Why? (standard:romance, 20903 words) [1/2] show all parts
Author: liy88	Updated: Oct 27 2007	Views/Reads: 3138/2247	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Rhian doesn't need anything else in the world as long as Trey was around. But when events occurred that was beyond her will, could she cope with the changes and move one?

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

of my birth mother, who I never actually got to know. Up until I was 
eight years old, I thought the lady living with me was just a distant 
relative of ours. I called her by her first name, Cassandra, and the 
only time I talked to her was during Sunday’s brunch. I admired that 
lady a lot as she was always dressed so elegantly in dresses and 
designer outfits and Calista was the one that shook me up to realizing 
that Cassandra was actually our mother. The concept was so shocking to 
my eight-year-old mind as I had always pictured a mother as someone who 
went to the supermarket to buy the weekly groceries and whips up a huge 
batch of blueberry pancakes on Sunday mornings. I guessed I had been 
influenced way too much by the story books that Calista passed on to me 
when she had outgrown them. 

So, Cassandra was my mother but a few months later, she just could not
be seen during Sunday brunches and I never asked about her since that 
day. It wasn’t unnatural to me. How could I feel an attachment to 
someone whom I had only greeted good mornings while we sat on the huge 
table and ate the food prepared by the servants? 

Back to Calista. She was two years older than me and ever since she
began college, things had been eerie around the house. There was no one 
for me to speak to, unless you counted the thank yous I mumbled to the 
housekeeper when she handed me my meals. Plus, I never was a person who 
could be friends with someone that long. No one could keep me 
interested for more than a couple of weeks. Don’t get me wrong. I was 
never and would never be a loner. I could be the center of attraction 
at a party with the jokes and retorts that I could fire at the drop of 
a hat but that was where my friendships were limited to. I had people 
to hang out with at school and sometimes to accompany me to movies and 
the mall but to have a tight connection with someone until I could pour 
my heart open to them, that was another issue. I could never be 
bothered about things like that. The closest I had ever gotten to 
someone was with Trey Conner but I would come back to that later on. 

If Calista was around, she could at least liven up the house with her
endless seems of chatters, even if most of them were to Dad. At least I 
wouldn’t go mad being in the same house as Dad but never ever having a 
conversation with him. At least. Now that she was gone, I was begging 
every moment for her to return home when at the first place, I was 
thrilled to see her go off. I had dreams. That probably when Calista 
wasn’t around, Dad would realize that he actually had another daughter. 
But no. The closest thing I got to talking to Dad in my whole life was 
when Calista did something amazing, Dad would look at me and say, 
“Isn’t she great, Rhian?” And I would eagerly answer him positively, 
and just when I was about to add something else, his attention would be 
back towards her. I knew that the only reason he asked me that was not 
to hear out my opinion but he just love to hear another human being 
compliment his prized possession. 

But, it’s summer and it meant that Calista would return to this small
town of ours. Maybe this time, things would be different. But I doubt 
that. 

*** 

“Calista! Here!” Dad yelled excitedly like a five-year-old kid in a toy
factory. He waved and waved until Calista turned her pretty blond head 
towards us. She beamed, showing her pearly whites and I swore almost 
the entire hot-blooded male community within seeing distance turned to 
drool at her. Okay, I might be exaggerating but it was partly the 
truth. Have I mentioned how drop dead gorgeous she was too? Some people 
have everything, don’t they? 

“Dad!!” she lunged into his open arms and gave him a kiss on each cheek
as though it was the first time they had seen each other in a decade. 
When only Calista had come back home for the entire two weeks before 
her final exams so that she could study without being interrupted by 
the student body at Brown University. “Hey little sis,” she greeted me, 
pulling me into an embrace. “Getting more beautiful since the last time 
I saw you,” she couldn’t resist adding. It was a little joke for her, 
trying to build up my confidence. Yeah sure, like I was beating guys 
off left and right big sis. “How’s school?” I asked although I have 
memorized the answer she would give as I have been hearing the same 
thing for the last seventeen years of my life. “I guess I did okay,” 
Calista would began. “I’m one of the top five students in my class,” 
she then would add, earning a great big beam from Dad which came with a 
special present. Thus, she had been collecting wonderful items from Dad 
ever since she started her education life and the pile was like the 
height of Mount. Everest. 

But boy, oh boy, was Calista full of surprises. “Dad, the thing is,” she
trembled with this disappointed look of her face. Dad was already 
putting up his comforting mask that he wore when Calista failed in 
something, which was actually a rare occasion. I was groaning. The two 
of them were even worse off when they were in their polite supportive 
way compared to their usual flaunting of father and daughter love. Oh 
god, how would I survive the whole two hour journey back home with them 
saying, “No, it’s okay.” I braced myself for the news, waiting to hear 
that she came in sixth in class and was sorry that she had let Dad 
down. “All the studying paid off!! I came in first!” Calista all but 
screamed and Dad ecstatically  punched his fist into the air. “Isn’t 
she great?” Dad turned to me for conformation. “Umm, yeah. She’s...” I 
didn’t even have the chance to complete my sentence and his attention 
was back to her. In what way was I so inferior to her? I have asked 
that questions a million times, probably since the day I began 
understanding the meaning of the words I were stringing and every 
single day, I found new answers to that questions. Her hair shines in a 
way that mine never could, she could charm the pants off anyone, and 
she could save the world with a click of her fingers. She could do 
this, she could do that. She could achieve things that I never could 
without even trying. No wonder he loved her more. 

*** 

Early summer was exceptionally beautiful in the small town of Blu Creek.
Even though our family had only lived there for the past year, the 
family feeling of the town had already embraced us like an old blanket. 
The Harts were part of the community. Dad ran a big business that had 
branches in major cities all across USA so it was a mystery as to why 
he wished to settle his roots in this unknown town. Ever since we moved 
here, I had cleaned up my previous image. It was one thing to stir up 
trouble in New York City, but it was another thing to be notorious in a 
place where most people knew your family by sight. Another thing, the 
wild girl routine was not getting the focus of the targeted audience, 
namely Dad. To make it short, it was as though I was starting off with 
a clean sheet. New person, new look, new life. But same old hidden 
conflicts day after day. 

Like I have mentioned, it was only a year ago when we moved into the
mansion that we lived in now but Calista was sort of the legend around 
town. That very summer we moved to Blu Creek, Calista won the Miss Teen 
pageant, a tradition that had been held since the beginning of time. 
She toppled down the regular beauties around town and claimed that 
tiara as her own, announcing to the entire town of the capabilities of 
the Hart family. Another great thing about Blu Creek was that it would 
never be flooded with tourists hoping to get their share bit of the sun 
rays. The town was not considered a beach community even though the 
beach was only a half an hour ride away. There were no sufficient 
facilities to accommodate a pack of outsiders and the only thing that 
we had here that was like a hotel was the Blu Creek Inn, which had only 
six rooms. Even at the peak, the maximum number of rooms that would be 
rented out was four. Pathetic, but true. Sure, there were shops where 
we could get our daily necessities and some fashion boutiques that 
carried clothes designed by the owners themselves and even a couple of 
eccentric shops that could tempt one to drop in to have a look. Other 
than that, if ever one needed to get something else that could not be 
found around town, it would be an hour drive to the mega mall located 
in the next town, Forest Springs. The mall, The Glass House, occupied a 
couple acres of land to fit in shops that could fulfill every shopper’s 
dream. 

In other words, Blu Creek was like a perfect place; Heaven some might
say so but to me, it was just another place. I was still as 
insignificant as ever. It was a lot better in New York; at least I 
could disappear into the crowd. Over here, I could never walk down the 
street without someone asking me how Calista’s doing. 

What the hell. 

*** 

Chapter Two: Why Him? 

It so was nauseating watching the two of them bonding like a picture
perfect father and daughter that I had to excuse myself and lock myself 
up in my room. I was planning to sleep since there was absolutely 
nothing else to do but my eyes and brains couldn’t seem to shut down. I 
must have been turning for hours and hours as suddenly all I could hear 
was total silence all around me. I got out from under the sheets and 
walked towards the huge window that occupied almost a wall of my 
bedroom. Expecting a cool breeze when I opened a window, I was 
disappointed. The air was still and I feel the entire town of Blu Creek 
resting and enjoying their deep slumber. He would come tonight, I knew 
it. He could sense how eager I was to see him. It had been a while 
since he visited. I closed my eyes, memories of times with him flooding 
back. 

The wait was a long one but the moment I saw the figure striding down
the sidewalk, all those moments I spent anticipating about him sort of 
drifted away. His walk was purposeful and as soon as he glanced up to 
where I was standing, his face changed into one of an angel. I leaned 
against the wall at the side of the window, a blush creeping up from my 
cheeks. How could he have this effect on me, even after such a while? 

I did not wait for him to climb up, not tonight. I got dressed quickly
and ran the steps down the stairs, not bothering about the racquet that 
I was making. Dad wouldn’t care. He never did. This time round when I 
opened the door, the cool breeze greeted me, complete with a scent so 
fragrant that it got me weak in the knees. He was waiting for me as he 
leaned against the mailbox and without any hesitance I ran up and 
wrapped my arms around his neck. “I’ve been waiting for you,” I 
whispered softly as his embraced grew tighter until he was squeezing 
the life out of me, bringing me where he was. 

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” he asked and I nodded eagerly. 

“Where did you go?” 

“Rhian, I’m here,” he replied. “I’ll always be around.” I pulled away
from him, unable to meet his eyes which could drown me for hours at a 
time. “Take me with you,” I pleaded. “Don’t leave me anymore, please.” 

“And what about your family? Or your friends?” he questioned me. 

“I don’t care about them!” I retorted. “I care about you more.” He shook
his head gently and led me back into his arms. “It’s not that easy, 
Rhian.” I rested my head against his sturdy chest and toyed with the 
sleeve of his dark T-shirt. I could not explain to him how much I 
missed him. I could not explain to him how much it hurt when he was not 
around. I could not explain to him how scared I was it would all end. 
“What if....” He stopped me before I could finish my sentence. He knew 
what I was going to ask. I knew what his answer was. And we both knew 
that was something that we could not fathom. 

“Let’s not ask what ifs question. Let’s just be together,” he said but
tears were slipping out of my eyes. “I’ll promise I’ll be around more,” 
he added. And when I gazed into his eyes, I knew that he was not lying 
to me. 

*** 

When I woke up the following morning, a smile was plastered to my face.
It was fabulous last night although it ended too soon. I whistled 
cheerfully as I got dressed and rushed down the stairs, fully ready to 
continue what we had started the few hours ago. The two of them had 
already beaten me to it as Dad and Calista were sitting at the table, 
cutting up pancakes and stuffing them into their mouths in harmony. 
“Good morning!” Calista greeted in her usual bright way and I returned 
the greeting in the same enthusiasm. “Somebody’s in a good mood today,” 
she noted and I flashed her the secret smile we perfected over the 
years. “So, what are we going to do today?” Calista asked as she 
dropped her plate into the kitchen sink. I was going to bit into my 
pancake when she caught me off guard. The fork I was holding dropped 
onto the plate, causing it to clatter as it hit the glass plate. The 
second day of summer was reserved for the sisters’ sort of bonding and 
I totally forgot about it. But all I wanted to do was to meet him. 
Calista would be here all summer but he could be gone anytime soon. Who 
was more important? 

