As soon as I got home I ran up stairs to my room. I shut my door quickly and sank on to the floor. I didn't want to have to deal with my brother and my dad. Normally my dad would be at work but not this week. And normally my brother would be at college. But my brothers not normal and he quit college two weeks ago. He says its hard. My dad gave in to the whole thing and now my brother is living with us. I think my dad misses Jay and thats why hes letting him stay at home. Me and my dad have never had the same relationship that him and Jay do. “Jenny hun, you home?”
“Dang!” I say to myself “He wants something.” I glide back over to the stair case and yell down to my dad “yes dad?”
“Me and Jay are thinking about going to dinner tonight, would you like to come?”
“oh no..” I think “ The pity dinner.” Pity Dinners are the worst! All my dad will talk about is “If your mom was still here she would be so proud of you two” I rush down the stairs and into the living room where I find Jay and dad sprawled out on out green couch. Jay doesn't move at my arrival, his eyes are fixed to the baseball game on TV. “Dad, I cant. I have to go to the school basketball game!” I hesitate and then say “ It's for journalism. Mrs. Rickson put me and Shelly incharge of writing the article...”
“oh really? Well, thats too bad, your gonna miss a great dinner,” he says smiling back at me.
“Im sorry dad, maybe another time!” As I scramble back up to my room my phone starts buzzing from my pocket. Its a text from Shelly. “Hey Jen, got to the game early! Remember to bring a cam. For pics! Try to get here around 5:25! thanks Shell” This is why I love Shelly, she plans things and I don't. I just go with it, but she helps me have some order in my life. She had already planed that I was to take a picture of the players we interviewed and she would write the article. Makes my life easy.

Once I get to the school gym I start to look for a small girl with big blonde hair. “Theres a mob of people all around and the game starts in 23 minutes.” I say to myself “this makes no since” As my eyes scan the rows of people but suddenly I hear a loud laugh. Theres only one person I know that can laugh that loud. I fallow the sound and soon I find exactly who im looking for. Shelly. Shes standing under the basket ball hoop with some of the players. As I make my way over to them I can see shes not doing anything important.
“Hey” I say tapping her on the shoulder.
“Oh hey!!” she smiling with her big white teeth. “Lets go interview the coach, right?”
“Oh..ya, we should” She takes the time to say goodbye to each of the 5 guys she was with. Lucky, I get her over to the coach with enough time to interview him.

“Coach Fobel is a boring looking guy” I think to myself as I snap a picture of him. But soon I find out hes not. Shelly asks him everything she wanted to know and he answered them all. The only reason he stopped talking was because the game was going to start in 10 minuets. And boy was I glad when he finally stopped.
“Well he was nice” Shelly said to me after Coach Fobel had left.
“Ya and loud and repetitive and she wouldn't shut up.”
“Jenny! Thats what you want when you are interviewing someone!!! Silly, we got a lot of good things we can out into the paper.”
“Lets find some seats and scope out the players” After searching we found two seats on the fifth row. It was a little high but it would work. As we squeezed past everyone to get into our seats the buzzard rang. The game had started.

I'm not a big fan of sports so I zoned out a lot but Shelly didn't. She was into it. She was wildly scribbling things down into her notebook. “Shelly, what are you doing?” I asked trying to see what she was writing.
“Just..” she stopped writing, looked up and then started writing again. “Just writing down notes about the game.”
“umm why?” “Because!” She stopped writing and looked up at me. She was mad.
“Shelly I was just wondering.” I say.
“Jen, I actually like journalism! Ok? I know you don't, so you wont understand this but I do. We have been best friends since 5th grade and you have always known I want to work for a magazine one day. Besides it's not like I'm making you really do anything!” This was true. She was going to write the whole article and all I had to do was send her the pictures of the people we interviewed. And its not like I had a problem with journalism I just didn't really like it. Im just in the class to see Shelly. Our teacher, Mrs. Rickson, caught on fast and only makes me do little jobs. Shelly just stares at me for a long time with her deep green eyes. I guess shes waiting for me to say something, but I have nothing to say.

