Carlie 

Carlie pushed her wheelchair into the desk. She opened her laptop. 

"Here it goes." She took a deep breath then let it out. 

She went to the website and logged in. She had a creative writing class today. The class was an hour long. It was going smoothly. Then the professor said: 

**Okay now I have an assignment for you. For this I will put everyone into pairs. You will have to pick an object that is familiar to you and write an acrostic poem about it. Then you have to ask each other questions about why it is important to you. The assignment will be due next Monday.**

The professor began telling his students whom they would be paired with. Soon he got to her name: 

**Carlie Baker and Michael Clifford.**

Carlie thought. *Hopefully

he's a nice guy.*

A few minutes after class was over, she was about to log out when she  saw a notification  on the screen. She clicked on it. It was a message. It said: 

**Hi, Carlie. Whats up? Its Michael. Reply so we can discuss our assignment.**

Carlie replied: 

**Hi, I'm fine. That's cool. Do you have any ideas?**

Michael: 

**Yeah. Think I might write about my guitar.**

Carlie: 

**Wow, you play the guitar? That's awesome! What kind?**

Michael: 

**Yeah, I've been playing since I was eleven. Its an acoustic. Music is my passion**

Carlie:

**Nice! Then what are you doing in a writing class? Haha.**

Michael:

**Oh I write songs. They kind of suck. Hoping to get better at it though. What about you?**

Carlie:

**I've always loved writing. I write poetry.**

Michael:

**Then this should be a piece of cake for you. So got any ideas?**

Carlie: 

**Hmm...not yet.**

Michael: 

**Well let me know when you do. Could we talk on another site? This one is kind of awkward to navigate. Do you have Facebook?**

Carlie:

**Sure. I've got Facebook.**

Michael: 

**Cool. Talk to you later**

Carlie:

**Yeah. Bye.**

Carlie giggled. She never knew anyone who played the guitar before. That was cool and kinda hot. She'd been attending Southview College for a week now but hadn't talked to any of her classmates. At least she'd made one friend. 

She closed her laptop and wheeled out of her bedroom and into the kitchen. As she bit into a chocolate chip cookie, she remembered she'd told Calum she would call him. 

Calum

*That was close* Calum thought as he plopped down on the couch in the livingroom. He'd managed to avoid Luke and Ashton and their stupid questions for the rest of school day. He picked up the remote and flipped through the channels on the TV. *Do you think shes hot?* What the fuck? What kind of question was that? 

He had been best friends with Carlie since the third grade. She'd been in the hospital for months and everyone at school was so worried about her. Honestly he didn't even know who she was. They were in different classes. 

When the teacher asked the class to make cards for her, he spent the entire time balling up pieces of paper, throwing them at other kids and just goofing off in general.

Calum was in detention on the day Carlie finally came back to school.  When it was lunch time,  he walked into the cafeteria. After getting a tray of food, he sat with the detention kids. He and another boy were play fighting. Their teacher told them to stop. Of course they didn't.

He was moved to a table by himself. He was so annoyed that he couldn't even eat. So Calum looked around, noticing a girl in a wheelchair. She was at the table all alone. He stood up, walked over to her table. 

"Hey." He said, taking a seat beside the girl. She just stared down at her food and he stared at her chair. 

"I got hurt too, see?" He showed the scar on his knee. "Bike accident." 

The girl looked at him. "Its not the same." 

He hadn't understood what that meant yet but he knew what would cheer this girl up. 

He picked up a chocolate chip cookie from his tray, split it in half, then held it out to her. 

"Thanks! I'm Carlie." She smiled at Calum. 

Ever since that day Calum and Carlie sat together at lunch. He was always there to make her smile and protected her from bullies. He considered her his little sister.

Suddenly, the sound of ringing snapped him out of his memories. 

Calum pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. 

"Hello?" 

"Hi, Calum?" 

"Oh, Carlie. Whats up?" He smiled. 

"Nothing really. I just finished up classes." 

"How was it?" 

"It was good. We have to do this group poetry assignment. I made a new friend too." She sounded really excited. 

"That's awesome. Is she nice?" 

"Its a guy. His name's Michael. But, yeah, he's really nice. "

"Oh." 

"What about you?" 

"I don't know. Its just school. 

Luke and Ashton were getting on my nerves though." 

"What did they do?" 

"They kept asking if I think your hot." Calum was blushing and he didn't know why. *Maybe mom forgot to turn on the air conditioner.* He thought. 

"Oh my gosh what did you tell them?" 

"It doesn't matter. They're idiots." He said quickly. "So what about that assignment you have to do?" 

She laughed. "Yeah, they are idiots!

We have to write a poem and ask each other questions about it. That's all." 

"That doesn't sound too hard." 

"I don't even know what to write about." She sighed. 

"You? You don't know what to write? But Carlie you write all the time." 

" I know. I guess I'm just nervous. What if they don't like it?" 

"It won't matter if they like it or not if you never write it." He told her. "Besides, your a good poet." 

"Thanks." She replied. 

"Dinner's ready, Cal!" His mother 

yelled from the kitchen. He stood up from the couch. 

"I've gotta go. Talk to you later?" 

"Sure." 

Calum hung up the phone. He walked down the hallway to the kitchen, stopping to turn the air conditioner up.