“Umm, actually Cal, I kind of have plans,” I replied softly. This time
round, the clatter was made by Calista’s plate crashing into the sink. 
She must be surprised. The second day bonding had never been cancelled 
before and I was asking for permission to break the tradition. The 
housekeeper came rushing into the kitchen and took over the washing 
from Calista as she was clutching onto her finger. I noticed blood 
dripping onto the Spanish kitchen tile and was about to get the first 
aid kit but Dad had already beaten me to it. I didn’t realize that it 
was such a huge deal to her. Anyway we could always do it tomorrow but 
Calista was all silent, sitting on the chair directly in front of me, 
watching the blood flowing from the wound. She was studying medicine so 
she should be able to treat a minor cut, one would think but she 
didn’t. She waited for Dad to attend to her and fussed around her, once 
throwing me a glare of disgust, which was kind of a surprise since this 
was the first reaction I had gotten from him in years. “Maybe I could 
cancel my other plans,” I offered, my appetite gone with all the drama 
that was going on. “Thanks, but you don’t have to,” was the reply I got 
from Calista. 

“Rhian will cancel her plans, sweetheart. You two need to spend time
together,” Dad said and I noticed he placed an emphasis on the word 
‘together’ more than necessary. I sighed and pushed back the chair, 
thinking of ways to apologize to him for canceling our date. The hurt 
that bit me was way more than I expected. I have and would always lose 
out to her in every aspect. 

*** 

“So, what’s the plan that you have to cancel to spend time with your
sister?” Calista asked hours later. By that time, it didn’t really 
matter anymore. He was such an understanding guy that I felt unworthy 
of his kindness. “Not that a big deal,” I blew her off, not wanting her 
to pry anymore. He was a secret of mine that I never wanted to share 
with anybody. “Just some plans with friends from school,” I added so 
that she wouldn’t ask any further. 

“I hope it’s not that girl you’ve been hanging out with when we first
moved here,” Calista breezed. “Cos she’s a big trouble.” I mumbled 
something in reply and slipped on a pair of shades that I had just 
fished out from my tote. The outings we had weren’t such a big deal. 
Mostly we walked around town for a little of shopping and dinner, 
followed by hitting a club for some drinks although both of us were 
under aged. Fake IDs were something one teenager should never leave 
home without. But now was not about Calista. It was about him. 

*** 

We were both lying under a tree at the Board Walk Park. It was dark and
windy but with his arms wrapped that tightly around me, it was as if I 
was right at home. Nobody was around as it was nearly three in the 
morning and the weather looked as though it was about to rain anytime 
soon. Both of us were not talking, just being quiet and enjoying the 
serenity between us and I was in bliss with it. If asked anybody who 
knew me, I wasn’t such a quiet person especially if there was someone 
great around. But with him, I could do things that were impossible. I 
could be as silent as a mouse for almost an hour, the only sounds I 
could hear was of the wind, the night creatures and his light breathing 
against my cheek. The wind was howling even louder by the seconds and 
he stirred slightly. “You should be getting home soon,” he said. “It 
could rain any minute now.” 

“I don’t want to,” I protested. “I like lying here with you.” There were
no games when it came to our relationship. No rules or no power 
struggle between the both of us, just the overwhelming feelings that we 
had for one another. And I knew in my heart and soul that I was not 
being one sided. “I like that too, but you’ll get caught in the rain 
and catch a cold,” he replied and kissed me on the forehead. I shook my 
head stubbornly and snuggled closer to him. “I don’t care. I don’t want 
you to leave just yet.” He chuckled softly and that sent shivers up and 
down my spine, in a good way. “Don’t blame me if you get wet.” 

“Of course.” I brushed my lips against his and he kissed me slowly. It
was hard for us to meet up, so moments with him was precious to me. As 
we kissed, I could feel the rain drops hitting us. But we ignored in 
and continued what we were doing with so much intensity that I felt 
that I would burst into flames despite the chill of the night. If it 
was up to both of us, we would never stop what we were doing but 
somehow, nature did not agree to it. As soon as we heard the first 
sound of the thunder booming followed by the sudden flash of lightning, 
we have to run to a sheltered area to avoid the risk of being struck to 
death. Not that it mattered anyway but common sense refused to accept 
that idea. “That rain spoiled everything,” I grumbled as we took 
shelter under a nearby gazebo as my car was a lot further away. 

“What do you mean? We’re still alone right now,” he teased, coming
closer to me slowly. My eyes widened in disbelief. “And I thought you 
were the one who suggested to me to go home,” I toyed. He shrugged 
slightly and twirled his finger around a strand of rain-soaked hair. 
“How’s everything at home?” he suddenly asked, throwing me off. Talking 
about my family was not the kind of things I wanted to discuss at a 
time like this. Talk about a turn-off! “Are you sure you want to talk 
about my family? I mean, we have such limited time together and I don’t 
want to waste it with trivial matters,” I pointed out. 

“Your life is important to me,” he said. “No matter how trivial you may
think it is.” I shook my head. I did not want to talk about Dad and 
Calista. I was done complaining about them to him a while back and I 
wanted now to be about us only. We both had no idea when this would 
end. “Rhian, if you don’t want to, I won’t force you,” he added. “It’s 
not that I don’t want to,” I began. “It’s the same story over and over 
again. She got home just yesterday and I swore he was so glad that he 
would burst through the roof.” He sat down and pulled me next to him. 
As I leaned my head against his shoulders, I was surprised over and 
over again on how snugly it fitted me. It was as if he was customized 
just for me and me only. The way the palm if his hand fitted mine. The 
way I could easily just look up to him and our mouths would always 
meet. The way.... I thought about how perfect we were together in my 
mind but in reality, I was spilling out the usual problems I had with 
my family to him without even thinking about it. It was as though the 
words flew out by themselves. He was just there, not trying to say a 
thing. Not trying to make the bad situation better. Not trying to 
correct me. Just being there, listening to my never ending stupid 
problems and at the same time, stroking the back of my hand. 

That night, I found another reason why he and I were made for each
other. The way he could make everything better just by listening to me 
and not saying a thing. 

*** 

“Where did you go last night?” Calista interrogated me as soon as she
saw me. “I was at home the entire night,” I lied and grabbed an apple, 
ready to make a fast exit so that I won’t be forced to make up more 
fake stories about my whereabouts. But Calista, being Calista, was not 
about to let me off so easily. “No you’re not,” she accused. “I woke up 
at three to get a drink and I saw that you were not in your room. So, 
where were you?” I kept silent as I chewed on the apple. “Come on, 
Rhian. This is me, Calista. Your sister and also your self proclaimed 
best friend. You don’t need to hide anything from me,” she urged. 
Actually, yes. I had to hide it from her. Nobody could find out about 
me and him. Especially her. “I went out for a short walk,” I replied. 
“I couldn’t sleep so I thought a walk could help me.” 

“That was a hell of a short walk, wasn’t it?” Calista could not stop
firing questions at me. And I was used to it. She was the one who took 
control of my life ever since I was young, didn’t I mentioned it? So 
now, she felt obligated to know wherever I was whenever she was in 
town. “Okay, so it was more than a short walk. But I didn’t do anything 
else!” I insisted. “Sure,” she shrugged, turning her attention to the 
newspaper she had in her hand. Dad was out of the picture and I 
wondered where he was. He could easily work from home and that was what 
he did whenever Calista was around. But with her gone, he would always 
be away on this long business trips to the different headquarters of 
his company. “Where’s Dad?” I asked. “He got an important meeting to 
attend to,” Calista replied nonchalantly. “Should be back in a while, 
since he left at the crack of dawn.” So Dad knew that I had been out 
all night. Not that he cared. Although I shared most of my thoughts 
with Calista, there were two things I could never bring myself to tell 
her. Obviously one was about him and the other was about how strained 
the relationship was between me and Dad. Calista could never understand 
and I had never brought up that topic to her. Dad was perfect in her 
eyes and vice versa. In fact, ever since I could remember, I have never 
heard a cross word shared between them. When the quote “Nothing is 
perfect” came up in conversations amongst me and my friends, I would 
always scoff to myself. There was one thing perfect in this world and 
that was the bond between Calista and Dad. And nothing, and I repeat, 
nothing could screw that up. 

*** 

“Three nights in a row? What gives me that honor?” I teased him as he
climbed into my room. I have taken the safety precaution and locked the 
door of my room so that there wouldn’t be any heads, namely Calista, 
poking in when I was with him. “You should be thrilled,” he said and 
sat on my bed without waiting for an invitation. “It’s not as though 
you get this privilege that usual.” 

“I know. So you think I should make full use of you being here?” I asked
seductively. He shrugged. “Well, if you want to.” I giggled and sat on 
his lap. “Seriously, why?” He was silent for a while and I patiently 
waited for his answer. His time with me was always limited and I wasn’t 
going to waste any minute of it but I needed a reason. “The first few 
days were always hard,” he began. “You mentioned it to me once before.” 
How come I never did notice how excellent his memory was? It was 
freaking amazing. What he was referring to was how hard it was for me 
to adjust with the wonder child being back home and having to hear 
Dad’s voice complimenting her every five minutes. “You wouldn’t believe 
how awful today was,” I complained. Dad promised Calista this big 
shopping trip and she had to drag me along with it. How terrible was it 
for me? Extremely terrible. I was dragged along behind them as they 
stepped into one store after another and he bought he tons of stuff 
that she didn’t really need as she practically have her own shopping 
mall in her bedroom’s closet. Not that I never borrowed any of her 
clothes before, but that was beside the point. Plus, guys were not 
supposed to enjoy shopping? And did he offer to buy me anything at all? 
No! 

The truth was there was no need for me to complain. Even though Dad
never did cared, he made sure I was fed, clothed and taken care of 
properly, thus that explained the fat sum of allowance I got in my bank 
every month. If I were to reveal the actual figure, some of my friends 
at school would get a heart attack, so it would be better if I played 
it low. But the figure was enough for me to indulge in luxuries that I 
wanted. So, I had no idea why I was complaining. 

“And it got better toward the end of the day,” I lied. “Now, tell me
about you.” I did not want to talk about them anymore. All I wanted to 
do was listen to his voice that was music to my ears and gaze into his 
dark eyes until time ended. I was beginning to sound like a sappy 
romance story but I couldn’t stop myself. He was such a great guy. “Why 
talk?” I shifted until I was facing him and our lips met naturally. I 
never knew how it was to be around someone who I was crazy about and 
keep my hands off him. Like for instance, we were both all over each 
other until we probably wouldn’t stop if the incisive knocking on my 
door hadn’t been growing louder each passing second. First I thought it 
was our hearts beating but a female voice accompanied the beats. 
“Rhian! Rhian! How come your door’s lock?” came Calista’s voice. 
“Hide!” I shrieked as soft as I could and pushed him into my walk-in 
closet. When I was sure he was safely hidden and out of plain view, I 
opened the door to let Calista in. “What do you want?” I asked 
grumpily. “Why did you lock the door?” she questioned. I shrugged. “I 
just want some privacy. Sometimes the housekeeper wakes me up as early 
as eight in the morning to join her for breakfast.” I gave out a very 
fake loud yawn, I was never a convincing actor as her. “I want to go 
back to sleep, Cal. I’ve just drifted off and you interrupted me.” 

