"Five, four, three, two, one!"

"Briiing!" The school bell rings, symbolizing that the last day of junior year is over. Finally. Summer here we come!

"Wooo! Yeah! Cami dance with me!" My best friend Daisy yells over the overlapping voices of teenagers screaming gleefully about the end of the school year. She grabs my wrist and pulls me out of the classroom and into the hallway where it actually looks like a reenactment of High School Musical is happening. She lets go of me and starts throwing her hands up in the air and jumping up and down rapidly. I hear someone playing "What Time Is It?" in the background of all the noise and a million people singing along, which actually sounds more like shrieking than singing. I join in with the dancing and the shriek singing and watch as Daisy's bleach blonde hair whips around her head with each jump she takes.

"Isn't this awesome?!" she screams over the huge crowd of people pushing their way into the hallway. I go flying into a locker as a large group of people runs out of the classroom and rams into us.

"Yeah!" I yell back as I get up from the tile floor. People are crazy at this school. I grab Daisy's hand and pull up her small body. She immediately goes back to dancing, and I follow her moves. More bodies push out of the rooms near us, and we're forced to start moving out of the way. I grab Daisy's hand and we dance our way to our lockers on the third floor. I see Mrs. Gruber, my sophomore year history teacher who's an old bat, slink out of her room with her nose all crinkled up and her feet shuffling as fast as they can in her clogs. I turn to face Daisy and we both start laughing crazily while continuing to skip down the hallway. We finally make it to our lockers which are only a few down from each other, and start packing up our stuff. I open my backpack and start tossing my locker decorations into it. I pull my pineapple magnets off the locker door, take off my whiteboard that still has a countdown to the end of school, and drop my markers into my bag. I look over at Daisy who's holding a picture in her hand, and I walk over by her.

"It's Lincoln, you, and me in first grade," Daisy says as she hands over the photo. I look at the little kids in the picture. We're all wearing art smocks and finger painting on big rolls of thick white paper. Daisy's hair is still as light as it is now, and Lincoln's is as dark as it is currently. I'm in the middle with yellow and red paint strewn across my cheeks and hair stuck to it, and Daisy and Lincoln are doing jazz hands to gesture towards me. I'm missing three teeth and I'm squinting my eyes while smiling as wide as my mouth will stretch.

"Oh my God it's so cute!" I squeal. I laugh as Daisy imitates the face I was making in the picture. Daisy giggles too and takes the picture from me and sets it down in her backpack. I head back to my locker and pull off a photo of my family from a few years ago, before my dad's symptoms started showing. We were standing in the water of the ocean a few hours away, in more southern California. Ava and I look like twins, more so than we do now. We still constantly get mistaken for twins to Ava's and my dismay. I sigh as I let the picture flutter down into my bag and start taking the rest of my photos down.

"Oh Cam remember this one? From when we went rollerskating and you fell into that man and nearly broke his arm?" Daisy asks as she turns the photo so I can see it. I burst out laughing when I see the picture of me flailing down the sidewalk and the unsuspecting man who I later trample casually walking in front of me.

"What are we laughing at?" a male voice from behind us says.

"Lincoln!" I squeal as I run off and hug my other best friend. He picks me up and swings me around with his strong baseball arms. He sets me down, and I steal his baseball cap from his head and plop it on top of mine.

"Camylle!" he scolds jokingly, but I still run away and hide behind Daisy.

"Don't use me as protection!" Daisy shrieks. I laugh and come out from behind her. I go back to my locker and take the rest of the decorations out and zip my bag up. Daisy throws her yellow smiley face emoji backpack on her shoulders, and I do the same with my floral bag.

"Goodbye junior year locker!" I wave back at my now empty locker. Lincoln makes a face at me, and I stick my tongue out at him and laugh.

"What time is it? SUMMER TIME!" We hear coming from behind us. We turn around just in time to see a huge crowd of people storming around the corner of the hallway we're in.

"Run!" Daisy screams at us. I sprint over to my locker and pull out my polaroid, taking one last selfie of me with my locker. I kiss my hand and touch the metal door, saying goodbye one more time. Daisy gestures for me to hurry up, and I run down the hallway, my shoes sliding around on the tile floor. The screams fade away as we near the entrance, or in this case the exit, of the school. We slow our pace to a walk as we look around at each other and the door in front of us.

