"Wow," I breathe as I step into the new apartment for the first time with a heavy box of books in my arms and Jasper behind me with one of his boxes.

"It's a lot bigger than I expected," Jasper says, looking around the new surroundings. It is really big- at least, a lot bigger than I thought that it would be. The floors were wooden and one wall was old brick while the other three walls were a dark green color. The living room space was to the right and then there was a kitchen area to the left with the bathroom and a small closet right across from the front door to the apartment.

But the really cool part is the bedrooms. Between the living room and kitchen spaces, there's a spiral staircase that leads to two separate loft-like floors. The first loft hovers over the living room while the spiral staircase leads up to the second loft, which is over the kitchen.

"This is so cool," I say with a wide grin. I can't believe that we did it. We're finally on our own. "I call the top room."

"That's fine," Jasper laughs. "Let's just get unpacked so that we can sleep."

"And then furniture shopping in the morning," I add, feeling so much more excited about this now that we actually see the apartment. It finally feels real but Jasper is right- we really should sleep.

The drive from Los Angeles to Atlanta felt like it took forever when it really was only two days and one night where we stayed at a hotel in the middle. With each of us taking three hour driving shifts, we made pretty good time but now, we were both exhausted from almost 35 hours of just driving with a four hour break to sleep in the middle of it.

It's only six at night though, so we still have time to unpack all of our stuff before we head to bed. Since we don't have furniture yet though, and we didn't bring our beds, we have to sleep on an air mattress that we brought with us. The apartment was so cheap because it didn't come with furniture and nobody else would rent it because there were rumors around the city that this room was haunted. The lofts cut off without any railing at all so apparently, somebody fell over the edge and landed on their head wrong and died.

I don't really care if the place is haunted or not, honestly. It cut our rent almost in half, they can throw as many ghost parties as they want in this apartment.

We spend an hour going back and forth from the truck to our new second story apartment so that the truck is completely empty for our shopping trip tomorrow to get furniture. None of it is really too hard to carry so we manage pretty easily even though we're both incredibly exhausted.

I don't unpack anything, I just put the totes and boxes where they need to be unpacked at a later date (tomorrow). For example, I put my boxes of clothes in my room but I just didn't unpack them. That way, I know where everything is tomorrow when I go to unpack.

"We're finally here," Jasper reminds me, unexpectedly wrapping me in a tight hug.

I hug him back and then giggle when he squeezes me into the air and spins me around in a circle. "I can't believe we really did it. I always kind of thought that somehow, something would stop us. My mom, for example. But I'm so glad that we're here. It's just me and you."

"We're going to be so awesome," He says as my feet touch the ground again and I look around the empty living room that we're standing in.

"We're already awesome," I tell my best friend, wrapping my arm around his broad shoulders. "We're going to be legendary."

"Yeah, you're right," Jasper concedes. "We need to find that air mattress before I just collapse on the ground."

"Right," I agree, heading for the box that I'm pretty sure we packed it in. I have to check a few boxes before I find the right one and then we dig it out of the box before opening it up and laying the mattress out in the open living room area. Fortunately, the air mattress has an automatic pump so all we have to do is plug it in and it blows itself up to its full size. "I'll go find blankets," I tell Jasper just before he pushes the button to put air in the mattress.

He nods and I turn and go back up the spiral staircase up to the second loft where most of my boxes are. I take the tote that reads 'bedding' on the top back downstairs and open it up. There's a large comforter and three pillows with a few blankets and sheets too so I pull out a sheet, the comforter, and the three pillows to make the bed.

"I need to call my mom," Jasper says, pulling his phone out and he goes into the kitchen to escape the loud noise that the air mattress is making to fill itself with air.

"You're still talking to her?" I wonder. "I thought that they kicked you out."

"They did," He agrees with me. "But she wanted me to call her when we got here. Look, Jo, I know that you're not really keen on the whole 'forgiving' thing but even though I have differences with my parents doesn't mean that I'm going to cut off all ties with them."