Calista bit her lower lip and nodded. “Yeah, sure. I’ll talk to you in
the morning, Rhian.” She walked back to her room and I waited to hear 
the click of her door shutting. “You can come out now,” I sang and 
waited for him. A minute passed and he was still in the closet. Didn’t 
he hear my calling? I walked to the closet and opened the door wide. I 
peered in and called out to him. Still no response. “Hmmm? You there?” 
I asked aloud and went into my closet. Weirdly, he was not around. He 
must have slipped out when I was talking to Calista. He could have at 
least waited until she left. Calista could spot him sneaking from the 
closet to the window. 

“Why did you leave?” I groaned exasperatedly and flopped onto my bed. 

*** 

“Hey,” he greeted as he slipped into my bedroom a few nights later. I
continued reading my book, ignoring his presence. I was slightly ticked 
off by him for leaving just like that and to think I have to wait for 
so long before having a chance to be with him again. “What book is 
that?” he asked, sitting next to me. I heard the bed springs creaked 
under his weight and I observed something about him, while trying hard 
to look as though I was concentrating on my book. He wasn’t as cheerful 
as he was days before. His face was somber and his eyes pleading me to 
look deep into his soul and heal his pain. Honey, you know I could not 
do that. I was not as strong as you. I never was. 

“What’s wrong?” I could not help it. The anger towards him had somehow
melted away and I felt a pang of overwhelming grief. “Tell me. What’s 
the matter?” I repeated my question, this time a little louder. He was 
still not answering me. He had an answer for everything. He always did! 
So why was he so silent this time round?!? “Please, don’t scare me like 
this,” I pleaded. “Please.” 

“Rhian, you know how much I wanted to be with you,” he began slowly.
“You know that don’t you?” I nodded, his expression causing my eyes to 
water. “But it’s not possible for us to be together every time.” “I 
know that!” I protested. “We weren’t together for the past few days.” I 
was sobbing by then; fat tears rolling down my cheeks as he rested his 
head on my knees. I buried my face in his dark hair, taking in the 
scent of him that was not the result from a big bottle of snotty and 
overpriced cologne. It was angelic and it made me feel comfortable, 
just like most things about him. “Don’t go. Not just yet. I’m not 
ready,” I sobbed and cupped his face in my hands. “How could I go on 
when you’re not here any longer?” He sighed sadly and nodded. Wiping my 
tears away, he placed my head to his chest. I could hear his heart 
beating softly and if I were to place both of our hearts together, one 
would see that they were beating to the same rhythm. “I won’t go now,” 
he promised me once again. “Not just yet.” 

“Why would you want to go back there?” I argued. “Blu Creek is a far
better place.” He laughed bitterly. “I know that.” I thought of New 
York and the miles it was away from Blu Creek. My life was so much 
different there than it was here. It was much more peaceful in Blu 
Creek. But Blu Creek would be far worse off if he wasn’t around. “I’m 
much better here,” I continued. 

“I know that too,” he answered again. 

“So you won’t leave?” 

“Not just yet,” he repeated. He cradled me in his arms and I vowed that
if he was going away, I would follow him. 

*** 

Chapter Three: Why Must It Change? 

Sometimes I felt that I was destined to be more than who I am. The only
reason I was unable to achieve the greater plans that were set for me 
was simple because I’m lazy. I was too lazy to get my butt off the 
couch and set out to do things that were planned for me by the big guys 
above. But during the summers, I usually got a lot more things done 
with my life. Why? Because my big sister, Calista, was such an 
overachiever that she had to fill every second of her life doing useful 
things like volunteering at Blu Creek Medical Centre, serving lunch to 
the patients who stayed there. This summer, Calista had plan to be as 
involved as she could with any activities that surrounded the hospital, 
since she was going to be part of the scene anyway after she graduated 
from Brown University. And whenever my sister set her blue eyes on 
anything, she usually managed to achieve it. All the time. How 
sickening was that? Plus, she never liked doing things alone so when 
she found out about the lunch serving volunteering thing, she knew that 
was the kind of activity she wanted to take part in for the entire 
summer. The best thing was she roped me into it along with her since 
none of her friends in Blu Creek wanted to be any part of it. Who could 
blame them? Serving sick people lunch every single weekday would only 
blew out a huge hole in their summer plans if relaxing and having fun 
in the sun. Thus I was the one she managed to convince into joining 
with her and so, every weekday from one to three in the afternoon, I 
could be found handing out the lunches to the sick people residing in 
Blu Creek Medical Centre. In total, there were six of us who would be 
serving those damn lunch trays and the four others were these nerds 
whom I had never spoken to in school. Alright, I was very bitter about 
it. Spending every weekday in the hospital during the prime tanning 
hours was not a good start to my summer. And now, I had to spend it 
with five other people who were extremely enthusiastic about it, and I 
would never enjoy the company of the other four. Gag me with a spoon. 

Blu Creek Medical Centre was not exactly the big hospitals one would see
in the television shows. Seldom would there be these huge emergencies 
that would leave people’s lives in the hands of the surgeons in charge. 
It was more like the only place one could get treated for common 
illnesses and there was a small pharmacy located next to the medical 
centre. Injuries could also be treated there but if one needed a major 
surgery like a kidney transplant or brain transplant or something more 
dangerous than that, it would have to be done at the big hospital a few 
towns away. The medical centre was usually more for emergencies in the 
small town such as, “Whoops, I spilled hot water and scalded myself. 
Help! Doctor!” Get what I was trying to say? Actually, there were 
surgeons there that was qualified to perform major operations if ever 
there was a real emergency but it would be better for someone to go to 
the big hospital where there were more people better trained and 
qualified to handle those cases. I went there once when I woke up in 
the middle of the night and had these blinding pains in my stomach that 
wouldn’t go away for hours so I had to drag myself out of the bed and 
drove all the way to the medical centre alone. Yes, alone. Dad was 
asleep and I never did thought of waking him up since I wasn’t his main 
priority. Turned out that the pain was caused by my appendicitis and 
they had to remove it. No matter how I begged the doctors and the 
nurses there that I did not need my Dad’s permission to remove it, they 
did not listen to me. Instead they called him up and asked him to come 
down in the morning to sign some papers so that they could go ahead 
with the operation. 

It was the first five minutes of the Teen Lunch Project and I was
already dreading it. Another annoying thing about it was we had to put 
on this ugly uniform, complete with something I could only see 
resemblance to a shower cap. For goodness sake, the meals were sealed 
shut with tin foils, so show me a way as to how a strand of my hair 
could drop into their oh-so precious lunch of the patients. 

After the briefing, which was probably the most incredibly boring twenty
minutes of my life, I was partnered with a geek from school who tripped 
over his own feet every twenty steps he took. I mean, what was the 
problem with this guy? Couldn’t he look up as he walk? That way, it 
could prevent him from bumping into the every fifth person he passed 
by. In total there were three teams and each couple was assigned to 
each level. I got to admit that it wasn’t really the most difficult 
jobs as all we had to do was to give each patient at each bed a tray 
filled with their lunch and the ‘special cases’ patients’ food were 
handed out by the dietician themselves. So, if I saw a bed with the 
label ‘strict diet’, I did not need to hand them their lunch. 

It would be that simple if only I did not have a big, huge klutz as a
partner! We were only in our first ward when he had tripped over his 
feet again and spilled a patient’s lunch all over the linoleum floor. I 
gave out a huge sigh of disgust and proceeded to picking up the 
scattered utensils and braced myself for a long summer of cleaning up 
after this geek. 

“Can’t you be more careful?” I hissed as I dropped the tray onto the
cart. 

“So...sooorrr...rrry,” he stammered. I ordered him to push the cart
instead of having to deliver the trays to the respective beds, not 
forgetting to warn him to look ahead as he pushed the cart. I did not 
need my first day to be an even more disaster than it already was. 

“Didn’t you go to Blu Creek High?” A patient asked me as I was about to
collect back the lunch trays. Okay, I wasn’t here to chit chat with the 
patients, just to serve them their lunch and to pick up the trays after 
they are done with it. “Yeah,” I answered half heartedly. “Rhian 
Sanders is it?” he asked again. Once again I said yes but this time 
round, I looked up to see who the speaker was. He was about my age and 
he looked familiar but I couldn’t place him in any of my classes at 
school. I was really bad at recalling people’s face and remembering 
their names. But I would never forget ‘his’ face. I memorized every 
exact detail of him. 

“You from BCH too?” I asked. Well, duh! “Yeah! It’s Shane Bryant. We
have English together last year,” he informed. Oh, I knew who he was. 
He was the jock with the brains. The one that the cheerleaders always 
made a point to talk about every time. Each time I joined them for 
lunch I would hear this kind of snippets from their conversation, “How 
could he be so clever and so hot at the same time?” “He’s like the 
perfect guy!” 

“Football accident?” I inquired, referring to his arm which was in a
sling. He chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. I was regretting 
that I ever asked that. These jocks would be eager to give an exact 
play by play of the game and then zooming into the moment where they 
were going to do something incredible with that football and was 
tackled or kicked or punched or shot by another guy from the opposing 
team, thus in the process landing them in the state they were in. “If 
you call falling off the stairs, football,” he joked. 

“Well, it’s all Greek to me,” I replied. I was never interested in
sports since ever, plus I wasn’t interested in guys that played them. 
“It’s nice talking to you,” I continued, not giving him a chance to add 
on. I only had one more ward to go and I was going to get the hell out 
of this place. 

“Hey, I’ll see you tomorrow!” he called out cheerfully. I gritted my
teeth. Yup, I would have to be back here tomorrow. 

*** 

The next day I found out the exact detail of Shane’s accident. I was
fuming mad the whole day as my geek partner had rolled the delivery 
trolley over my foot about a million times so now I would be going home 
with a sore right foot. 

“What’s the matter?” Shane asked, his voice filled with concern. I guess
anybody could guess my mood just by a look from my face. That was why 
the patients weren’t as smiley as they were the first day when I handed 
and picked up the trays. Neither did they ask me what I was so pissed 
off about. Except Shane. That guy really had guts. “Nothing really 
except I’m stuck in a place where I didn’t really want to be. Doing a 
job which I didn’t really want to do. And partnered with a guy whose 
life ambition is to cause pain into anybody who is stupid enough to 
stand next to him,” I fumed. Once I started, it was hard to stop. And I 
also realized how loud my voice was as from the corner of my eyes, I 
saw the geek’s face turning red. “Relax,” Shane consoled. “You know he 
didn’t mean to do it. He’s just a little clumsy after all.” He added a 
reassuring smile to the geek’s direction. 