After a while she went back to writing down notes and I went back to “watching” the game. The game was long and boring for me..and it wasn't even half way over. But finally the buzzard rang again and it was half time. “Finally!!” I said standing up “Come on Shell, lets go interview some players!” I pulled her down the stairs and out on to the court.
“Theres like a million cheerleaders and players out here” said Shelly.
“Ya, I know, Who should we interview first?” I asked. We were surrounded. Shelly finally took action and dragged me over to a player. As we were interviewing him I noticed a guy wink in my direction. At lest, I think he did. “Shelly..” I say quietly.
“Umm ya?” shes not paying attention to me, shes focused on her interview.
“No shelly really, list..” I stopped talking. He was waving at me.
“who is that?” I asked myself “tall, dark brown hair...oh no!”
“Shelly!! Walk to the other side of the court!!” I said trying to move her. She wouldn't budge.
“Jenny! Stop! Im interviewing Max!” she said firmly. I turned around only to find he was making his way threw the crowds of people. He was smiling. I was nervous. I turned back around and tried to act like I was with a group of people. It didn't work. “Jenny, right?” a voice said from behind me. I turned around and tried to smile. “yes.”
“Why didn't you wave back? You remember me don't you?” I knew exactly who he was.
“Sorry, I thought you were waving at someone else but yes, your sam” I said smiling up at him. He was wearing a purple and gold jersey and he was covered with sweat.
“Ya, so why are you at the game?” he asked. “I'm here with a friend” I said “for the paper..”
“Oh thats sweet!”
“ya, you have been doing great out there!”
“Thanks, hey you know....” Just then Shelly cuts him off.
“Hey Perfect! Can we ask you a few questions and take your picture for the newspaper?!” she asks Sam. “oh, ya sure.” he says winking at me. Thats when Shelly pulled out all 101 questions she can come up with. Shes actually really good at it. Once we get Sam picture the announcer calls that we have 3 mins. “Well it was nice meeting you and thanks a lot!” Shelly says as she heads back up to our seats. “Your Welcome!” Sam calls to her. He turns to me and opens his mouth and just as hes about to say something Coach Fobel yells “Sam! Get over here!!” Sam doesn't seem to care. He pushes back his brown hair out of his face and looks at me. His eyes are still beautiful.
“You wanna like get dinner or something after the game?” the words seem to slip out of his mouth so easily. “Ya, sure..” I say.
“Great, See you then!” He grabs me and gives me a hug. I suddenly feel shocked. I was still shocked after he let go and ran over to his team. It took me a while to figure out the game was about to start and I was still on the court.

As I made my way up to where Shelly was sitting thoughts start to race into my mind.
“Did that really just happen? Me, a sophomore and Sam, a junior. Wait does he know im a sophomore? He must know! He..” Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted by Shelly.
“What happened?! All I saw was a hug.” Her eyes were lit up and soon mine were to. I told her everything though there want much to tell. We spent the rest of the game talking and watching Sam. Occasionally Shelly would write down a few notes about the game but I stayed fixed on Sam.
“You know, at first I hated basketball but now Im starting to like it.” I told Shelly was Sam ran across the court.

The game finally ended 21 to 17. Everyone in the stands were going crazy and the players were acting wild. Shelly and I followed the crowd down the bleachers.
“Hey, we still need to inveiw one player! So ill go do that and you can go with Sam. Just give me your camera!.” Shelly yelled at me as we were walking threw the gym.
“Thanks! Your the best!” I said handing her my camera. I was off to find sam, I didn't really know where he would be but I figured it wouldn't be to hard to find him.
“Brown hair and tall. Brown hair and tall. Brown hair and tall” I kept saying over and over in my head as my eyes wildly glaze over all the people. I finally spotted him walking outside. Once I made it outside car lights flashed brightly into my eyes. The windows rolled down and I squinted my eyes to see who was inside. “Brown hair and tall” I say smiling to myself as I get into the car.
“You did really great!” I say looking over at Sam “Where are we going?”
“Thanks. Oh, just a restaurant. Your hungry, right?”
“Yes, I am!”

