I realised I had taken a nap when I awoke in my room later in the day, to the sun slightly shining through my blinds, highlighting the dust upon the wooden floorboards of my room. I sat up and stretched, making a mental note to myself to clean that up later. If there was one thing that I disliked, it was having an untidy living space.

Heidi, my pet cat, walked across the floorboards then only to pause for a moment.

"Psst, Heidi. What's up, cat?" I asked her, to which her response was coughing out a hair ball. I winced at the noise, and in the understanding that I was going to have to clean that up, too, but hey- these things happened sometimes. Kendall must have returned home because I heard my phone chime with a new message from her, breaking me from my reverie.

In the text, Kendall was inviting me over to hang out. I told her that I would be there soon, and rushed downstairs to find my brother still typing away on his laptop, positioned sitting at the kitchen counter. I observed that something appeared to be on his mind. He had that thoughtful expression on his face again. I would have to question him on it later, though. My brother was strong-willed and would prefer to get his work done, but I thought that I probably should tell him that Kendall had invited me over to her house. As her boyfriend, he may have just wanted to go with me.

"Alright, let's go," he agreed with a nod, as he put his laptop into sleep.

The two of us walked to the front door of the house and out to my brother's car.

He remained quiet for most of the drive to Kendall's home in Anaheim, only turning to me to acknowledge my presence beside him every so often.

It could have just been me, but I felt that things were stranger between myself and my brother in recent times. The two of us had been close for ages and then he started dating Kendall, which seemed to cause a rift in not only my relationship with my brother, but my relationship with Kendall, too. I was happy for them now, of course, but at the time I couldn't help but feel slightly envious. Part of me wondered when I would find a boyfriend, too. The other part wondered what was going to happen between Kendall and I.

Unfortunately it had ended up being the case that, at the time, Kendall and I stopped speaking as much. I had to smile now, though, knowing that things were shifting. Kendall and I had promised each other that we would spend more of the summer together, and I intended to make sure that such a thing happened.

Jake parked the car so the two of us could get out of it, and we walked towards Kendall's front door. I had always liked her house- it was smaller than ours, but cozier. Kalie, Kendall's sister Kat, and Kendall had done a wonderful job fixing up the house after Kendall's father had unfortunately walked out on them. The three of them had been close for a while, but Kendall and Kalie had seemed to have drifted apart a little. At least, the last time that I had visited her house that had seemed to be the case.

Jake knocked upon Kendall's front door, and she soon opened it for the two of us with kindness in her deep-set eyes that conveyed the warmth she felt for the two of us. I noticed that they usually became softer when Jake was around, and kinder when she was around me.

"Hey Kendall, is everything okay?" Jake asked.

Kendall's eyes seemed to flicker for a moment with irritation, as if the amber colour of them was turning to flames.

"Everything is fine. I just wanted to see you two," she said, "Besides- you work all the time. I miss you," Kendall said, though her eyes drifted to me briefly, too. So, I assumed that she felt the same. I could understand all too well that my brother could be frustrating at times. I sometimes wished he paid me more attention, too. However, his work was crucial to him being fulfilled in life, and I wasn't going to be one to step in the way of that.

"Come on in, Ally cat- you need to try these," she said, as she led us into her kitchen- a pleasant space with warm peach walls, and passed me a donut. It was sugar-dusted, and tasted a little like vanilla. It was perfection, to say the least. If there was one good thing I could say for America, then it was that the food was beyond incredible. Kendall took one for herself, with a look on her face that just said 'screw the diet'.

"Thank you, Ken. This is amazing!" I told her with a beaming expression.

She winked in return, but corrected my statement, "Don't thank me- thank Walmart," she stated, before turning to look at Jake again.

"Want one?" she asked him.

My brother gave a gentle shake of his head in response.

"No thanks, I don't do artificial sugars or flavours," he said.

Kendall rolled her eyes, smirking at me as she met my gaze.

"Birthday treat number one is done," she said with a smile, "You'll stick around, right, Ally cat?" Kendall asked me.

"Of course I will," I told Kendall. Sure, we may not have been on speaking terms for a long while until recently, but I would forever be a loyal friend to Kendall- she did mean a lot to me.

Kendall smiled, her eyes brightening a little.

"Good to know, Ally, because you were and are my friend. No amount of time or space apart could change that," she stated with sincerity.

Jake just looked between the two of us and cleared his throat.

"Do you two want a moment alone?"

Kendall chuckled as she wandered over to give my brother a kiss on his cheek, and I averted my gaze with slight awkwardness, for a moment.

No sooner than she could say anything else, Kendall's mother, Kalie, entered the kitchen.

She looked between Jake and I with an expression of curiosity.

"You didn't tell me you were having around guests. I would have cleaned up more," Kalie said.

I made a quick look-around the kitchen then, but couldn't find anything out of place. At all. It was almost spotless, which made me wonder whether Kalie was just very orderly or potentially OCD.

Kendall looked frustrated.

"Mom, I'm an adult. Do you seriously want me to have to inform you every time that I have guests around?" Kendall asked with slight vexation. I knew that Kendall tried her best to understand her mother, but sometimes she could become at odds with Kalie's strict nature.

"Any reason why Ally is over this time around, too, not that it isn't lovely to see you," Kalie added quickly.

Kendall shrugged.

"Ally and I are friends again, that's all," she said.

Kalie wasn't the only one giving Kendall a look of interest at this, though. My brother was doing the same.

"Alright, then. So, Ally, you're really friends with Kendall again?" she asked with a faint smile.

"Yeah, we are," I said with enthusiasm, fixing Kendall with a smile for a second, before returning my eyes to Kalie.

"Glad to hear it," Kalie said.

She looked older than the last time I had seen her. Kalie's hair was darker, probably thanks to a box dye, and she had slight frown lines on her forehead, but all the same, she was still incredibly beautiful. It was very apparent where Kendall must have gotten her good genes from.

Her attention shifted to Jake, then.

"How's the business going, Jake?" she inquired.

I could tell that my brother was trying to look as though he was open to such questions, but I knew that he didn't like discussing his work all too much. It was kind of a private deal.

"Fine. Thank you, Kalie," Jake said.

I had a feeling that this was going to be the extent of their conversation. Jake wasn't a big fan of Kalie and I knew it. He could tell that Kalie was sort of controlling of Kendall. I had seen it first-hand a couple of times myself. I thought the best thing to do would be to not get too involved with the conversation, though.

"Good to hear it," Kalie said, and Jake a gave a nod, before heading on down the hall with Kendall for a moment, leaving me in the company of Kalie for a moment, who remained quiet.

Kalie straightened her long dark hair into a neat bun- I think it showed how much of a perfectionist she could be. The only part of her life she hadn't been able to make perfect was her relationship with Kendall and Kat's father, and it had forever frustrated her.

Kendall had been able to take her mind off of her father's absence through falling in love with the state of California. It probably had something to do with her teenage rebellion against her mother, and her frequent trips she had tried to make out of the house in order to go drive across the state. I knew that this was something that was still on Kendall's big list of things to do before she hit thirty- which in her mind, was basically mid-life crisis time.

I knew that in the grand scheme of things it wasn't really all too old, but Kendall wanted to hold onto her youth. Perhaps there was a part of me that wanted to help her achieve her life goals, too.