“Easy for you to say. You are not the one who would be stuck with a
swollen feet full of broken bones for the entire summer,” I snapped. 

“Yeah, lucky me,” he smiled to himself. “What’s that for?” I asked. I
motioned to his broken arm and he rolled his eyes. “Well at least you 
could walk,” I argued. “What happened to that?” I was actually dying to 
talk to somebody as I have kept silent throughout the serving and the 
picking up of trays. I was too frustrated to talk to the geek, too hot 
blooded to talk nicely to the patients so it was a relief to be able to 
have a conversation with a normal teenager. “Tripped onto the stairs at 
the bleachers while warming up for football?” I couldn’t resist adding. 


“You know Rhian, my life doesn’t exactly revolve around football,” Shane
said. “I was painting my house when the stairs fell. To break my fall, 
I used my arm and here’s what happened to it.” “Bummer, there goes your 
summer job,” I answered. 

“There goes,” he echoed. “Now I’m unemployed until this cast comes off.
Story of my life, huh?” “At least you’re not chained and forced to send 
lunches out everyday like me. So there’s no need for me to feel sorry 
for you,” I commented. “And I got to run if I want to finish my round 
before the sun sets.” 

“Talk to you tomorrow!” he called out cheerfully for two days in a row.
At the minimum Shane saved me from having to kill that geek who was 
still running the delivery trolley over my foot and at the same time 
tripping over his own feet. 

*** 

“Much better today?” Shane Bryant inquired as I was about to take his
tray away. “Oh yeah. It’s just peachy,” I muttered sarcastically and 
was about to walk away when I sense how desperate he was to talk to 
someone. I could say that we were both in the same position, trapped in 
a place where we both did not want to be. Only an insane teenager would 
one to be in a hospital when there were thousands of better things to 
do outdoors. “Don’t any of your friends visit you while you are in 
here?” I asked, sitting down by the side of his bed. It was actually 
encouraged for the volunteers to communicate with the patients so that 
none of them would be lonely so I wasn’t breaking any rules. The first 
two days, the geek and I were the first ones to finish our rounds 
although I felt that it took us ages to end. I found out from Calista 
that she spent quite some time talking to the different patients during 
her shift. 

“Right, you think any one would come to a hospital during the prime
hours of the sun?” he said simply. He was absolutely right. “They 
usually come later when the sun’s about to set and it’s a bit too early 
for dinner,” he supplied. 

“I guess that’s when the whole hospital becomes Verge?” I was referring
to the club where most of the Blu Creek High population headed to for 
dancing. Shane laughed and nodded. “Only without the beer and the loud 
music. So why are you doing this thing when I know you are dying to be 
out there?” 

I shrugged. “I was in it because of the uniform.” 

“Then I can say that you definitely modeled shower caps in the best way
possible,” he teased and I found myself blushing. I prayed that he did 
not see it and stood up. “Well, got to start picking up trays again. 
See ya.” 

“Tomorrow’s the last day. I’ll be out the day after that!” he shouted
after me. 

*** 

“How’s the volunteering thing going?” he asked as he caressed my cheeks.
We were both sitting on a strip of beach that was empty. Not many 
people preferred this strip of beach as it was a distance away from the 
shops and the restrooms. The popular places where my friends preferred 
to hang out were miles away from where I was. Anyway there was no need 
for me to be afraid of bumping into them. It was late at night and the 
night was too chilly to be having any bonfires. It was just like the 
other night when he and I were together in the park except tonight, the 
view of the ocean was much better. “It was terrible,” I complained. I 
told him about the geek, I told him about how long it felt and I told 
him about me not enjoying a single part of it. I left the part about 
making a new friend and I did not know why. 

“Surely you’ve made a couple of friends. There’s got to be patients of
your age,” he said. “Not really,” I lied. “They are all mostly adults. 
But my sister has made best friends with just about everybody, 
including all the staff in the hospital.” 

“Calista’s just like that. She’s very sociable,” he commented. 

I pulled away from him and stared at him indignantly. “Are you saying
I’m not?!?” He shook his head slowly. “I’m not saying that, Rhian. 
You’re good at making friends with people who is of the same age as you 
while Calista’s the kind of person who could make friends with 
everybody from the age of zero to a hundred.” 

I nodded, thinking of Shane. He was the only person I could talk to in
the entire hospital. I tried to recall of me having a nice talk with 
anybody who was not in my age range and I could not think of any. 
Suddenly I felt so small. “You’re totally right,” I admitted. “I’m so 
not cut out to be in this kind of thing.” 

“Don’t give up,” he encouraged. “You might find something good out of
it.” Like being friends with a jock that I had never thought of? “Now, 
show me your swollen foot,” he said and I pointed to him my bruised 
skin. “The next time you see me, I’ll be walking in crutches,” I 
warned, closing my eyes as he rubbed my foot softly. 

“I don’t mind. It’ll be fun to see you limping for a change,” he
whispered tenderly. 

“Ha-ha,” I argued weakly but my mind was thinking of what he said
earlier. What if good things cause damage? 

*** 

“Last day. How does it feel?” I interviewed Shane as I set his tray onto
his table. 

“Like I am going to Disneyland,” he exclaimed. “You do know how boring
it could get over here when you or none of my friends are around.” 

“Well I spent almost two hours per day in this place, so I think I get
the gist of it,” I assured him. “Well got to run now. People are 
waiting for their food and that geek’s waiting to trample on my foot.” 

“His name is Corey Handling,” Shane supplied. “And he’s a pretty nice
guy once you break past his shyness.” “I don’t think I’ll be doing that 
anytime soon,” I informed him. 

“Talk to you when you pick up this tray of mine,” he said and dug into
his food. With him being gone, this volunteering job would get a lot 
worst than it was. It was about an hour later when I met him again. 
“You broke your arm so why did you stay in this prison for so long?” I 
inquired as I dropped the tray into the trolley. The geek, Corey, was 
trying his best to get from a bed to the trolley without dropping the 
tray so I had to keep an eye on him whilst talking to Shane. 

“My mum’s kind of paranoid as I bumped my head pretty badly too,” he
told me. 

“Afraid you’re going to lose your memory?” 

“She was thinking more to internal injuries. But I guessed she has
checked the X-ray about a zillion of times and it’s clean so I was 
allowed to return home.” 

“She checks the X-ray herself?” I asked, amazed of how concerned his mum
was about him. I guess if Dad was in his mum’s shoes and Shane was 
Calista, Dad would radio in the entire staff of a well known hospital 
to check his daughter thoroughly from head to toe to make sure his 
princess was fine. “She’s a doctor here.” So his mum wasn’t a paranoid 
parent, she was just making sure her patient was really fine. “Good for 
you. She must really care about you,” I said although I might never 
know how that feels like. 

“Yeah, or she’s just particular about her job,” he replied. 

I chuckled. “I don’t see any other patients around here with just a
broken arm.” 

“Good point,” he laughed. 

“I would love to talk more but I got a job to do. The faster I finish,
the faster I can get the hell out of here,” I muttered. “See you around 
school when it opens then.” I was just about to push the trolley out 
when he called out to me. “Rhian, how about visiting me again after 
your shift is over?” I gave it a thought for a couple of moments. “I’ll 
see first. It’s not that it gives me joy to stay around here more than 
the required amount if time.” 

“I’ll cross my fingers then,” he answered. 

At the beginning of this volunteering job, I never did expect that I
would enjoy a conversation with a jock so much; neither did I expect I 
would stick around the hospital after the two hours was over. But both 
happened and I could say that my summer was turning out to be a lot 
different than I had thought it would be. When I got to Shane’s ward, I 
was out of that ghastly uniform and into my comfortable tank top and 
jeans. He was packing his stuff as I was stepping into the ward. 
“You’re going home now?” I asked. He turned as soon as he heard my 
voice and a smile had lit up his face. The cheerleaders weren’t wrong. 
He was kind of cute although I never noticed it before. He was so clean 
cut while I was more attracted to guys who were a little on a different 
side. Like ‘him’. 

“I’ll be officially release in twenty minutes. So plenty of time to
talk,” he said. 

“Right, so now that your summer plans are totally ruined, you thought of
another way to spend the entire three months?” I sat next to him on his 
bed. “Actually if you have never asked, I would have never thought 
about it,” Shane admitted. “And you are so on the spot. My summer is 
totally ruined.” 

“Well, so is mine,” I declared. “It feels so different when you are only
able to join your friends at the beach only at three. Like I’m cutting 
into the middle of their plans.” 

“Oh yeah, you hang out with some of the cheerleaders,” he noticed. “But
don’t you feel it’s a bit more fulfilling to do this than just laze 
your summer away?” 

I bit my lip. I never thought about the volunteering thing in that kind
of way. “Hey, don’t be thinking way too deep. My mum always says that 
I’m always questioning people about themselves,” he interrupted. 

“Thank god that I don’t need to think about it then,” I answered happily
cos I had vow to hate the volunteering job and I would not change my 
mind. “You thought of what you want to do then? You can’t stay lock up 
in your house too.” 

“Maybe you should volunteer to serve lunch,” I added without thinking. 

“Can you see me doing that with one arm?” he asked, laughing lightly. I
shrugged and I realized that twenty minutes have passed and he could go 
home. “Hey, you are free!” I jumped out from my bed, itching to get out 
of the hospital. He took a peek at his watch and stood up. “Oh yeah, I 
can’t believe I’m released!” He kneeled down on the floor and pretended 
to kiss it to show how thankful he was. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said in disgust and laughed
along with him. 

*** 

“You really can’t get enough of this place, can’t you?” I muttered as I
bumped into Shane while delivering the lunch. He rubbed the back of his 
head and chuckled. “So, what the hell are you doing here?” 

“Man, you are so not going to make this easy,” he began. I folded my
arms in front of my chest and waited. “Since my summer plans have been 
foiled, I decided to volunteer for the lunch project. So, say hello to 
your new partner,” Shane exclaimed dramatically. My eyes widened in 
disbelief. “Tell me you’re joking.” 

He shook his head. “I’m not.” 

“Well, you are crazy,” I declared. “Anybody who wants to spend time in
this miserable place is crazy,” I added, eyeing the geek who was 
staring at his feet. Shane chuckled and clapped the geek at his back. 
“Ignore her comments. She’s crazy too. Or else why would she still be 
volunteering. Admit it, Rhian. You’re enjoying this job.” 

“Over my dead body,” I mumbled and rolled the trolley to proceed with
the day’s job. At least it won’t be that terrible now that I have a 
friend to suffer with my misery. 

*** 

“You seem cheerful today,” Calista commented as we both got into her
pink BMW. The volunteering shift was just over and I had great plans 
for the rest of the day. “Really? Seems the same to me,” I replied. “I 
still hate that damn hospital. I don’t know how you can stand spending 
the next fifty years of my life in a place as depressing as that.” 

