Skye's the Limit

Chapter 1
No Time to Say Hello, Goodbye

"Aw, fricklestein," I grumbled under my breath, reaching down with one hand to inspect the rip up the leg of my shorts. It wouldn’t have been quite as big a deal, I suppose, had I not just bought them earlier that week. Luckily, despite how short they were - I’m not going to lie, I consider my legs the most attractive part of me, and I don’t mind showing them off - the tear stopped short of actually revealing anything I’d prefer to leave unseen.

"What did you say?" Lela giggled beside me, adjusting her glasses. Despite having been my best friend for pretty much all my life, apparently she had never heard me curse, or had, possibly, just forgotten.

"Cheap piece of junk," I ignored her question, my fidgeting finally drawing her brown eyes down to the site of the tragedy. "Two days. Can you believe that?"

She shrugged. "I’m seeing it." A brunette ponytail pendulummed halfway down her back as she shook her head. "You should see about getting a refund."

"Probably won’t do anything," I said sourly. Annoyed, I brushed a strand of golden hair from out of my blue eyes. It was always the blonde that got in my face - the black was nice and obedient, hanging there right above my shoulders, but the one little patch of yellow right at the front I’d left alone just had to be sassy. "’Sides, I think Rita’s working today."

"She might not be doing returns," she suggested, so sweetly, so very naive, obviously unaware of the way the real world worked. She had such an innocent look on her face, I couldn’t bring myself to enlighten her, just smiled sadly down at her. She was about six inches shorter than me, even though she was a couple months older, and still had a smattering of freckles, and a touch of baby fat, all of which sometimes made it hard to take her seriously. It did explain why she was such a popular babysitter, however.

Speaking of which, it was about then that her latest charge, an unquenchably energetic little six year old boy, ran up to us, hands full of various leaves. "Look, look!" he called, thrusting them up into Lela’s face.

"Great job!" she complimented him, slipping a ziplock from her purse to put the leaves into. "Do you have enough for your project yet?"

He hesitated for a second or two before nodding, so Lela said, "Why don’t you go get a few more, just in case?" He nodded, then quickly turned and scampered off. At a distance, even I couldn’t deny he was quite adorable. That’s when kids are the best - when they’re far away.

"I’ve missed this," Lela said, tucking the bag away into her purse.

"Leaves?" I teased. "There’s usually quite a few of them in the park."

"But we haven’t been here in so long," she stuck out her tongue. "Smart ass."

"I’ve just been busy," I shrugged, staring up into the branches of a nearby tree. "You know how it is... I’ve got ballet all the time, and when I don’t have that, the band’s wanting to practice, and then I still had to do homework and spend some time with Keith."

"At least it’s summer now, right? And tell Keith you spend enough time with him in the band - you need some Lela time, too."

I smiled. "Yeah, I’m sure that’ll go over well."

The kid came running back while we were giggling at that, and after Lela took his latest haul, she decided it was time for them to get going. I didn’t really have anything else to do, but getting sucked into some weird daycare art project wasn’t high on my list of things to do for that day, so I parted ways with them there.

"See ya," Lela waved.

"Bye, Skye!" the boy chirped.

"Bye... you..." I answered, drawing a blank when it came to actually remembering the kid’s name. I don’t know how Lela ever managed to keep them all straight.

I tugged gently at my shorts, wondering if I’d be able to talk my mom into sewing them up. She wasn’t a fan of them in the first place, and I’m not entirely sure she knew how to run a sewing machine, or if we even owned one. Grandma could do it in about 15 seconds, but she lived all the way across town. Not to mention that she would be more likely to throw them away if I told them they were mine. My family, if you hadn’t guessed, is a bunch of prudes.

Lela, on the other hand, was pretty good at all that domestic crap. Maybe I could take them over to her house later on. I turned around to see if she was still within shouting distance - she wasn’t - before fishing my cell out of my pocket.

As I lowered my gaze to the screen, I noticed something, or rather someone, from the corner of my eye, sitting on a park bench. I glanced back up to get a better look, and make sure it was really her. I could’ve sworn the bench was empty when we’d passed it a minute or two before, and yet there sat the girl, long brown hair blowing softly in the wind, reading.

She either always read books with similar covers, or had been working on the same book for a couple weeks now. I’d seen her a few times, almost as if she were following me around, though she never got close enough to make me too nervous, nor did she ever look up from her reading, at least while I was watching.

Still, it was odd enough that, having nothing better to do, I decided to get a little closer to her, maybe even strike up a conversation with her. At least that was my intention, until my phone began its violent spasms, nearly jumping out of my palm before I could flip it open.

"Hey, babe," Keith’s voice came from it.

"What’s up?"

"Come on, we don’t need..." I could hear our drummer, Martin, saying in the background.

"Shut up," Keith hissed before speaking to me again. "We were just wondering if you’re planning on coming today..."

I had already worked out what had happened, of course, so I quickly went on the offensive. "You told me we weren’t rehearsing until Wednesday! How am I supposed to keep up with all these surprise practices if nobody tells me anything?!"

I heard him sigh. "It -is- Wednesday, Skye."

"No, it’s not," I told him, matter of factly. "I watched The Office last night."

There was a pause, some muffled talking I couldn’t quite make out. Finally, he got back to me with a question: "Was it on DVD?"

For once, I was glad neither of us had video phones, though I’m pretty sure he could actually -hear- my blush as I quietly said, "I’ll be there in a few minutes."

"See you then."

And that was that for my investigation of the book girl for that day. Which was just as well, since, when I tried to get one last look at her, she was already gone. A moment later, so was I.

Luckily, Martin’s house was only a couple blocks from the park, and I knew the way to his basement by heart, since Keith had used to take me there to hang out, since Martin’s parents were rarely around. It was also fortunate that, other than my voice, which I was prone to carrying around with me all the time, I didn’t have any instrument to have to go home and fetch. While I would have loved to know how to play the bass, I’d never gotten around to actually learning.

They were already playing by the time I got there, Keith and Martin, with that weird Chris, who was the actual bassist. I’m not sure where the boys had found him, or where he lived - truth be told, I’m not 100% sure Chris was his name. I think that was what Keith called him when he introduced us, but I could be mistaken, and I had never spoken to him myself, or even heard him speak to anyone else.

"Glad you could join us," Martin snarked from behind the drums once they’d finished the song, and Keith set aside his guitar, walked over to give me a kiss. While I like being on the tall side, it’s still nice to have a boyfriend who is bigger than I am - standing next to him still makes me feel a bit delicate, and even cute. His hair, which was very light brown, almost blonde, was longer than mine, and he probably spent more time on it than I did on mine, despite usually keeping it in a ponytail when we weren’t at rehearsal.

"Sorry," I smiled up at him. "I was out with Lela. And I ripped my new shorts."

"The ones you just bought?" I saw his eyes move downwards.

"Those would be the new ones, yeah."

"Can you two discuss this later?" I glared over at Martin, but he was more than willing to return it in kind. "Chris has gotta be out’ve here in an hour."

"Chill," I rolled my eyes. "I’m ready whenever you are."

I’m not sure if he meant for me to hear the "We were ready half an hour ago," he mumbled under his breath, but I have a feeling he did.