"I know," I sigh. "You just put a lot of importance into the 'parent' label and I don't get it. But it's good that you're still talking to your mom, that's good. Go call her. Don't let my pessimism bring you down."

"I never do," He teases me.

I roll my eyes at him and then turn around to wait for the mattress to finish filling with air as Jasper calls his mom in the other room to let her know that we got here safely, which I should do with my mom as well. I think I'll call her in the morning, I'm too tired to deal with her right now.

I doubt she really wants to talk to me either because when I went home two days ago with Jasper and told her that we were leaving the next day, she had a fit. She started yelling at me that I can't go so far away, that it's crazy, that I'll never make it. I never wanted to upset her like that but I know that she'll be okay. I was more worried about getting Jasper out of his house than I was of my mom's feelings toward me moving to Atlanta.

Anyway, she was so upset that she said goodbye to me through an email. No sobbing or hugging or sentimental goodbye, which is what I was kind of expecting, but she just went into work early, before we even woke up, and then emailed me from there saying that she wished me all the best and that she loved me. How sweet.

Maybe tomorrow, after a few days to get used to the idea, she'll be easier to talk to. After making the bed, I go back up to my new room and find pajamas on the top of one of my clothes totes and get dressed in one of Jasper's old t-shirts and some long shorts so that I can go to sleep.

I brush my teeth first in our new tiny bathroom and then go back into the living room where Jasper is just finishing his conversation with his mom.

"Does she miss you yet?" I joke.

He shrugs. "I guess. She's still upset about the whole homosexual thing but she's trying to get over it. At least she's trying, right?"

"Yeah, that is a really good thing," I agree although I'm not so sure. How can you be a parent and not just accept your child for whoever he or she is right on the spot? You shouldn't have to try to accept him. You shouldn't have to get used to the idea. You should love and accept your child for whoever he or she is no questions asked. That's what parenthood is. No questions asked, you love your kid unconditionally.

I guess Jasper's parents didn't get that memo when they signed up to be parents.

"My dad still isn't talking to me though," Jasper adds glumly.

"It's you that shouldn't be talking to him," I tell him stubbornly as I lay down on our shared air mattress and get under the cozy comforter.

"Jo, I love you to death and all, and I don't mean this in a mean way at all. But my dad isn't your dad."

"That would be disturbing, wouldn't it?" I joke even though I know exactly what he meant. "Considering we haven't always been so just friendly."

"You know what I mean," He says stubbornly. "He's a good guy, despite what you think right now. I know that he's good. I just don't want to lose him because of this, you know?"

"Yeah," I say although I don't actually know. I never had a dad that I didn't want to lose. When I did have a dad, I'd pray every night that I did lose him, actually. "I know."

"Okay, well this is getting depressing, so let's go to sleep now," He yawns, laying down beside me and because he weighs more than me, I start to slide toward him in the bed with his indent being much bigger than mine. He leans over and turns off our only light source, a small desk lamp plugged in beside our air mattress bed.

"Okay," I say quietly, resting my cheek on his shoulder. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," He mumbles and then we fall into silence until we're asleep for our first night in the apartment. It wasn't very enthusiastic considering how tired we had been upon arrival so tomorrow will probably be incredibly exciting and light.

"I'm back!" I cheer as I step up into the tree house. I'm seven again even though eleven years have gone by but that tree house makes me seven again.

A seven year old Scott turns to look at me from the corner of the little wooden house. He's wearing his fish bowl space hat, which is weird because we only went on space adventures together. "Jo?"

"Yeah, of course it's me. I told you that I'd come back," I remind him of what I'd said the day before I left him. "Why are you going to space without me?"

"I couldn't wait forever, Jo, it's been a whole eleven years. Do you know how long that is? I'm not even eleven years old," He tells me, adjusting the fishbowl on his head as I notice something on the wall of the tree house. It's the flag that we'd made for the shooting stars the last time that I'd seen Scott, when we went chasing for shooting stars. "I had to find all of the shooting stars and you know how fast they are. They weren't going to wait forever."

