"Let me get a picture of all my babies."

Mom took her camera out already earlier this afternoon. She didn't want to forget to take a photo - not that she would.

"Me too!" Abby comes running from across the room.

Shane puts his arm around me. I squirm. I hope he doesn't think this is a real date. He should know my mom put me up to this. His arm feels warm around my bare back. Our sides are pressed together. We've never really been this close. I feel that funny tingle in my body again.

Tommy stands on the other side of me and drapes his hand over Abby, pulling her into the picture.

"Say 'cheese'."

"Come on, mom. Just take the picture already." Tommy looks at his watch again.

"Let them go, Maureen," dad says, placing his arm around her.

"Have fun. Be careful." Mom leaves dad standing there and walks over to us. She hugs the boys then she straightens the bottom of my dress.

"Mom!"

"Okay, okay. Have fun and be careful."

Holy cow. You would think we were going to a royal wedding.

"Heard you the first time, Mo. Don't wait up." Tommy jokes. He pulls the keys from his pocket and heads out the front door.

Shane takes my hand and leads me outside. We trail behind Tommy. I stare at our hands clasped together.

"You guys sit in the back. Adrienne's getting shotgun."

"Sure, bro."

Shane opens the door and flashes a smile at me, "ladies first."

"Oh, I'm a lady now?"

"You sure look like one."

"Shut up," I tell him again but I'm grinning. The way he said that made me blush. Thank God it's dark in the car. He would totally make fun of me if he saw that.

Tommy starts up his car. It's a crappy old Honda, but he bought it himself with money he saved doing odd jobs in the neighborhood with Shane. Shane doesn't have a car. He uses his money to help his mother with bills.

I cross my hands on my lap. I don't want him thinking it's okay to hold my hand. I also like when he does it and I don't know why. He's like my own brother, but Tommy would never hold my hand. And if he did, I wouldn't like it.

We pick up Adrienne and drive to the school. The dance is in the gym which is decorated like something you would see on a cheesy after school special on television. The music is loud and I recognize most of the people there from school. Most of them are juniors but I see a couple of other girls from my class.

"Let's dance." Shane doesn't give me time to answer.

He takes my hand and leads me into the crowd of people swaying on the makeshift dance floor.

"You don't dance," I say with a smug look.

"I do tonight."

"Well, I don't dance," I say, dropping my arms to my sides.

"Come on, Beth. We're here, let's have some fun."

He doesn't let me reply. Shane takes my arms and wraps them around his lower back. I don't want to touch him. I don't want to not touch him either. I remain frozen in the exact position he placed me, afraid to move.

He folds his arms around the small of my back. We begin to sway back and forth to the music. There's a slow song playing. I notice a group of girls along the wall looking at us. Each one is giving me a dirty look. Shane tightens his arms around me and hugs me closer. My body turns to stone. I still don't know if I like it or not. I do know I feel so strange right now.

"You smell pretty, Beth."

I want to tell him to shut up again, but I can't talk. Shane's chin is resting against the side of my face. I'm blushing again. I realize I'm rocking from one foot to the other, moving my body with his to the music which sounds like it's a million miles away.

Shane presses his lips to my cheek. They're warm. They send a wave of heat through my face right down to my toes. He leaves them there for what feels like a long time. I realize what's happening and slowly pull my body away from his.

"What are you doing?" I wanted that to sound a lot more accusatory than it did. I sound more breathless and confused.

"Just kissing my girl on the cheek. No big deal."

"I'm not your girl" I snort.

"You are. You just don't know it yet."

"Negative."

I feel like the whole gym is looking at us right now. No one notices us.

"I'll prove it." Shane challenges.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yup." He sounds so much more confident than me.

"And how are you gonna do that?"

"I'm going to take you on a date."

"Ha!" I laugh in his face.

"You think that's funny?" He's not insulted at all, he's smiling ear to ear.

"Gross. You're like my brother." I put my hands on my hips, "besides, Tommy would never let that happen."

"Already gave me the 'okay'."

"Yeah, right." No way Tommy would agree to the two of us going on a date.

"Sure did. Said if I got Adrienne to be his date tonight, I could take you out next." He's so proud of himself. "Next excuse?"

"My dad would kill you."

"Maybe." Shane runs his hand through the thick main of shiny black hair. "Just say yes and I'll take care of Big Dan."

"He carries a gun." I tilt my head and look up at him. I'm enjoying this as much as he is now.

"Is that a yes?"

"Fine. One date." I agree, "but don't think it's going to mean anything."

"It won't mean anything. It will mean everything."

Shane leans in and kisses me quickly - on the lips this time. My eyes open wide. He backs up a few inches and he chuckles at the look on my face.

"Wanna go get some punch?" he asks, like nothing just happened.

"Okay." I don't know what just happened between us, but right now, I would do anything he asks.

That night set the course of my own personal history. I went on the date with Shane a few days later. From that night on, we never went one day without talking. We never spent one night without seeing or calling each other to say 'good night'. We were in love.

Everyone said we were too young to know what real love was - but we knew. Shane loved me so much and I loved him. I only felt right when he was with me. People wait a lifetime for what we had. It was the real deal.

Neither of us liked to be apart. He spent so many years as a fixture in my house that the only thing that changed, is who's room he was hanging out in. Shane and Tommy were still best friends. He didn't leave him for me. He just divides his time now, or the three of us hang out together - just like Tommy and I always did as kids.