By the time we got to the restaurant I wasn't really hungry anymore. Im more car sick then anything. Let me tell you something about Sam. He drives fast and sharp. To him there seems to be no rules on the rode. He drives fast, turns fast, and parks fast. And the corners he turns so sharply, its almost worse then New York cab drivers. But anyways, the restaurant was perfect for a 1st “date”. We talked and talking, finding that we have a lot in common. We ate but more importantly, we talked. By the end of dinner, I still couldn't believe I was with him. I really wished it wouldn't have stopped. I wish that the night could have kept going but it had to end as all things do. He had to pay the bill. I had to drive in his crazy car. He had to drop me off and I had to walk in side. As I lay in bed on that wonderful night all I could think about was Sam.

The Next day at school I told Shelly everything that had happened on our “date”. She seemed to become bored of me talking about Sam but I didn't care. I saw Sam a few times in the hall and we would talk for a minute but nothing big happened. “Its funny, I think he likes you!” Shelly said as she grabbed me away from Sam. “Really?”
“Ya I mean not a whole lot, but enough! Maybe he will ask you to prom!”
“Haha..maybe” I said as I glided into my math class “Maybe.”

I was right in the middle of a math problem in the row closest to the window, when it happened.
“pstt!! Jenny! Hey did you get number 38?”
“It's about time” I say glancing at the clock. Everyday for the past 2 weeks at about 1:23pm, Hadly Martin has asked me what number 38 is. Everyday. Out of about 50 math problems she always asks for number 38. Why she doesn't pick another number i'll never know but later on i'll wish she would have. “well I got 12.37” I reply with out even looking up.
“Great!” The end of school finally came. I looked for Sam but I could't find him.

Two weeks passed and me and Sam became closer and closer. We pretty much knew everything about each other and it was noticed by everyone that we were more then friends. There was still a week until prom and me and Shelly were on the edge of our seats to see what Sam would do about it.
“Jen, who else would he ask?” Shelly pointed out as we made our way to my car.
“I don't know! I just hope I didn't buy this dress for nothing!” I said placing it into my trunk.
“You didn't! Now come one lets go back to my house and watch a movie or something!” She said slipping into the passenger seat of my car. Once I got inside my car Shelly turned to me and said “Whats this box?” in her hand she was holing a small red box.
“I don't know!!” I said grabbed the box. I opened it slowly. Inside was note. It read
“Jenny, I'm not sure when you will find this but I hope you will. When you find this please call me and then meet me at Griffith Park next to the pond. -number 38”
“Number 38?!” I said blankly looking over at Shelly, “Who's that?”
“umm..hang on let me think..”
“You don't think its Hadly do you?”
“ITS SAM!!”
“Whoa, Shelly calm down!!”
“No, really it is!! When we interviewd him I had to write down his number its Sam.”
“How did I miss that?!”
“I don't know hes like your boyfriend!”
“Shelly!”
“What!?”
“I told you not to say that!”
“Awe, why not?”
“Because it hasn't happened yet..not really”
“Oh whatever, would you just call him!!”

Thirty-five minutes later at 7:46 I was being dropped off at Griffith Park by Shelly. She was going to take my car home. I didn't really care what she did with my car, I was about to see Sam. As I walked over to the pond, I realized this was kind of an odd place for Sam to want to meet me. I looked around and all I saw was nature. The trees were dancing in the wind. The grass was as green as ever. The pond was full of life. And over on an old brown bench was the one person I could spend my whole day with. “Hey you” I said sitting next to Sam on the bench.
“ I'm so glad you found my note.” he said smiling at me.
“Ya me to, on the phone you said you needed to ask me something.”
“Ya I know. Ill get to that haha”
“Why didn't you write Sam on the note? Why number 38?”
“I don't really know! Its my basketball number and im suprised you caught on that fast...”
“Well actually...”
“Shelly?”
“yes.” I giggled. We were so close, so alike but something bothered me. Something about the number 38. It just didn't seem right. “Jenny” Sam said looking at me. He seemed a little nervous.
“Jenny will you go to prom with me?”
“of course!!” I said smiling. My smile was so big that one creeped onto his face as well.
“Lets go jump in the pond!”
“What?! Haha all I said was that id go to prom with you, thats it”
“i know! But its dark no one will see us and no one will care!”
“We will be wet!”
“So? Come on!!”
“Haha, alright!” I said standing up and pulling him along with me. We walked over to the edge of the pond where our toes meet the water. “You go first!” I said.
“No, lets go together.” he said.
“Thats not..” suddenly he grabbed me and kissed me. It had happened before but for some reason I liked this one the best.

