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about it, I finally gave in. He wasn’t disappearing from my mind, so I decided to
stop focusing on the reasons why this was happening to me. I had to focus on other things, like trying
to get closer to Buck in order to get closer to Emry.
    “Anna!” my mom hollered at me. I was lounging on the couch in the living room flipping through
stations on the TV with Matthew. I couldn’t find a thing I wanted to watch, and it was starting to
irritate me.
“Anna!” she called out again.
    I grumbled a little as I made it seem like such a big struggle to get off the couch, and I handed the
remote to my little brother. I rounded the corner to the kitchen where my mom stood, her hand
stretched out toward me holding the cordless phone. Her facial expression was peculiar, one I was
not familiar with, but it looked suspicious. She eyed me for a moment and then her lips curled into a
smirk.
    “There you are,” she said in a lower tone of voice. “Here.” She took a step closer, pushing the
phone toward me.
“Who is it?” My eyes narrowed at her and my heart began thumping. There was that anxiety again,
something that was beginning to feel all too familiar. I rarely received phone calls. And why was my
mother acting so strange?
She practically grabbed my hand, ripped open my fingers and forced the phone into the palm of my
hand. “It’s for you.”
    I tried to slow my heart down by taking a deep breath. It didn’t help much. Had Emry Logan called
me at my house? What was I going to say to him in front of her ? I turned and walked into the dining
room, an attempt to get what little privacy I could. “Hello?” I whispered into the receiver.
    “Hey, Anna.”
I knew that voice. It was a male, but it wasn’t Emry.
“Do you know who this is?”
And then I heard him chuckle, and it confirmed my assumption. “Hi, Buck.”
He laughed again, a little louder this time. “Yeah, it’s me.”
    And then a flutter began in the pit of my stomach, not out of nervousness but out of excitement. Buck
had called me. I hadn’t had to track him down. He had come to me. This was all too perfect. “What
can I do for you?” I turned around slowly, leaned against the back of one of the dining room chairs
and caught sight of the bottom of my mother’s dress scurrying around the corner. No privacy , I
thought.
    “Well, you know Seneca’s Frost Fest started, and every year I try to go. I thought to myself, you
know what, I’m tired of going alone. It’s just no fun. I should think of someone to go with me this year,
and then I thought of you.”
“Me?” I probably sounded as surprised as I was. This was completely unexpected. Since when did
anyone, let alone a guy, think of me?
     
“Yeah, you. I mean, we’re friends right? We practically grew up together and all.”
    I listened to the silence for a moment, not sure what to say back. I was just so excited that Buck had
called, that now there was an even greater chance I could get the information I needed from him.
“So,” Buck said. “Were you planning on going? I mean, did you maybe want to come along with
me?”
I smiled. I saw my mom peek her head around the corner this time. She caught me looking happy,
and I saw her eyes burst to life with delight. “Sure,” I said. “Sounds like fun.”
“All right then. How about I pick you up tomorrow around noon?”
Tomorrow was Saturday. “See you then.” I turned the phone off and made my way back to the
kitchen to face my mother.
    “What did he want?” she asked, bouncing up on her toes and then back down again.
“He wants to take me to Frost Fest tomorrow.”
My mother clapped her hands together in excitement. “Is it a date?”
    I watched her eyes grow wider as she waited impatiently for my answer. Her reaction almost made
me burst out laughing. “I think so.” I raised my eyebrows.
She hugged me tight and then stood back to take a look at me.
“I’m not a child, mother. No big deal.” But it was a big deal. This was my big