Chapter One.

Giatta

She sit down at the lake by her favorite tree. She threw rocks out into the lake feeling angry for some reason. I know I stopped it but I still feel so bad about it. She thought to herself. Cars passed her with their bright head lights burning her eyes. She squint to see a car coming towards her, thinking it's stopping close to her. No, it just turned onto another street. She pulled the sleeves of her hoodie far enough to cover her whole hand. As doing that, she remembered; it was his hoodie she was getting so comfortable in. Her eyes got watery about to spew tears that came to the tip of her eyes. She held it in to avoid the blurriness and more pain.Her phone vibrated in her hand. She looked at it to see who sent a text or is calling. It's him. Probably calling to beg for me back. And her prediction was right. "Baby you know I love you and I need you! Just think about it, please?"
She sighed as heavy, burning tears filled her eyes. "I won't let myself hurt you again!" She said.
It was silent.

She sat there silently listening to him breathe on the other side of the phone.
"Baby just think about it for a little bit." He said softly but in his deep voice. "I can't." She said as she started crying even harder. She lie down on the soft grass next to the tree, staring out onto the lake. "You know.. You didn't hurt me. I love you so much, I can't even feel it." He told her. She still knew she did hurt him. Even though I can't be with him like that, I still want to be in his arms. "Look I gotta go. My mom needs me. Bye." She hung up the phone with out letting him say goodbye. He then called me back. "What?!" She said in an angry voice. "Just wanted to say I love you. That's it. Sorry I made you angry...bye." She then felt bad about it. I'm not mad at him. Why did I say it like that? She still lay there on the soft grass thinking how good he was to her, but how stupid she was to not be able to give it all completely back. I now know why I was angry. I was angry, at myself.

She sat up and pulled myself together. She got to her feet and started walking towards her home. I don't wanna go home. What am I doing? So she decided to walk to the front entrance of her neighborhood and sit closely to the somewhat busy road. She had her cell phone in one hand, the heart necklace from him, in the other, with her small duffel bag around my shoulder. As people drove by, they stared as if something was wrong with her. She sat there quietly listening to the loud cars pass her. Some that had loud rap music playing, some that just had loud people yelling, with their cigarettes flying out the window. Then suddenly a dark blue truck slows down at her feet and a head pops out his window. "Ay' you need a ride?" a teenage boy asked in his strong country accent. "No I'm fine. Thanks." She told the boy.
"I mean I'm going all over this town to run some errands. It wouldn't be a problem." he said again.
Giatta thought maybe she could get away from everyone by taking up this offer.
"If it's not a problem.." She said.

Not thinking, she hopped in the other side of the boy's truck and threw her duffel bag on the floor of the truck. "Where to?" the boy asked. "Uhh I'm not exactly sure.." She said nervously. The boy kept going on and on, carrying this long conversation about his day and where he had been. "I'm Clayton by the way, but you can call me Clay." the boy said. Giatta nodded with a smile on her face. "Well thanks so much Clay for taking me places."
"I didn't catch your name miss." Clayton said. "I'm Giatta." She said with a smile.
"So you runnin' away or somethin'?" She looked at him with a puzzled look. "Huh?"
"You gotta bag and you was sittin' on the end of the road. Look to me like you was runnin' away."
"Oh yeah, I guess you could call it that." She said. "My boy got some place him and his friends stay to get away, you can stay there if you don't know where you goin'." Clayton offered. Once again, with out thinking, she nodded her head to his offer. How bad could it be? Clayton drove to a small house with beer bottles, trash, cigarette packs, and dirty trucks, filling the yard. She suddenly got a tight knot in her stomach. A girl ran out the house with just a bra and short shorts on, holding a purse and her shirt. She seemed to have been arguing with one of the guys, since a boy followed her out the door begging her to stay while she was yelling at him. "I can not believe you would do this to me Mark! After all the years we have spent together? How the hell could you?" The girl shouted to the boy.

Clayton hopped out the truck and ran around to Giatta's side of the truck and opened the door for her. "This is it, Giatta." he said while chuckling. Her eyes got big and she wasn't so sure about it. But it seemed like these people in this house have their own lives they can depend on.

