The whisper of her voice caressed the air around me, wrapping the sound around my ears and echoing in my head. I could hear the word "Zachary", but that's about all I got out of the sentence. The things she was doing to me were so arousing and incredible that my brain just wouldn't function correctly.

"Zachary…" she hissed into my ear. "Are you enjoying this?"

I nodded in reply, the only thing I could manage to do. She was my best friend. This would terminate our relationship as friends. Maybe we could become something more, but…I doubted it.

"Joey…" I whimpered quietly. She looked down at me from her position perched on my stomach. "We're not going to…"

Joey shook her head. "Not if you don't want to."

"Well…Do you want to? That's all that matters." I asked, looking into her crystalline eyes.

She smiled and kissed my lips. "You're so sweet, Zac. I really don't deserve you…Particularly not like this."

She crawled off me and picked up her shirt and bra from the floor. "But…Joey…If we don't do this, then it will have been pointless. Our friendship is already ruined as it is."

"How did this night start, Zac? Two caps of Ecstasy. This entire night has been drug-induced. So really…It's no one's fault, and our friendship shouldn't be torn to shreds by it. Don't worry." She put her arms through her shirt and I helped her button the tiny feminine buttons. She smiled down at me and kissed my forehead. "Zac, I love you so much. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. I don't want to lose you, which is exactly why I don't want a relationship."

My heart felt like it had been ripped out of my chest and stomped on a million times over. She doesn't want a relationship? But she loves me… I thought, confused. Her seventeen-year-old mind obviously outdid my naïve fifteen-year-old mind.

She reached out to give me a hug, and I stood up, wrapping my arms around her small waist and pulling her in closer to me. I buried my nose in her hair, smelling the ever-present scent of roses.

"So is this goodbye?" I asked her.

"Zac…We've already established that this isn't going to ruin our friendship, right? Let's stick to that." Joey looked up at me.

I nodded, and helped her climb out my window. We kissed briefly, allowing our tongues to dance erotically together. I watched her figure run across the street and around the corner, out of my sight. This is goodbye.

-4 months later-

"Zac! Would you go get some vanilla ice cream and dill pickles for me? And make sure they're the good pickles, not the generic brand!" my mother hissed at me, turning on the bedside lamp in my room.

"Holy shit, Mom! What the hell are you trying to do, blind me?" I exclaimed into the night air.

"Don't swear! And please? I need vanilla ice cream and dill pickles!"

I rolled my eyes and looked at the clock. "Holy shit, Mom!" I repeated. "It's 4 in the goddamn morning!"

My mother slapped my arm harshly. "Zachary Walker Hanson, I did not bring you up to swear so much! Now go to the store before I have to force you into the car!"

I yawned and got up. "Fine, fine…"

I made my way out to the garage and opened the door to the family van, which was the only car I could take at the moment. Great. I get to go to the grocery store at 4 in the morning…In style, nonetheless. I thought sarcastically. I just got my license last week, and Mom's already trusting me with our ever-so-wonderful-five-year-old van? Crazy.

I drove to the grocery store, listening to Led Zeppelin, trying to wake myself up so I wouldn't wreck the car. I pulled into a parking space (close to the store, too…who would have thought?)

I walked into the store, to the condiments. Dill pickles…The good kind…No pickle is a good pickle. Pickles are disgusting. I thought to myself. "Ew…Well…This is the one I see on commercials, I guess this is the "good kind"." I commented, picking up a jar and placing it into the blue plastic basket I carried.

Oh great, I'm talking to myself now, too. I thought as I made my way to the frozen foods, shivering. I picked up a half-gallon of Dreyer's Vanilla ice cream and put it in the basket along with the pickles.

I scanned the checkout lines and saw a light on at the express lane. A girl sat there, looking bored, flipping through a magazine. I put the store-borrowed basket on the black conveyor belt, grabbing the attention of the girl. She looked up at me, and a flicker of something that looked like either hope or joy came across her eyes. "Hi, how are you this morning?" she asked, still looking at me as she scanned the groceries.

"I'm fine, and yourself?" I replied politely.

"Good, I suppose." she replied quietly, a frown coming across her pretty face. She adjusted her nametag as she read my total. "That'll be $11.68."

I handed her a twenty-dollar bill and read her nametag. "Joey".

"Have a nice day." she said, looking up into my eyes.

"You too."

I headed out of the store, and put the groceries in the back of the van. "Damn, she looked familiar…" I murmured into the cold night air. I heard a voice whispering into my ear.

"Zachary…"

Oh my God!" I screamed. I slammed the door to the van shut and ran back into the store, running back to the aisle I had just left not even five minutes before. "Joey!" I exclaimed.

She whirled around, smiling, then allowing a look of sadness to sweep across her pretty face. "Zac…I wish it hadn't ruined our friendship."

I marched up to her and kissed her. "It took every ounce of strength I had within me not to do that 4 months ago. I'm not letting you get away again. I swear."

A song began to play over the intercom, forming a vivid moment in my memory.