"So you're really leaving?" Zac asked, leaning up against the doorframe a few days later. Ginger was packing into a small bag the things she'd acquired in her two-week stay at the Hanson home, most of it being things from school and some choice items Zac had gotten her. She was happy to leave.
"Yeah," she said. "You know I can't stay here."
"Where are you going to stay?"
"I spoke with Mrs. Kindle," Ginger said, looking over her shoulder at Zac, "and after I told her why I left and what was going on she said it would be better off if I didn't stay with Alex any longer. She was talking about sending me to a foster home but I told her about Kris. She spoke to Kris and her family and they agreed to take me in until my birthday. Actually, I'll end up staying with them until graduation."
"I'm going to miss you."
She put down her things and turned to him. She was wearing Jessica's clothing�something Jess didn't want any longer and didn't mind if Ginger wore home�and a necklace Zac had come home with in the middle of the week for her. It was a gold nameplate with the name "Ginger." Zac was the only one who called her that and he was afraid that she'd forget that while he was gone.
"I know you are, Zac. I'm going to miss you too. But we'll see each other again."
"I don't know when I'll be in Florida again, though. It might be a while." She walked over to him and slid her arms around his neck.
"Zac," she said, looking straight into his eyes, "once I'm out of high school we have the rest of our lives to spend together. Until then, don't worry about it. I'm not going to forget about you, I'm not going to meet someone else�it's just you. Always you."
"You speak as though you've known me my entire life."
"I have," she said, pausing to give him a kiss. "I'm going to miss my flight."
"We have plenty of time!" She looked at her watch.
"It's two-thirty. My flight leaves at three-thirty and it takes a half an hour to get there. I'm going to miss my flight." She grabbed her bag from the bed and ran out of the room. "Are you coming or not?"
"All right, all right, we'll go."
"Are you guys going?" Taylor asked from the bottom of the stairs as Ginger was bouncing down them.
"Yeah, we have to run," Ginger said. She stopped in front of Taylor. Zac took her bag and went outside, leaving Ginger and Taylor alone. "Before I go, though, I want to thank you."
"What for?" Taylor asked. His eyes traveled over her clothing, from her neck to her shoes, and back up to her violet sparkling eyes. They hadn't sparkled like that when she got there.
"You were there for me and I really appreciate that. I needed a friend."
"I know you did." The corner of her lips turned upward in a smile. "When will I see you again?"
"Unless you happen to stop by when Zac does, it won't be until after I graduate. They're going to be keeping a close eye on me for the next few months." Taylor nodded. "You don't know how much you mean to me."
"Before you go," Taylor said, digging in his pocket, "I have something for you." Her grin turned into a bright smile. He put a half of a photo in her hand. "Here you go." She looked at it a moment before letting her eyes grow.
"Taylor, you shouldn't have given me this. If Zac�"
"Don't show it to him." She opened her purse and put the photo in one of the zippers. "I'm going to miss you."
"Ginger! Let's go!" Zac yelled from outside.
"Goodbye Taylor," she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek. She ran out of the house. Zac was waiting in the car. She ran to the car and got inside. Zac pulled out of the driveway immediately and sped off down the road. "You're going to come see me, right?"
"Of course I will, dear," Zac said, looking over at Ginger. "It might not be any time soon, but I'll stop by now and then for a night with you."
"Just a night?'
"It's better than a couple of minutes. I'm being realistic here, Ginger. I doubt I'll have the time to spend more than a day with you."
"Oh, all right."
"You knew it couldn't be like that forever, Ginger. You knew from the beginning that at some point we'd have to let go." She nodded. "And it's not like I'll never see you again."
"Yeah, I know."
"I'll come visit you whenever I have time off. And it's only until graduation. Then you're not obligated to be here so you can come and see me sometimes�" Ginger nodded and looked away. Her eyes had a glossy coat of tears over them. "If you cry I don't think I'll be able to let you go."
"I'm not going to cry."
"Whatever, Ginger."
"I'm not!"
"Ten bucks says you're going to cry."
"I'll take that bet." She leaned into him. "Can I borrow ten bucks?" He shook his head, a large grin taking over his face. "I was thinking after graduation I could come out here. I know you wouldn't be here all the time but at least when you were home you wouldn't have to make an extra trip to see me."
"Ginger, you hate it out here. There's no way in hell you would actually move out here." She shrugged.
"It could happen."
"I don't doubt it."
An awkward silence fell between the two of them; the first one they'd ever experienced. Ginger looked through her purse for nothing and Zac aimlessly flipped through the radio stations. Ginger openly cringed when he landed on a country station, no matter how long it took for him to switch from it.
"Do you not like country music or something?"
"Well, let me put it this way," she said, putting her purse on the floor. "I would prefer to have my eyelashes ripped out hair by hair and my eyeballs mutilated into little tiny pieces and then shoved into my brain than listen to country music."
"Thank you for the lovely mental picture."
"You're welcome," Ginger said. "So what are you going to do while I'm gone?"
"Well, we'll probably go back to work. I kind of stopped everything for you and they'll never let me do that again. I could tell Ike and Taylor needed a break, though. That's the only reason they agreed to it."
"Do you like your life?" Ginger asked.
"Of course!"
"Really? You wouldn't want to try being normal for a while?" Zac shook his head immediately. "Really?"