“You can lie to me Rhian but you know you can’t lie to yourself,” she
commented as she drove out of the parking lot. I pondered over what she 
said and I guessed I sort of lied to her. The shift was quite fine. 
Quite. Shane was around, making jokes and I was laughing my head off 
the entire time. The geek even joined us; turned out that the two of 
them had some classes together and were lab partners in their freshmen 
year. Yeah, I actually remembered that unimportant trivia about them. 
But how the hell could Calista notice it? Was my walk more bouncy or my 
smile a little larger? This was weird as I never smiled ever since I 
began the volunteering job. “I heard someone just joined your team,” 
she said. “Someone exciting, isn’t he?” I groaned and rolled my eyes. 
Couldn’t she be more obvious? 

“He’s just someone from school,” I mumbled. 

“He’s cute!” she gushed. “I saw him when he registered earlier this
week.” 

“You have a boyfriend, Cal,” I reminded her. Calista’s boyfriend was
currently studying at Harvard University and I would admit that he was 
extremely gorgeous. “Haven’t I told you? Josh and I broke up,” she 
supplied. I stared at her curiously. She had been dating this guy ever 
since she turned sixteen! “How long?” I interrogated. 

Calista shrugged and maneuvered her car, cutting an extremely slow blue
Honda. “About four months.” “Four months! Gee, thanks for informing 
me,” I snorted. She always told me everything! How could she keep that 
information from me for such a long time?!? 

“I meant to tell you, Rhian. I just got so busy and....” Her voice
trailed and I looked at her carefully. “What’s wrong Cal?” 

She snapped out of the trance that she was and gave me a strange look.
“What?” 

“Did he hurt you?” I asked softly. 

Calista kept quiet stubbornly. We sat in the car silently as she drove
through the roads, my question left unanswered. “It’s just...long 
distance, you know? It’s hard to maintain,” she finally said after a 
long period of dreadful silence. “We just drift apart. You can 
understand that, can’t you?” Okay, she must be in really big pit hole 
because she just asked if I understood her situation. How could I? We 
were both as different as night and day. We had different taste in 
guys. Josh Carven and ‘him’ were worlds apart. Josh was the captain of 
the baseball team; a popular student in school and the perfect 
counterpart of Calista. In the other hand, ‘he’ was different. I 
mentioned that before. He was a dream to me. “How could I, Cal?” I 
repeated; this time out loud for her to hear. 

“It’s just over, Rhian. There’s nothing more that I can do,” she
answered wearily. Okay, another weird thing. Calista Sanders never gave 
up. Never. If the silly reason for them breaking up was distance, she 
would do anything to make it work. Anything. I saw how determined she 
was in any kind of situation. This wasn’t Calista. This person talking 
to me was someone else. “Okay, you’re freaking me out,” I declared. 
“What really happen with you guys? You both made it when we moved up 
here.” Right, did I mention that Josh was from Manhattan? Like us all, 
including ‘him’? “We thought we did,” she replied. “I guess we thought 
wrong.” 

“You can lie to me, Cal. But you know you can’t lie to yourself,” I
repeated exactly what she have said to me twenty minutes ago. 

This time round, her face grew lovelorn and she blushed. I swore that
she actually blushed! But why should she blush if she was upset about 
Josh? She was upset about him, right? “I’ll tell you but you have to 
promise not to tell Dad,” she warned me. Okay, this was getting juicy! 
She seldom hid things from Dad! The last time she used that sentence on 
me was when she confided in me that she have slept with Josh. “Cross my 
heart and hope to die,” I joked. 

“I’m not kidding, Rhian,” she continued. “This is really serious. If Dad
found out about this, he won’t allow me to even step into Rhode Island 
anymore.” 

“You know I won’t tell him, Cal,” I urged. “I’ve never revealed any of
your secrets to him!” And the reason was because I never talk to him at 
all. 

“I met someone,” she revealed. I raised an eyebrow. What was such a big
deal with that? “Yeah?” 

She nodded excitedly as she drove the car up into our driveway. We could
see that Dad wasn’t around but Calista insisted on sitting in the car. 
“He was the most wonderful guy I’ve ever been with, Rhian. I’m crazy 
over him.” 

“That’s great, Cal. So why are you so afraid of Dad finding out?” I
inquired. 

“He’s just so...He’s so different. He’s so different than any of the
other guys that I’ve dated. Way different,” she emphasized, her eyes 
growing all dreamy. I stifled a yawn. “Describe how different he is. I 
don’t quite understand.” 

“He’s not someone who I thought I’ll ever be interested in. You could
say that he’s more of your type,” she explained. Wow, I have never 
expected that she would say that sentence. Ever. “You mean?” 

She nodded again. “He’s twenty this year and he’s such a rebel. And I
find him so exciting!” “He’s in this rock band and he plays the guitar. 
That’s how he survives. If his band got a gig, he would get the money. 
If not, he just hangs around. You know? I never thought I’ll use the 
word ‘gig’!” The excitement she was portraying now could only be 
compared to when Dad bought her this hot pink BMW convertible. I could 
not get a word in as she kept talking about this guy of hers. “He’s so 
cool. He hangs around with his band mates all the time. Practicing his 
music and all. He spends quite some time on his guitar and he writes 
songs too. When he’s not doing that, he calls me up and we meet and we 
did wonderful things together. He takes me to this great clubs and we 
tried out drinks that I’ve never tried before! He makes me forget about 
the stress in school. He gives me thrills every single time I see him. 
Oh, Rhian. I am so in love with him. What should I do? I don’t want to 
stay away from him for too long. I want to go back to Providence!” she 
exclaimed. Serious, serious trouble. Calista was in serious trouble if 
she ever voiced it out to Dad that she wanted to spend the summer away 
from him. Both of us knew how he treasured every single moment he was 
with her. Summers were the only time where he could see her, now that 
she was away at the university. And now, all she wanted was to go back 
to that place so that she could devote all her time with him. And I 
didn’t even know his name. “What can I do, Rhian? What should I say to 
Dad so that I can go back there?” she pleaded with me. “I don’t want to 
spend any more time here. My life’s there now!” Ouch, that would burn 
Dad so bad. “How about your volunteering thing?” was all that I could 
ask. 

“I don’t know,” she sighed sadly. “When I joined, it was because Dad
pressured me into doing. I had doubts as I knew that it would tie me 
down here for the whole summer. Help me, Rhian. I’m really desperate 
here!” She never did want to join? I never thought that it was Dad who 
pushed her into joining. I guess it could be very stressful in her 
shoes, always having to live up to expectations and all. I just never 
thought of Dad bullying her into anything. But she was so enthusiastic 
about it. “I thought you like it,” I wondered. 

“I do like it. It would look good in my resume. But my heart wasn’t
totally in it. I want to go back to Rhode Island,” she cried. Tears 
were streaming down her cheeks. 

“I can’t help you, Cal,” I admitted. “You’ve got to talk to Dad
yourself.” 

“Of course you can!!” she yelled at me. I was taken aback. She was
seldom this harsh. “You can help me. You just don’t want to,” she 
accused. 

“How could I?!?” 

“Of all people Rhian, you are the one that I thought would understand
me,” she said disappointedly, wiping her eyes. “Why me?” I demanded. 

“Because you’ve done this all your life!” she screamed. “You’re the one
that always got into trouble and managed to get away scrape free! 
You’re the one that always fall in love with a guy Dad will never 
approve and you will just go about, running away with him into the 
night and leave me all scared and worried about you. You’re the one 
that sneaks into the house in the middle of the night, all drunk and 
unable to control your own senses. You’re the one that can help me get 
back to Rhode Island.” I stared at her indignantly. How could she say 
that? I could do all those things, it was not problem. She couldn’t. 
She was the perfect Calista that always got Dad all proud and happy, 
not me. I did not need to care about what Dad feels. “Rhian, you’ve got 
to help me. I’m your sister and god knows how many times I’ve helped 
you,” she insisted. “Please, Rhian. I’m begging you to. I don’t want to 
stay here. And I can’t bear to lie to Dad at the same time.” 

“What’s his name?” 

“Derryck Clarkson,” she said. I thought about it for the longest time.
How she could fall in love with a guy like that. How she would even 
meet a guy like that, seeing that all the parties she always went to 
was with people of her own kind. Back then, even Josh seemed kind of 
decent to me. I guess the legend was sort of true. Girls do fall for 
bad boys at a certain point in their life. My sister was a walking 
proof right now. I remembered the times that she shook her heads when 
she saw nice girls with their arms wrapped around guys who were more on 
the wild side. She said she never saw that don’t-care-attitude 
thrilling. Now she had her own one. “He’s so cute,” she breathed. “He 
wears dark color clothes all the time. I know last time I thought that 
was disgusting as to why this people never embraced colors but on 
Derryck, it was just plain sexy.” 

“How did you meet him?” 

“I saw him playing at this club and Cupid struck me,” she revealed. I
wanted to barf. Really! She wasn’t this bad at all when she was with 
Josh, even when she admitted that she slept with him. “It was love at 
first sight. Then he caught me looking at him and he flashed me this 
smile that melted me and the night went on.” 

“Cal, stop! It’s too much information!” I protested. “You got hooked,
huh?” 

“Oh yeah. Badly hooked. At first I never thought I could survive this
long without him.” I was torn on whether I should help her or not. What 
if the guy was mean to her? I would never know what his intentions were 
and what if he was out to cheat her? But what if he really was in love 
with her? One thing for sure was that I have to help her. She was big 
enough to make her own decisions. And she really has helped me a 
million times in all the tough situations that I’ve been it. And it was 
time for me to repay her. “We’ll come up with something. Cos when two 
bright brains get together, not even Dad could win us.” 

My sister flashed me the proudest smile she had ever given me and it
made me feel proud of myself. She really had put all her trust in me 
this time round. 

Chapter 4: Why Is It So Different? 

“And you are going to help her?” he asked me as we laid next to each
other on my bed. I have just told him about Calista’s problem and I was 
asking for his ideas to help Calista out. “Of course I will. She’s my 
sister. And in my experience, those kind of guys aren’t that bad at 
all,” I teased and kissed him. 

“How much experience?” he joined in. 

“Oh, many. I find guys like them very exciting,” I went on. “Makes me
want to kiss each one I find.” 

“Should I be getting wary of your other good guy friends?” he
questioned, nibbling my earlobe. 

“Oh, you should,” I warned. “They may take over your place one day.” I
burst out giggling. “How about you? What about the other girls that 
hangs around you?” 

“I got to beat them off with a stick,” he replied sleepily. “But you’re
still my number one.” He wrapped both of his arms around my waist and 
pulled me closer. “If she goes, are you going to continue with the 
lunch volunteering?” I couldn’t reply him on the spot. Up until now, I 
have thought only about Calista, not about me. If I quit, that would be 
leaving Shane with that geek and also, I was beginning to have fun. In 
fact, to be truthful, I was kind of looking forward to the daily lunch 
job. That guy really cracked me up the entire two hours that time 
really flew without me noticing it. “I’m not sure. I was kind of liking 
it,” I admitted. He frowned, his brows furrowing in disbelief. “I 
thought you hated it.” 