"This is our final time walking through this door as juniors," I announce to break the silence.

"Cami, you are so sentimental you'd think you were a Cancer," Daisy mentions. Daisy is highly obsessed with zodiac signs and horoscopes and everything else relating to that general topic. It's insane. I laugh as I hand my polaroid to her, knowing she knows what to do, and I take a deep breath and begin walking towards the door. I hear the click and whir of the camera behind me, and I smile knowing the picture has been taken. The two of them walk towards me and Daisy's waving the polaroid in the air to help it develop. I grasp Lincoln's hand and Daisy's free one and we push open the door and walk out into the blazing heat of sunny southern California.

"You know what this weather means," I say as I wiggle my eyebrows at my friends. Lincoln laughs and takes his baseball cap off of my head and holds it in his hand.

"Hey!" I squeal as I try to steal it back from him, but he holds it high above his head.

"You'll get it back later," he mentions. "At your house to go swimming"

"Yes! I've been dying to go swimming! After all I am a water sign," Daisy says as she flips her long hair over her shoulder. I giggle and link elbows with her and begin skipping down the steps that lead to the parking lot. Lincoln follows behind us as we head to my car.

"Should we put the top down?" I ask as I unlock my car and slide into the driver's seat.

"Of course!" Daisy shrieks while waving her arms in the air, and her collection of macrame and wood bracelets rattle on her wrists as she celebrates. I press the button to lower the top of my convertible down, and Daisy slips into the passenger's seat and Lincoln sits in the back. She immediately turns on the radio as soon as I start the car, and I hear the song Closer by The Chainsmokers come on.

"Hey, I was doing just fine before I met you, I drink too much and that's an issue but I'm okay," Daisy and I start singing. Lincoln hums softly in the background, and I turn around to yell at him.

"Linc! Sing!" I command while tossing my tic tacs at him. He shields his face from the candy and starts singing the song with us.

"Tell your friends it was nice to meet them, but I hope I never see them again..." we yell as I pull out of my parking spot.

"Hey Lincoln! You coming to the baseball party tonight?" A guy a few feet away from the car asks. I turn the volume down on the radio and slow the car to a stop.

"Sorry but no, I have plans tonight," Lincoln answers hesitantly. The guy rolls his eyes and turns towards his friend who I recognize as shortstop.

"Those plans include your two little girlfriends here?" the shortstop guy says with a harsh laugh.

"Yes, yes they do. But, you're only making fun of him because you know he has more girlfriends than you'll ever have in your entire life. You know, if you don't get out of the way of our car before we run you down," Daisy snaps with a sweet smile on her face. The guys stand there shocked at Daisy's comeback, and I rev my engine to remind them to get the hell out of my way. They snort and jog away from my car, and I turn the music up again and speed out of the parking lot.

"Those assholes," Daisy scoffs.

"Freaking jerks," I add as I brush my long hair out of my face as the wind zips by us. Lincoln stays quiet in the back, not wanting to say anything more.

"Don't worry Linc, one more year of them before we go off to college," I reassure Linc as I quickly turn back to give him a grin. He smiles back at me and says,

"Right. Just one more year." The boys at our school tease Lincoln all the time, and Daisy and I do our best to scare them away with our sassy comments and snarky comebacks. Still, they make fun of him for hanging out with us, but we've been through our whole lives together. Our moms actually met at prenatal appointments and hit it off right away, and once they had all given birth to us we had tons of play dates all the time. We've been best friends ever since, through everything life's thrown at us.

"So am I dropping you two off first?" I asked a few yards before I either had to turn left or head straight to my house.

"Yeah, I have to get my swimsuit and sleepover stuff," Daisy answered as she attempted to French braid her hair. "I don't understand how you do this on your own hair," she said, giving up and dropping the braid she had started. I laugh and turn my left blinker on to go to her house.

"Linc, you going to go home first too?" I questioned.

"Yeah. I should check in with my mom," he says.

"Ok. Matthew might be coming over too," I mention. I hear sighs from behind and next to me. No one really likes Matthew. He's my sister's boyfriend, but we honestly don't know what she sees in him.

"Oh you mean Meathead Matthew?" Daisy asks sarcastically. We all laugh at her name for him as we zip by the rows of palm trees surrounding Daisy's neighborhood. I see her ranch style house come into view, and her lavender chickens walking around the yard.