We spent every day together that first summer - literally. Tommy wasn't happy at first. He didn't think I'd agree to go on a date with Shane and was even more surprised when we went on a second one. In the end it only took a few weeks for Tommy to give in and accept Shane and I as a 'thing'.

Luckily, he was preoccupied with hooking up with as many girls as possible and getting ready for his first semester at state school. We had a lot of double dates with many of Tommy's 'flavors of the week'. He was usually in his own lip lock with whoever he was out with for the night.

Shane took the year off and was working two different jobs to save enough for community college. We spent a lot of his days off at the beach. Shane and I would lay on a blanket together for hours - getting up to splash in the water and cool off.

We spent many warm, balmy nights there too. If we weren't snuggling on a blanket at the beach, we were hanging out on the lounge chairs in my yard, or sneaking feels under a blanket in the family room. A few times we went out on 'real' dates, but I didn't want him spending his money on me. I knew he needed it for college - and his mom - who I still hadn't really met.

I saw her a couple of times over the years at school functions. She isn't a very nice person and Shane finally admitted to me she is an alcoholic. He'd almost never seen her sober and always took much better care of her than she ever did of him.

He did save enough money to buy himself a modest car though. Shane was really into cars - especially ones that go fast and make a lot of noise. This one only made noise when it was switching gears or coming to a stop, but it got him to work. His day job was for a mechanic. He got a great deal on the car and fixed it up himself.

I remember how excited he was the day he brought me to the shop to see it: "It's not much, but it's mine." He was so proud. He was beaming. I will never forget that look on his face.

"I love it, baby!" I squealed and wrapped my arms around him.

"Now I can take you anywhere you want to go," he promised me.

"Wherever you are is where I want to be," I replied, sounding so cliche.

We drove for hours that night. We went all the way to the end of the island until we had no choice but to turn back. We didn't go back right away though. I lost my virginity that night. I had heard some older girls talk about how awkward their first time was. Mine wasn't. It was beautiful.

We parked along the beach and walked down to the shore. The shoreline on that side of Long Island is different. It's rocky and all the way at the point, it's much darker than where we lived in Lawson. Shane and I made love under the stars that night. It was amazing. And we did it a hundred or more times after that. It never got boring.

I told my mom - or she kind of figured it out. She took me to the doctor to go on the pill. Neither of us would ever tell my father because after he murdered Shane, he would probably kill us both. Not really, but, well, you didn't mess with Big Dan's family, and surely, you didn't fuck one of his daughters.

I could't wait until this school year was over so we could spend the summer together again. Shane was going to come to my prom with me, just like I went to his. I didn't even want to go, since we went to his prom together, it was kind of a tradition for us.

I remember wishing I could skip college and go live happily ever after with Shane somewhere - but that was not reality. We had our whole lives to be together. He wanted to open his own body shop one day so he needed to go to trade school and take some business classes. At least that was his plan.

I had no idea what I wanted to do. My parents saved all their money for our college educations. Not going to college is not an option in the Kaminsky house. I didn't have a choice.

It was almost two years after we had started dating when everything changed. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the night, life as I knew it, life as I imagined it would be, would never be the same.

"Can you two cut it out?" Mom scolds Shane and I at the dinner table.

"What?" I ask innocently. Shane's hand is on my thigh under the table. Maybe mom really does have eyes in the back of her head - or x-ray vision or something.

"You're lucky it's just the four of us tonight."

She shakes her head. Dad's on duty tonight and Tommy has a late class. It's just me, mom, Shane, and Abby for dinner.

We eat and talk. Shane keeps nudging me under the table. Abby laughs every time. I think she's always had a thing for Shane. Must be something in our blood.

We clear the table and Shane washes up. He has to leave. He's working his valet job tonight. It's at a swanky club a couple of towns over. He loves it because he makes a lot of money there and gets to drive a lot of 'sweet cars'.

I walk with him outside to his car. I lean back against the driver door and we make out for a few minutes before he has to leave. I love the way he kisses me. It never gets old. He does this thing where he sucks on my bottom lip. It makes me melt every time.

"Love you," he says from the diver seat.

I lean over and steal one last kiss through the window.

"Love you too. Be careful."

"Okay, mom," he teases me.

And that was the last time I saw Shane.

I spent the next day calling Shane's phone, but it went straight to voicemail. I assumed he just worked really late and passed out. It wouldn't have been the first time. The club he was working at is open until four in the morning. When the sun started to go down though, I began to really get worried.

My mother kept trying to reassure me but I could tell she was getting pretty concerned herself. My father had come home in the morning and gone to sleep but she promised as soon as he woke up, he would check on Shane.

By late afternoon I was pacing the floor of our living room. I wanted to just go over to his place, but my dad would be up any minute so I chose to wait for him. By then, Abby had found out and was pacing along with me. Call it women's intuition, but we knew something was wrong.

As soon as my father walked out of the bedroom, he could tell something was up with us. Big Dan wasn't much for words, but seeing his wife and daughters so upset prompted his protective instinct.

"What's wrong?"

"Hopefully nothing. Shane isn't answering his phone and Beth hasn't seen or heard from him since last night," mom explains. I can tell by her tone that she's clearly concerned now too.

"He's okay."

"How do you know?" I ask, almost yelling.