As she entered the front porch all she could smell was smoke and couldn't see much from the smoke covering the door way. Teenage boys were standing there talking and smoking. Then suddenly they stopped to stare at her. She walked into the front living room, and 4 guys stopped to stare at her too. "She'll be stayin' here from now on." Clayton said to the boys. The boys from the porch came into the living room to see what was going on. All 7 boys introduced themselves but only 2 of them stood out to Giatta. Mark and Adam. "I'm Mark." He said as he shook Giatta's hand. "And I'm Adam." he said as he grabbed her and pulled her close to a full warm hug. His brown hair was soft and he smelled like clean body wash. His muscular arms held Giatta really tightly, like he was glad to see her, but he didn't even know her. Adam had really bright blue silver eyes that held you in their gaze when you took one look at them. Mark had dirty blonde hair with deep dark brown mysterious eyes. Adam grabbed Giatta's bag and took it down a hall way and into a room to the left. She followed him with her luggage. It's weird how I went from sitting on the side of the road, to coming to some random house. She was the only one who had stuff in the room. Guess I am the only girl in this place. Adam went out into the hallway and talked to Clayton for a little bit. Adam kept staring back at Giatta while talking to Clayton. She sat on the bed and made herself comfortable then remember she had her phone charger and only had one battery bar left, so she put it on the charger and sat staring at the heart shaped necklace Seth had once given to her a few months back.

A couple hours later she walked out of the room and found the guys stuffing their faces with pizza. She bumped into Adam walking down the hall way. "Oh excuse me. I was just about to come get you and tell you pizza was here. Get as much as you want." Adam said "Thanks." She said and smiled at him. Giatta watched the way Adam looked at her with his bright blue eyes. She was too caught up into his smile also. Those perfectly straight, shiny, white teeth that glowed every time he opened his mouth.
"Pepperoni?" Adam said out of no where. "Huh?" Giatta said.
"You want pepperoni or.."
"Yes. That’s fine." Giatta said now understanding what he was asking. Adam put two slices of pepperoni pizza on a paper plate and 3 slices of other pieces on his plate while picking up two canned sodas in one of his big hands. He walked outside and motioned his head for Giatta to follow him. Out the back door, down a hill, and on a dock by a lake, Adam sat down and patted the spot beside him for Giatta to sit. Giatta grabbed her plate and stared at it, waiting for Adam to take his first bite of his.
The cool summer night breeze swept across Giatta's four head and swished her long dark hair across her face. Adam smiled when he saw her long hair move in the wind.
Summer break started 3 days ago and so far, it wasn't going so good for Giatta. Adam picked up his coke and took a small sip of it then bit into his pizza. "So Giatta.." he started.
"Tell me about yourself. You a run away?" he asked. "Well I wouldn't exactly call it a run away. I was just sitting on the side of the street when Clayton came by on his truck."
"Family problems? Friend problems?" he asked. "boy friend problems?" he said slowly.
"Uh kind of family and boyfriend."
"Don't you think your parents will be worried?"
"Mom. Just my mom. She's away on a business trip for 2 weeks so she won't find out about it."
"What about your dad? If you don't mind."
"He was never really in the picture. Got my mom pregnant at 17, then he took off."
So fast, Adam got into Giatta's life and talked about everything. Giatta found out, Adam's uncle owned the house the guys were staying at. He is a lawyer and has a big fancy place of his own but decided to let Adam and his friends escape to a lake house he bought.
Fireflies started coming out of the woods and one landed on Giatta then Adam picked it up and it flew off his finger. "So what about you Adam? Tell me about yourself."
"Well.." he said as he bit into his pizza, "I just graduated from high school and got a football scholarship to a couple cool colleges, but I'm not sure which one I'm deciding on yet. I need to decide fast though. My birthday is next week and I will officially be an adult."
Adam talked about his football career and his life for about 15 minutes then he stood up and offered his hand to Giatta. "So I'm heading back inside, you coming Gigi? You don't mind me calling you Gigi do you?" he asked. "No I don't mind." she said as she took Adam's hand and started walking up to the house.
This is kinda nice. She thought.