“Yeah, at first,” I hesitated in telling him why I was starting to like
him. Would he get jealous that I was enjoying the company of another 
guy, even if he was just friend? Oh, what the hell. I need not need to 
be scared, like I’ve mentioned Shane was just a friend. Like the people 
I hung out with at school. “There’s this guy. He was a patient at first 
and then he joined the volunteering thing. He’s really funny.” 

“See, I told you that you’ll make a friend,” he pointed out. “And you
wouldn’t believe me.” What a cool boyfriend. “Alright, you win again. 
Don’t you always?” I ruffled his hair fondly, got up and walked to the 
window. “Isn’t it suppose to be summer? So why is it showering again? 
How are you going to get back?” 

“Why should I? I’m quite comfortable here,” he joked. 

“Of course you are but you can’t stay here until morning. Calista will
find out,” I informed him. 

“Then let her,” he teased and sat up. “Maybe she’ll leave that guy for
me.”  I shook my head and smiled at him. “You are so full of jokes 
tonight. Go get dress. If she sees you in this state, she’ll definitely 
want to stay here.” I did not need to explain what we have done just 
minutes ago. 

“Rhian, are you ready?” 

I gazed at him as he said that. I knew what he was referring to and I
was a little frustrated that he was always asking me. He should know by 
now what the answer was. “You know how I feel,” I said wearily. “Are 
you ready?” 

“Of course not,” he whispered into my hair. “But it’s just not right.” 

“What really is the definition of right? This morning I thought that
being right was Calista still with her old boyfriend, Josh. But now, 
she’s completely hung up with a guy that was the exact opposite of what 
she used to like. Before the beginning of the summer, I thought being 
right was hating my volunteering job but now I kind of enjoyed it. So, 
tell me, what is right? Cos I’m not feeling it,” I blazed at him. He 
kept quiet as he rested his chin on top of my head. “You made a deal, 
Rhian. You know it can’t last forever,” he reminded me. 

“I know it can’t. But it’s just too soon,” I protested. 

“How long more?” he asked, the question staining my mind. 

*** 

I thought and I thought hard but I couldn’t find a perfect way where I
could convince Dad to allow Calista to return back to Rhode Island and 
be with Derryck. It was harder for her to just disappear off the face 
of the planet and knowing Dad, he could just stay in Rhode Island for 
the summer with her while he handled business from there. Yeah, his 
business was that well managed that he could easily work from any part 
of the globe and still be freaking successful. 

“Have you thought of a way yet?” she would ask as every hour passed. It
was Sunday and we were bumming at home as it poured outdoors for the 
third day in a row. Last night I was dancing my ass off at Verge with 
the rest of the cheerleaders. Shane was there too and we danced a 
couple of times together. It was a lot of fun but that have caused me 
to have a splitting headache which resulted to staying at home and 
watching my DVD collection of FRIENDS. “Have you?” she asked again two 
minutes later. 

“No, Cal. I have not come up with a perfect plan and you want to know
why? Cos it’s harder for you. You are his golden girl,” I pointed out. 
“So give me more time.” 

She crossed her arms, frustrated. “I miss him a lot, Rhian. Who knows
who else will catch his attention if I’m not around?” What have this 
guy done? He has turned my level-headed sister into someone who was 
planning her life around him. “Relax. You’re not someone who could be 
forgotten that easily,” I assured her. 

She smiled cheerfully. “He called me everyday and claimed that he missed
me. Oh, if only I could fly him out here! I would so do that. But he 
got his band gigs and all.” 

“You are so pathetic,” I scoffed as I bit into a chocolate chip cookie
that we had baked this morning. 

“No, I’m in love. There’s a big different,” she giggled. “I think I’ll
just die if I spend one more week here!” She picked the wrong time to 
declare that sentence out as at that moment, Dad walked into the den. 
“What’s wrong with staying here?” he inquired, snapping his cell phone 
shut. Both of us looked at each other. Busted. “Calista? Why don’t you 
want to stay here?” 

“I never said that!” she tried to cover up. “I just meant that I’ll die
if I have to stay indoors during summer for one more week.” 

“Don’t lie to me, young lady,” Dad reprimanded. “I’ve been catching
snippets of your conversations with your sister for the past couple of 
days and I heard that you don’t want to be here. So tell me why.” I bit 
my lip, my voice tied as it always was when I was around Dad. I seldom 
talked to him and thus, it was like me being face to face with the 
President. Being in the presence of a great authority. “Because of the 
summer medical program that Brown is having,” I managed to choke out 
just in time. 

“What?” both of them reeled, facing me. Calista was making these mixed
up signals asking me to stop what I was saying out. I kept my mouth 
shut and sat down, focusing my attention back to the show and letting 
her answer Dad for herself. 

“Calista Sanders,” Dad began. “Tell me what’s going on.” I saw her
gulped and fell into place next to me. That was how strict he was with 
his precious daughter. It was as though he felt an absolute need to 
control every aspect of Calista’s life. No wonder she fell head over 
heels with some guy that showed her the other side of life. A life 
without rules or restrictions. A life so carefree. “I want to go back 
to Rhode Island,” she admitted. 

“And why is that? Aren’t you having a good time here?” 

“No! I’m not! This is the worst summer I ever had!” she burst out
defiantly. I felt that I should leave the room but it was too exciting 
to miss. “Rhian, maybe you should take your leave now.” Dad must have 
seemed to read my mind. I gave Calista a shrug and was about to leave 
when she yelled for me to stop. “Don’t! She has the right to know all 
about this. Let her see what you are doing to me!” 

“What are you so unhappy about, Calista?” Dad asked. I stood by the
doorway and watched the scene unfolding in front of me. This was the 
worst that I have seen from the both of them yet. 

“You!” she accused. “I’m tired of you controlling me!” 

“When have I done that?” he demanded. 

“Now! Last few days! Ever since I was young!” she screamed back. “I am
entitled to some privacy and rights!” 

“And what do you want?” 

“I want to go back to Rhode Island. I don’t want to spend the summer
here! I don’t want to be forced to do something that I don’t want to 
which was the lunch volunteering project. I don’t want to spend three 
months in a place that I don’t even enjoy being in at the first place. 
I don’t want to stay here!” 

Dad crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Why didn’t you tell me you
don’t feel comfortable in this place, Calista? We wouldn’t move here if 
that’s the case.” I have this bad feeling that we would have to pack up 
and find a place where Calista would love. “It’s not the place, Dad! 
It’s you! I don’t want to be around you! I don’t want you to be around 
me, always having to control my every move! I’m sick and tired of it! 
I’m nineteen years old but you are treating me like a kid! AND I’M NOT 
ONE!!!” she cried out and ran away from the den. Seconds later, we both 
heard the front door banged shut and her car leaving the driveway. Dad 
dropped onto the couch and buried his heads into both of his hand. He 
seemed heartbroken and I was unsure of what I could do. “Maybe I should 
go find Calista and talk to her,” I offered and stepped away from the 
den. 

“Rhian, wait.” I heard him call me. When I saw him, he was in the worst
state that I had ever seen him in. His eyes were bloodshot and his tie 
askew. “What have I done wrong?” he asked me. For the longest time I 
have imagined what it would be like when Dad would actually talk to me. 
And the time had finally came. Instead I gazed into his eyes as he 
stared at me and picked myself up and left him wondering alone. 

*** 

Dad might have almost everything a man wanted in his lifetime. He had
all the materials possession that one might ever wished for and what 
one might describe as a family. He had a daughter that was a walking 
perfection which up until now adored him. Now, she has totally crushed 
him. And the saddest thing was I wanted to revel in it. How could I 
take pleasure in other people’s pain? And how could I not? He never 
took notice of me and all he cared about was Calista. Finally, he could 
see what it was like to be ignored by someone whom he loved so much. 
Don’t I have a right be a little selfish? 

Finding Calista was a breeze. There was only one place that she would
head to whenever she was upset. And the only place that made a great 
pizza in Blu Creek was Eddie Pizzeria. Sure enough as soon as I walked 
into the pizzeria, she was there at the back of the restaurant, biting 
into a slice of pizza that had every imaginable topping on top of it. I 
slid into the seat in front of her. “Hey,” I greeted. She nodded in 
return and continued with her pizza. “Are you going to be alright?” 

She grinned. “Am I going to be alright? I’m going to be fine, Rhian. Now
I don’t need to care if I ever hurt his feelings cos I already did. The 
only thing left to do was for me to pick up my already packed luggage 
and get the hell out of this miserable town.” I smiled at her. “You 
really hated this place, don’t you?” 

“Yeah. Only cos Derryck’s not around. If he’s here, then this place will
be heaven,” she replied. 

“So I guess Rhode Island is heaven for now.” 

“Definitely,” she agreed. “Come on. Celebrate with me.” 

I picked up a slice of pizza and we toasted to her going after her
boyfriend in Providence. 

*** 

“I see you’re alone today,” Shane commented as soon as I stepped into
the hospital on Monday afternoon. As soon as we got home from our 
impromptu pizza outing, Calista had grabbed her luggage and made her 
way to the airport to catch the first flight back to Rhode Island. By 
the speed of how she got ready, it seemed that she had not unpacked at 
all. She did not even say a thing to Dad even though she passed him at 
the hallway. I was a little surprised at her brashness but I guess she 
had enough of him coddling her for the time being. “Yeah,” I answered. 

“Where’s your sister?” he inquired. 

“Back to Brown,” I provided. “Where’s the geek?” 

He laughed and rubbed the back of his head. “You refused to learn his
name, huh?” I rolled my eyes. 

“He’s not coming today, actually. He got to attend an out of town
science convention.” 

“Why am I not surprised?” 

“So it’s just you and me, partner!” he declared. “How does that sound?” 

“Really grueling to me,” I joked and we laughed. 

Like I have mentioned, being around Shane was a riot. He was a great guy
to talk to and that really made the time in the hospital speed up real 
quick. At the end of the day’s shift, I was in the mood to hang out 
with the rest of my friends from school. The sun was shinning merrily 
in the sky, making Blu Creek a summer-worthy place. “Man, it sure is 
hot out here today,” Shane commented, wiping the sweat off his 
forehead. “Makes me want to have ice cream all day long.” 

“Me too. I wonder if the girls were off their diet yet,” I said, wishing
that they were so I won’t be the only one eating. 

“Tell me one time when they are not dieting,” he laughed. “Come and have
ice cream with me instead. And if you have a large one, I promise I 
won’t remind you of how many calories there are in it.” That was an 
extremely tempting offer and I accepted it readily. I was planning into 
buying a huge bowl of hot chocolate sundae with marshmallows, almonds 
and sprinkles on it. It also did not help that I was famished. “You’re 
on.” 

Since his arm was still in a sling, Shane’s mum had been dropping him
off at the hospital each day and he would walk home after that thus 
there was no problem as whose car we would take to the ice cream 
parlor. “Now you wonder why my summer’s such a drag,” he complained as 
we sat across each other in a booth at Carl’s. 