"Ginger, I'll never be normal. I have never been normal. I guess the only way to explain it is that you can't really miss something you never had." She crinkled her nose. "It's like when I asked you if you liked school. You had to like it; there was no other choice. You didn't know any other choice."
Zac pulled into the airport and Ginger began to get noticeably nervous. It was obvious she didn't want to leave, even though she hated her surroundings the entire time she was in Tulsa. The only thing keeping her from jumping on the closest plane destined for Florida was the boy behind the wheel.
"It's not like it's going to be forever," Zac said. "Just a little while. I'll still stop by and see you, and once you graduate you can come back."
"It's not just that," she said, rubbing her temple. "I don't know what I'm going back to. Everything's different there. I'll probably never be able to see my brother again, at least, not without someone with me, and I'll be living with Kris. I won't even be living in my own home any longer. I don't know how it's going to work, being that Kris doesn't have a spare room in her house."
"Ginger, calm down," Zac said, his voice nearly a whisper. "Everything's going to be all right."
"You don't know that."
"Yes I do," he told her. "Let's go." He got out of the car and opened her door for her. She wore the backpack with her few items in it and held onto his hand.
"Tell me, dear," Ginger said when the sliding glass doors opened, revealing the interior of the airport, "how many times have you been in this airport?"
"Close to a million, I believe," he said, giving her a pleasing grin. "And before you came here you were never on a plane. Imagine that. We're polar opposites."
"I think we made that clear the first time we met, dear," she said, looking up at him. "I'm a hard-core punk ass acid rock type girl, right?"
"Right. And I'm the Christian elitist with a strict family and hard morals."
"Since when?" she asked, giggling. "Zac, we've known each other not even three weeks and we've already slept together a billion times."
"But nobody needs to know that. This way." He pulled her in one direction towards check-in and she began to grow nervous. They purposely scheduled an odd flight so she wouldn't be bombarded with people. Although she was so outlandish in her looks, she was a typically shy girl and always had been. She stuck with the people she knew and would be loud and obnoxious when she had to, but when she didn't, she was perfectly fine with being quiet.
She was silent until she had her ticket in her hand and they were walking towards the security area. She was upset because as of recently, nobody could go down to the gates unless they were ticket holders, and Zac wasn't going with her. She turned around and looked up at him.
"So once you get through there you just pretty much follow the signs to your gate," he was saying, "It's not hard; you go down the escalator and they're all there in order."
"I know, Zac," she said. "We've been over it a million times."
"I just want to make sure," he said, tucking a bit of her hair behind her ear. "I'll stay here until your plane leaves just in case anything goes wrong�I'll be right over there."
"I know, Zac."
"I love you, Ginger."
"I love you too, Zac."
"You're going to miss the flight."
"I'll call you when I get home," she said, standing on her toes to kiss him. "Come and see me sometime."
"I'll make sure to do that."
"I'll see you soon." She kissed him again and turned around to walk away. He stopped her. "I'm going to miss the flight, Zac."
"I have something for you."
"Doesn't everybody�"
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Here." He put a ring in her hand. She looked at it and froze. "One of these days�sometime�you and I are going to get married. As long as you have that I'll keep that promise." She looked straight up at him. "You're different."
"I like to think I'm mighty different," she said. She put the ring on her finger. "You better keep that promise." She kissed him again and left, looking back occasionally until he was out of sight. She ran to her gate and in a flurry of activity did find her seat on the plane just in time. She looked at the gold ring on her hand, quite similar to an engagement ring but not exactly, and sighed. She opened up her purse and pulled out the picture Taylor had given her. Looking at it for a moment, she sighed. She ripped it up and stuffed it back in her purse.
Instead of jumping up and down and screaming like normal, when Ginger saw Kris in the airport, they simply walked up to each other and fell into a tight hug. "I missed you, honey," Kris said. "You have to tell me everything that happened when you were away."
"You speak as though I've been gone for years."
"Seems like it." They let go and walked through the airport towards the parking garage. "You sounded upset on the phone. Is everything all right?"
"It's fine," Ginger said, putting a smile on her face to prove her point. "It's just Zac's family hates me, I don't know when I'm going to see him again, and now I don't have a real home any longer."
"You'll always have a home with me. Don't think about things like that. You're away from Alex now. My parents don't beat people up like he beat you up. You don't have to lie about him any longer."
"I know�I know�" She was beginning to cry. "I'm sorry."
"Come on, let's get you home. You look downright exhausted." Ginger nodded and followed Kris out of the airport. Kris drove to their home and parked in the driveway. Ginger was considerably nervous. "Stop it. It's not like you weren't living at my house already."
"But it's different now," Ginger said, looking over at Kris. "They're not my best friend's family. They're my family."
"It's better than no family at all."
"True."
"Let's go." Kris got out of the car and Ginger followed. They went inside and Kris immediately turned the corner to go into her room. Ginger followed and stopped at the doorway. "It's new." Instead of the one single bed squished in the corner of Kris's already small room, there was a bunk bed squished in the corner.
"So I'm going to be staying in here with you?" Ginger asked. Kris nodded. "Yay!" She put her backpack down in the corner. "At least I don't have to sleep on the couch like I was afraid you were going to make me do."
"We're not impolite, hun. You know that. We wouldn't have made you sleep on the couch no matter what. On the floor in my room, maybe, but on the couch, no." Ginger crinkled her nose a bit.
"I have to call Zac."
"And so it starts�"