Around that one paper flag, I could see many others identical to that one with the shooting star on the center and little red scribbles around it to make it look like it was flying through space. Each paper was taped to the wall and they all looked exactly alike except for one part. They each had a different name written in black crayon at the top of the paper. "You've chased all of these shooting stars without me?"

He nods but he doesn't even look a little bit sad about it. "You left. What was I supposed to do? Just give up?"

"Well, no but I-"

"And besides, I wasn't alone. Lissa helped me so it's okay," He assures me even though I don't feel even a little bit assured. Lissa was another girl in our class that we sometimes played with at school but sometimes she was really mean to me so I didn't like to play with her a lot. She was always nice to Scott though.

Behind Scott, little Lissa appears from the shadows with a victorious smirk on her face and her arms crossed in front of her. I almost wanted to greet her but before I did that, I realized that she too is wearing a fishbowl helmet. My fishbowl helmet. I can tell because it has a long scratch along the side of it. I always had to put it on the back because it bugged me but Lissa has the scratch right in the middle of her face as if she can't even see it there.

"But she's not an astronaut," I tell him, feeling tears starting to bubble on my cheeks.

"Of course she is," Scott tells me. "She's Astronaut Lissa."

"No!" I shout at him. "You can't just replace me like that, Scotty."

"You left," He reminds me yet again. "Besides, she's way better at finding the shooting stars than you are."

"It was my idea in the first place!" I shout at him, feeling so angry that he's playing our space game with Lissa instead of me. I wouldn't have minded if he was playing any other game with her, like Chutes and Ladders or House. But the space game was our game. We created it. We made it what it was. Lissa can't just come in here and replace me in a game that was half mine. That's so unfair.

"Joey, I'm sorry," Scott shrugs and then he turns to Lissa, who is gauging all of the rocket ship buttons and knobs. "Are we ready for launch?"

She nods at him. "We're ready for launch, Astronaut Scott."

"I'm the only one who gets to call him that!" I scream but they both just ignore me as they prepare for their takeoff. When they grab the paper stars from the counter and start counting down from one, the whole tree house starts to tremble and shake, which makes me start to panic. "Wait! I don't have a space helmet!"

They ignore me again and continue counting down until they get to 'BLASTOFF' and then the tree house is literally shooting up into the sky. I look out the window and see Scott's house in the distance, quickly becoming just a spec to our wooden rocket ship.

"I won't be able to breathe!" I scream at Scott. "I'm going to die! I need a space helmet!"

"We don't have an extra," Lissa tells me with a careless shrug, her black hair swinging over her shoulder as the stars float through the air both inside of the tree house and the real, glowing stars move passed us outside of the little windows. "I guess you should have been here sooner."

"Just hold your breath for a really long time until we get back to earth," Scott suggests, which is mean of him. I remember one time when we were playing our space game and we were going to Jupiter (even though boys got stupider there) and while I was throwing the stars into the air, I had accidently knocked my helmet off of my head. Before I could react and pick it back up, Scott immediately had his helmet off of his head and he was putting it on mine. 'You can't breathe without it' he explained to me as he picked my helmet up off of the ground and put it on his head. He was so protective of me. I loved him for it.

"Don't you love me anymore?" I sniffle, wiping the scared tears from my face as the rocket starts to get faster and the air starts to get thinner. "I never stopped loving you, Scotty, don't you love me too?"

"It's been eleven years," He reminds me yet again. "I barely even remember who you are."

Just then, the rocket kicks a little bit and I fall back. The gravity starts to give up and everything starts to float around the tree house just before I hit the ground with my butt but instead of falling on the floor, the weightlessness of the tree house sends me flying out the window of the rocket instead. With a blood curdling scream, I am thrown into an unknown abyss without even a fish bowl for protection. 

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Song: People Like Us by Kelly Clarkson

Picture: Their new apartment