“What? You can’t do anything with one arm bounded?” I teased as the
waitress took our orders. 

“You bet I can’t,” he mumbled. “I can’t even go surfing.” 

“Hey, if a person who is born without hands could do it, so could you,”
I encouraged. He lifted an eyebrow and gazed at me. “Is there one?” 

I shrugged and laughed. “I am guessing so. These people have such strong
determination that they could do almost everything.” He nodded along 
and we both dug into the ice creams that had just arrived. “Wow! You 
really are craving for that ice cream,” he noticed. I nodded, very sure 
that I would have smeared something across my face. But who cares? I 
wasn’t going to impress him at all. He, on the other hand the one who 
suggested this trip, was having a chocolate shake. “I thought you were 
the one craving for it,” I retorted. He rubbed the back of his head and 
flashed me a grin. “Seeing all this ice cream was kind of overwhelming 
for me,” he informed and leaned back against the booth. 

“Overwhelming?” I echoed as I wiped my mouth with a napkin. 

“Yeah, a very bad experience when I turned eight,” he supplied. 

“Need I ask what happened?” 

He laughed. “My mum got me this ice cream cake that was big enough to
feed the hundred guests that was invited to my party. I couldn’t wait 
for the cake cutting so I stole it while the rest of the party was 
watching the magician perform his tricks. When my mum found it, I had 
eaten almost three-quarters of the cake. And there was this projectile 
throwing up incident.” 

“Ugh,” I wrinkled my nose. “It sounded really bad. Anyway, party, a
hundred guests, big cake, magician. Sounds like a fun party.” 

“Like your eight birthday wasn’t that fun?” 

I tried to recall what I did on my eigth birthday and I found myself too
embarrassed to describe it. Like the tradition was in my family, my 
birthdays weren’t a big deal to Dad. It was Calista who got the works 
like Shane. When she turned eight, Dad held a party in her honor at The 
Plaza. It was a bash so great that Calista earned the respect as well 
as envy of most girls that attended it. But when I turned eight, Dad 
was out of town, leaving us with the maids. Instead, Calista packed a 
picnic meal for both of us and we walked to Central Park and sat by the 
lake, feeding the swans. Just the two of us, like it had always been. 
It was too soon in our friendship for me to reveal such personal 
details so I lied. “It was better. We had it at the Plaza.” 

“Whoa,” he breathed, looking really impressed. “That’s really
something.” 

“Yeah, but I ended up fighting with this bitch that was the daughter of
my dad’s colleague. So I guess it evens it out.” That was the truth. I 
did fight with that girl as she was really snotty and we both ended up 
spilling the contents of the banquet table and I told Shane just that. 
“Yeah, it was a big story a year ago. Upper East girl moves to Blu 
Creek,” he stated. I tied my hair up into a ponytail. “Rumors,” I 
scoffed and continued with my melting ice cream. 

“You’ve got to admit that it’s a lot different living here,” he urged. 

“It’s a little different. I could walk down the street quite safely at
three in the morning in Blu Creek,” I pointed out. And I usually did 
walk down the street at nights, absorbing the stillness of the town. “I 
can at least recognize the faces at school. Other than that it’s quiet 
similar.” 

“Are you similar?” he teased and although I knew he was joking, his
questions caught me off guard. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of how I 
was like in New York; it was just a lifetime away from where I was now. 
Over here, I was like a girl that was accepted into the popular 
cliques. But over there, I was... The only way I could say it was I 
cleaned up on the way here. I must have drifted off as I felt him 
touching me. “Sorry I drifted off over there,” I apologized. “Just 
thinking about an old friend.” 

“You never keep in touch?” he inquired. I shook my head and he must have
sensed my discomfort. “Sorry if it seemed as though I’m prying too 
much. I’m just making conversation.” I reached for his hand and assured 
him that he was not. “It’s fine. Let’s just say New York was ages ago. 
How about you? Are you a native Blu Creeker?” 

“As native as it could be. I grew up here, spend almost all my time here
and suffer over here too,” he declared. Shane was in the middle of a 
story when my cell phone rang. I sprang for it as I usually did when it 
beeped and answered. “Hello?” 

“Rhian!” I heard shrieking over it and was disappointed that it wasn’t
the call that I was expecting it to be. “Where are you, bay-bee? We 
haven’t seen you in ages!!!” It was from Sheila Bailey, a girl from the 
cheerleading squad. “I’m with a friend. Where are you guys?” I asked. 

“At the beach of course!!! The weather’s great and we’ve burnt ourselves
to pieces waiting for you,” she replied. “Anyway, we are heading up to 
Eddie Pizzeria with some guys from the football team. You want to 
come?” 

I gazed over at Shane who was pretending very hard not to eavesdrop on
the conversation which I got to admit was pretty hard especially with 
Sheila’s high-pitched voice. “I’m not sure. I’ll text you about it, 
okay?” 

“Okay, bay-bee!!! We hope to see you there! Ta-ta!!” she answered and
hung up the phone. 

“Up for pizza for dinner?” I asked him as I kept my cell phone bag into
my purse. 

“By the way you held the phone at least five inches away from your ear,
I’m betting its Sheila Bailey,” he said and I nodded. “She’s heading up 
there with the rest of your crew. You up for it?” 

“It sounded like fun but I can’t,” he replied regretfully. “I got a date
in two hours time.” 

“That sounded more fun,” I joked. “Who took pity?” 

“Laura Fisher saw my broken arm and she was eager to nurse it,” he
played along. 

“Maybe I’ll head up. Need me to give you a ride home first?” I offered
as we paid for the ice creams. 

“Nah, it’s fine. It’s just a few blocks away to my house. I’ll see you
tomorrow?” 

I grinned. “You have to. I’m chained to the hospital for the whole
summer. Have fun on your date. I hope you score!” I teased and we both 
parted ways. 

*** 

With Calista gone, nights were lonely for me. I wasn’t an early sleeper
so I would stay up late until the wee hours of the mornings alone. If 
Calista was around, she would be the one accompanying me and we would 
spend the hours talking, watching television, doing facials and other 
girls’ stuff. One time, we even raided her closet and gave her unused 
clothes to the Salvation Army. I was stuck all by myself and there was 
nothing even interesting for me to watch. He wasn’t turning up tonight 
and that made me depressed even more. I understood that it was 
impossible for us to be together each night but I was just extremely 
lonely. Dad was away on another business meeting and I had a sneaky 
feeling that he just wanted to get away from the house. Which at this 
point wasn’t exactly the greatest place to be in. 

I could not take it anymore so I got out of my pajamas and slipped into
a casual outfit, ready for my nightly walks around Blu Creek. If my 
mood serves, I would at times even drove over to the other towns to 
explore the nightlife there. But the area wasn’t exactly Las Vegas or 
Miami. By the time the clock struck twelve, most shops had already shut 
and the bars that were opened were mainly sleazy ones with old bearded 
men chugging down beers. Verge was great but none of my friends would 
be there. Most of them had curfews and parents that were actually 
concerned about them. I got into my red Mini Cooper and took a spin 
around town when I saw him sitting on a bench by the road. I was 
surprised to see him. I figured that he had gone back but apparently 
not. I got out of my car and walked towards him. He was in deep thought 
as he didn’t hear me approaching and he only turned towards me when I 
placed my hand on his arm. 

“Rhian,” he said, startled. “What are you doing here?” 

“What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to go back?” I asked. 

“Why should I?” 

“I thought you were. You didn’t come for the past few nights,” I pointed
out. “Why didn’t you?” 

“Rhian, do you even need me anymore?” he whispered. I grabbed his wrist.
“What do you mean?” 

“Do you still need me here? In Blu Creek?” he repeated. 

“What are you talking about?” I turned away from him and he shook me
fiercely. “You’ve got to tell me the truth, Rhian. What do you really 
want?” 

“Of course I want you to be here!” I burst out. “Why wouldn’t I? You’re
the greatest thing that ever happened to me!” He brushed a strand of my 
hair away from my face. His dark brown eyes were troubled. He was 
hiding something from him and he wouldn’t say it out loud. What 
happened? I did not notice it but his hair was longer, now brushing the 
collar of his jacket. “When are you going to cut your hair?” I teased 
but he wasn’t buying it. He did not even crack a hint of a smile. 
“What’s wrong? What happened to you?” 

“What happened to me? You tell me, what has happened to you?” he asked
aloud and walked away. I stayed glued to the bench for the longest time 
ever as he stood alone across the street. What has happened to me? I 
could not understand him at all. It had always been the same, nothing 
have changed. I still loved him. But was he still feeling the same for 
me? Maybe all the hiding had been straining him. But it never did for 
the past year. Why now? 

“I don’t understand,” I cried. Why was he so hostile? He was still
waiting for an answer from me. “Did I do something wrong?” I questioned 
him. 

“I’m not sure,” he replied. “Maybe it was all in my head.” 

“What was in your head?” 

“That it’s over,” he said it out aloud and I gasped. “Why would you
think of that?!?” I grabbed his jacket and pulled him down and kissed 
him hard. “It’s not that easy,” I declared. I had him for this long and 
I was not about to let him go. 

*** 

Chapter 5: Why Do These Memories Keep Coming Back? 

I met Trey Conner when I was just fourteen years old. I was at a party
which was way too adult for me at that time. What caught my eye about 
him was how he stood out amongst the rest of the high school boys that 
I got to know at that age. He was clad in dark clothes as he always was 
up until now. Don’t start thinking that this was the regular high 
school party with a couple of booze and drunk cheerleaders lying 
around. When I said it was adult, it was a hardcore one. Although most 
of the people at the party were below the age of twenty, I was guessing 
most of them had done things that some twenty year olds didn’t even 
think of trying. There was pot, spiked drinks, ecstasy pills and other 
drugs that were attainable at the state of New York. The party was held 
for the high school kids who were forced to attend the private schools 
in Manhattan. Up until that time, I had never attended a party that 
wild and I was intimidated by it. The most ‘wildest’ party I have ever 
attended before that was with this popular kids from the finest schools 
uptown. All they did was drunk champagne, laughed a lot and got wild 
and silly in the hot tubs. That party could be considered LAME if 
compared to the party where I met Trey. 

He was standing at one corner with a beer in his hand, talking to a
friend of his. I had attended the party with a girl that I just made 
friends with at the park and whilst talking to her, he caught my eye. 
Truthfully, the first thing that I was attracted to him was how 
gorgeous he looked. His eyes never wandered around the room; they were 
always focused on his friend or his bottle of beer. It was as though he 
was reading the label and scrutinizing each and every ingredient. That 
night, no matter how hard I tried to catch his attention, I never did. 

*** 

He was next to me, our clothes thrown at the grass right beside him. “I
wished things were like it used to be,” I said as I wrapped the nearest 
pair of clothing that I could find around me, which was his jacket. It 
smelled exactly like him, reminding me of why I was so crazy about him. 