We ended up jumping in to the pond together. Im sure we smelt terrible after but we didn't really care. We were together having fun. After we got out we disided to go to get some ice cream. Getting into his car brought back tons of good times. But the good times would soon be over. We were in his car on the way to I Love Ice Cream when it happened. I will never forget that dark night on the corner of Marvell and Green Wood. I cant really blame either of them for what happened yet I cant help but not be upset with it. I often wonder if things would have turned out differently if we would have waited a few minutes or if the car head lights would have been on or if the music wouldn't have been turned down or if he would have made a complete stop. But hes a fast driver so...I cant really blame him. Some times I wish it would have been me not him. Sometimes I wish it would all just go away, but it happened and I will never forget it. Just as we were singing to Oh I Wanna Dance With Somebody with the volume up high, we got hit. By how many cars, I don't know. I felt as though we were being hit from all directions. We were spinning round and round, how many times I'm not sure. The only thing I knew for certain was that we had been hit. As the air bags pushed quickly out of the car I caught a glimpse of Sam. His door has become completely dented in. Sam looked as though he was passed out. I continued to get moved wildly around until we crashed into something hard and fast. I could barley keep my eyes open but some how I managed to look at Sam. But when I did, I knew it was all over...

Soon firetrucks, police and ambulances began to arrive. They quickly took Sam away and soon after they took me. As they took me from Sam's car to the ambulance I could see another two cars that had been hit and one that seemed to be ok. There was a person standing outside that car talking to a police man. As my eyes adjusted I could soon tell who it was. Hadly Martin. Suddenly a shocking pain came from my arm. The pain soon spread all over my body. The pain, the fear, and everything that had happened overwhelmed me. I stopped trying to stay wake and let myself go.

When I woke up my eyes felt very heavy. I didn't have enough energy to try and open them so I let them stay closed. I could hear someone crying and I could feel someone holding my hand. I could barely breath and my whole body was in pain. “Mr.Smith” I heard a voice say as the sound got closer. “Um...yes?” said another voice letting my hand go. “Miss. Martin is fine and sends her deepest apologies. On the other hand Mr. Fuller...He, well sir, hes suffered a bad concussion and has broken numerous bones..” taking a deep breath the voice started talking again “We don't think the will last but about two more hours. As for your daughter, Mr. Smith, we just don't know yet but ill let you know as soon as I can.” The voice was getting closer. Two cold hands slowly grabbed my wrists and pressed down for a few moments and then let go. Then I heard a few beeping noises and then it was silent again. When I finally opened my eyes I could see I was in a hospital room. The bed was uncomfortable, the lights were bright, the air was cold, and the smell was horrible. Sitting in a chair on the end of my bed was my dad with my brother behind him. They were both still, only moving to breath. They didn't notice I had open my eyes and I didn't say anything to let them know. I closed my eyes again. “Mr. Fuller...he, well sir, hes suffered a bad concussion and has broken numerous bones. We don't think the will last but about two more hours.” were the only words in my mind. It Sam was about to die, then I wanted to die. I felt a gentle kiss on the top of my head, “Goodbye Jenny..” I opened my eyes, my dad and Jay handn't moved. I didn't say anything. I didn't want to, there was nothing to say. I slowly glanced over to a clock placed in the center of a blank wall. It read 1:23am. I tried to move my legs but I couldn't. They felt heavier then life and thats when I knew. I knew it was really over. I knew Sam was gone for forever. I knew I didn't want to continue life like this. I knew it was about time. As I shut my eyes for the last time all I could think about was him. All I wanted to do was to be with him...just one more time.