"I've got a hundred million reasons to walk away!" Daisy sings alongside the radio.

"But baby I just need one good one to stay!" Lincoln and I respond with. I pull into her driveway and hear her four chickens clucking almost to the beat of the song.

"My babies!" Daisy screams as she hops over the door of the car and sprints to the chickens who are right at the edge of her driveway. Lincoln and I laugh and get out of the car to see the chickens.

"Hello my gorgeous lavies!" Daisy squeals as she picks up the chicken closest to her and rocks her in her arms.

"Hi Maya," I say while stroking the light purple chicken's head and neck. Lincoln stands a couple feet away from the chickens, keeping his distance.

"Maya, do you see Lincoln? Say hi to Lincoln!" Daisy commands. Maya turns her head to look at him and squawks one long cluck. We giggle and Lincoln unfolds his arms and starts petting her.

"Well Linc can you walk home from here? Or do you want me to drive you?" I ask as Daisy sets the chicken down.

"I can walk," he answers while shifting his weight onto his other foot.

"K cool," I say, and I stand on my tip toes and swipe the hat off his head.

"Cam!" he says annoyed.

"Collateral. So you don't skip out on our awesome party for your sub par baseball one," I explain with a wink. He chuckles to himself and starts heading to his house which is only about a block away from Daisy's. I wave goodbye to Daisy, and she does too as the chickens follow her inside the house. I laugh at the sight of Mama Daisy and her four babies. I hop in my car, turn the key, and drive out of the neighborhood.

*

"Ava! I'm home!" I yelled while kicking my sandals off and hanging up my keys. I jog up the stairs to my room, plop my backpack on the carpeting, and flop onto my bed. I hear footsteps outside my room and sit up in bed.

"Hey Cami," Ava says with a grin on her face. "Last day of school, right?" I nod as she sits down next to me.

"You're a senior next year already. Any idea what you want to go into?" she asks while detangling my long hair with her hands. I sigh and slump a little, and Ava touches my back as if to remind me to sit up straight. Ava is a brilliant woman. The kind of girl everyone envies because of her looks, talents, smarts, and in my case, her genes. She got the better of the genetics, being born three years before me and soaking up all of the good genes, including the Huntington's gene. Of course, she was blessed not to inherit it, but instead I got it from my dad. It's a fifty-fifty chance when only one parent has the genetic markers, so naturally it makes sense for me to inherit it. Anyways, Ava is always talking about school and the future because, quite frankly, she actually has a future. Whereas I only have until I'm about forty-five to live before the symptoms set it.

"I don't know. Maybe I won't even go to college," I answered, crossing my arms. Ava let go of the braid she was doing and turned to face me with a shocked look on her face.

"I'm sorry, you're not even going to go to college?" she yelled.

"Yes! If I don't want to then I'm not going to!" I screamed back.

"Come on! You have your whole life ahead of y-"

"No, I don't! You do! So stop forcing me to do anything when you will never know how it feels to have a terrible disease looming over your head and you never know when it's going to take over your life until it gets so bad that you have to live in assisted living because no one can be bothered to feed you unless they're getting paid for it!" I scream at the top of my lungs. Ava looks down at my bed and fidgets with her hands. More footsteps sound from outside my room, and Matthew comes into view.

"Ava? Camylle?" he asks worriedly. Ava doesn't look up, but I do and stare at him.

"Don't think it's my fault. She brought this on herself," I say quietly and then got up and walk past him. I hear him consoling Ava and asking her what happened, and I shake my head and walk into the bathroom. I put my elbows on the counter and look at myself, my red with anger face and puffy eyes. I rub my face and pull out my phone to text Lincoln and Daisy.

Me:

Hi. When are u coming over?

Lincoln:

I'm picking up Daisy on my way over. Be there in 15.

Me:

K. I got in a fight with Ava. She's just being stupid.Don't worry.

I tuck my phone back into my pocket and open the door to see Ava standing right there, nervously playing with her hands.

"I'm really sorry, I wasn't thinking before I said that. It doesn't matter. You don't have to go to co-" she says twice as fast as she normally does.

"It's fine. I was just mad and snapped this whole thing at you. I didn't mean to guilt trip you like that," I interrupt. Ava immediately smiles and her watery eyes brighten.

"Oh thank you!" she squeals and goes in for a hug. I smile and hug her back, glad we're okay.