed.

"That should be the start of that paper! Type 'Every good story starts at the beginning. Right at the beginning. From the moment you put the key in the ignition, to the moment when you get home.'" I instructed. Annabelle's fingers skittered across her keyboard in response.

As we wrote, all of us allowed ourselves to reminisce about the times we had that night. Before we knew it, it was 6:40, and we were almost home! Mack's house was first. As much as we didn't want an end to come to the night, it was going to, because some things just had to end that way.

After we had dropped Mack off at her mom's house, we continued on to my house and sat in silence. Finally, Annabelle spoke up.

"Are you ever gonna text him back?" Annabelle asked. I sighed and thought very carefully about my answer.

"You know what, I'm not. Why would I chase something when I can just wait, and eventually I can live it? It's kinda like sunrise. You can chase it all you want, but it's not going to make it come faster. Nothing is worth chasing, it will come eventually." I realized halfway through what I was saying I was being pretty deep about it, but I didn't really care. Annabelle sort of looked at me impressed, and shut her mouth the rest of the way.

When we arrived at her house, I stopped Annabelle from getting out of the car to tell her one more thing. "Annabelle please remember, never chase the sunrise, wait for it and it'll come." Annabelle smiled at me, the smile that tells me that she was going to be okay, that this night will only have affected her in a good way, and I pulled my car into my driveway at peace in knowing that.