“Me too. It seems easier back then,” he commented and I nodded. It was a
lot easier back then but things could not return the way it was. We 
just had to deal with they way they have changed. “But we are still the 
same,” I assured him. 

“I hope we are,” he said and dressed himself. “Rhian, I don’t think I’ll
be going back anytime soon. I hope that’s okay with you.” Okay? That 
would be perfect for me! And I told him exactly. He gave me a crooked 
smile and I lingered my mouth near his. He caught on and gave me an 
earth shattering kiss. Who said it was changing? 

*** 

I left that party that night incredibly disappointed for reasons my
fourteen year old brains could not comprehend. Although people said I 
was a bold girl, I apparently wasn’t bold enough to go up and talk to 
him. A few guys chatted me up but I stayed rooted at my place as I felt 
that it was the best angle where I could watch his every move. Whenever 
any girl spoke to him, I watch the two of them like a hawk, trying to 
guess which one of them was his girlfriend. Lucky for me, he was not 
acting cozy with any one of them and they all seemed like his school 
mates. 

I had to leave the party before him as the girl who I came with was
leaving and I could not handle the party alone. Before I stepped out of 
that place, I gave him one last look but he was not even watching the 
door. 

That night, I cried myself to sleep. 

*** 

“Don’t you want to go home now?” he asked. The sun was about to rise and
the idea of watching the sun rise with him was incredible delicious. 
But my mind knew better that I should head back home as in a few hours 
time, I would have to be at the hospital, serving food to the invalid. 
“You’re right,” I said as I took off his jacket and handed it back to 
him. He pushed it back to me and shook his head. “You keep it for 
today. Think about me, alright?” I wrapped it back around me, glad for 
his small gesture. It was quite a while ago when he offered me to keep 
his treasured jacket and it reminded me of the past times with him. 

“I’ll see you later on?” I asked. 

“I’ll come by later,” he promised and gave me a final peck on my cheek
as I drove off. 

*** 

After that party, I could not stop thinking of the boy that I saw the
party. It was as if he haunted my mind and that was really strange as 
it never occurred to me before. Even though I was fourteen at that 
time, I was way into the dating game. Like I have mentioned, I was a 
troubled child. I longed to know who he was, I wanted to talk to him, I 
begged for him to look into my eyes and for the next week onward, I 
never could walk down the street hoping to catch a glimpse of him, and 
that was absurd as although Manhattan was only an island, it was quite 
a huge one. And the chances of bumping into a stranger were pretty 
hard. Only fate could make it happen. Not one night I didn’t fall 
asleep thinking and dreaming about him. 

I must have prayed pretty hard as one day when I was in the park with
Calista, eating our lunch, I saw him under the tree. He was sketching 
something and was concentrating very hard that I felt that I had no 
right to distract him at all. The breaking point of that day was when a 
pretty blond girl walked up to him and gave him a peck on his cheek. He 
looked up at that girl and placed a kiss on her forehead. A kiss that I 
wanted to badly to be mine. 

*** 

Shane was waiting for me at the lobby of the medical centre as I changed
out of the dreadful uniform. It was an end of another tiresome shift 
and I was ready to meet up with some of the gang from school. 
Strangely, they all had decided to skip the beach and hung out at the 
mall instead for the whole day. It meant that The Glass House would be 
flooded with kids from Blu Creek High, which would be fun to see. It 
could be like a scene from Grease or another school movie that was even 
better. “Ready to go where the fun starts?” I asked him as we walked to 
my car which was gleaming in the sunlight. 

“Ready as ever. As soon as I heard of their plans, I couldn’t even wait
to start the day,” he claimed. I got to admit one thing about Shane. 
There was never a break in our conversation as we kept up a stream of 
chatters on the drive to The Glass House. When I turned into the 
parking lot of the mall, I could spot familiar cars. “It’s like the 
parking lot of Blu Creek High!” I exclaimed. 

“Totally,” he chimed in. “I saw Jackson’s car right over there and
that’s Bailey’s Beetle. You think the mall was ready for this 
takeover?” 

“I think they got a hint that we were dropping in,” he said. “Ready when
you are!” we got out the car and I casually slung my arm around his 
good one. “Let’s party!” I declared. 

The first faces we met were Shania Hollyfield, our junior class
president and her footballer boyfriend, Lance Carter. “Rhian Sanders 
and Shane Bryant!” she gasped. “I didn’t know that the two of you were 
dating!” We looked at each other in amazement and broke apart, 
laughing. “No we’re not!” I giggled out. “We just came together from 
the hospital,” he supplied. 

“Well, what’s wrong if the two of you were,” Lance joked as Shania
wrapped her arms around her boyfriend. “I think it will be cute,” she 
added. 

“Right,” Shane said sarcastically. “Not in a million years.” 

“We would murder each other first,” I agreed. 

*** 

After I saw him at the park with the blond girl, which was probably was
from some a girls’ school uptown, I forced myself not to think about 
it. And I thought that it was pretty easy as I never knew him in the 
first place. But for some reason, I still thought about him night after 
night, wondering what his name could probably be and in the end, I got 
to satisfy my curiosity so I befriended a guy whom I thought was from 
the same school as him. Turned out he was not from any private school 
and I wasted two weeks with that guy, trying to dig up information. 

The next step was to get back to the girl which brought me to the party
where I met him. She would obviously attend another party where he 
might be there but that step failed to. Never did I meet him after the 
day in the park. It was already three months later and I had given up 
hope. I stopped hoping to meet him and I knew all my actions were 
futile. I had learned a lesson in my life that hoping and trying 
sometimes would never get me anywhere. I might never get some people’s 
attention no matter how hard I tried. Dad was a walking living proof of 
it. To prove to myself how I had given up, I took a trip to Central 
Park and was about to drop a stalk of rose at the spot where I found 
him. Don’t ask me why I did it. I just thought that it was the right 
thing for me to do at that point at time. Remember, I was fourteen and 
in my age of puberty so some of the things I did in the past could be 
considered erratic. And it was a disbelief to me that he was sitting at 
that same spot, sketching in his book. Which seemed really ridiculous 
as I had returned to that place for a couple of times ever since I 
spotted him there but never once I saw him. His stars and mine were 
really aligned at the same paths and I never felt happier, although 
just minutes before I was vowing never to think of him again. 

Even so, I could not muster up the courage to talk to him. Instead, I
sat on the bench where I sat the other day and gazed at him. His eyes 
wandered around the park once as though he was looking for somebody and 
he caught me looking at him. And I did the most stupidest thing that I 
could think of; I got up and ran away from the park. 

*** 

“How crazy are they? We show up once together and it was spread through
the entire mall that we are now dating,” Shane said as we sat down for 
a drink. I have spent the entire day shopping, catching a movie that I 
had been wanting for see and playing some games at the arcade and it 
was time for me to head home. The mall was closing up in fifteen 
minutes time. We have agreed to meet up so he could get a ride home but 
other than that I had not seen him the whole day. We did not want to 
bring any more gossip our way. “I know!” I agreed. “People can be so 
presumptuous.” 

“I wonder how Laura will react if she found out about it,” he mused and
laughed. “Oh, I think if you want to avoid a catastrophe, you would 
keep this mix up a secret.” 

“You’re right,” he nodded. “No reason to worry her at all.” 

We clicked our cups against each other in agreement. “Absolutely.” 

*** 

The class had ended for the day and I opened my locker to keep all my
books back in there. The thing that greeted me was this framed sketch 
that took up my entire locker space. The girls from school were staring 
openly and me as I blushed scarlet red. Who was the one who did this? I 
was praying that I wasn’t the target of the older gay girls. There 
could be quite a few even though this was the ritziest private girls’ 
school in Manhattan. I needed to take only one glance at the sketch and 
I had it all figured out who it was from. 

It was from him. 

How sure was I? Extremely sure. The sketch was of a girl running out of
Central Park as fast as she could. I was so absorbed by the intricate 
details that I missed out a very important sign. The timing that was 
signed off at the bottom of the sketch. 

At that point of time, I was not thinking of how he found out who I was
and managed to trace me down all the way to my school and sneaked the 
sketch into my locker. I was just so glad to receive a form of contact 
from him that the last thing on my mind was he could be a stalker that 
harmed rich young girls. 

There was not much time left for me to get to the park and meet up with
my long awaited crush so I ran and ran out of the school building which 
was only a few blocks away from the park. At that point of time, I was 
very good at running so I sprinted as fast as I could until I reached 
the place where I saw him the last time round. True enough he was 
sitting under the very same tree, holding the very same notebook in his 
hands. Except for that day, he was not drawing. His back was against 
the tree, waiting for somebody. 

Me. That was what I was hoping for. I stopped a few feet away from him
as his eyes gazed up onto me. “Hey,” he greeted. 

“Hey,” I whispered, breathless by all the running. 

“I guess I got it right,” he commented and I smiled. 

*** 

Stereotyping was a way for others to try and understand a certain
individual. And in most instances, appearances were used for the first 
judgment of a person. Guys could be categorized into a few basic 
groups. There were the jocks, the brains, the winners, the clowns and 
the bad boys; each attractive and appealing in their own kind of way. 

By a first glance at him, many would categorize him as a bad boy by his
longish dark hair, dark clothes and a very distinct tattoo up his left 
arm. It was only after a while you realized that there was every bit of 
each type of guy in him. 

He was a jock; having an extreme interest in skateboarding and dirt bike
riding. Jocks were all about sports. 

He was a brain; he could devise up carefully concocted plans that a
person with a PhD might never thought of. Brains were all about the 
facts and the figures. 

He was a winner; he could charm off the pants of anyone from the streets
if he wanted to. Winners were all about achieving great things. 

He was a clown; the things he would whisper in my ear could make me
giggle for hours. Clowns were all about tickling the funny bone. 

He was a bad boy; a guy parents all around the world prayed never for
their daughters to bring home. Bad boys were all about the trouble. 

He was an individual, a person who had a little of everything but was
judged by people at the first glance. Just like any one in this world. 
All of us were made up of little bits of everything but labels pushed 
us into just one direction even though we might feel that it was not 
the only thing that we wanted. 

*** 

If I were to describe every little detail of how we began, it would be
nauseating even though to me, it was the beginning of the sweetest 
journey that I had embarked on. It was as though it was hand-picked out 
of a movie. Meeting him every single day after school, stretching the 
hours we spent exploring everything about each other, reaching home 
late at night only to continue the conversations we had on the phone. 
He got me engrossed in intellectual conversations, challenged me to go 
to the extreme and made me try things that I had never even thought of 
before. He was Trey Conner, a guy. He was just a guy. He did not change 
my entire life. He enhanced my life when I was fourteen. 

*** 

“Come on,” he urged. “I dare you.” He pushed me towards the direction of
the convenience store lightly, giving me a challenge. 

“Could you run through the steps by me again?” I stalled for time even
though I knew it quite well as he had been talking only about it for 
the past few days. 

“I don’t need to,” he replied. We had been together for almost seven
months when he presented me his first test. What was the test for? I 
had no idea. “I should go to the store and buy all the stocks they 
have?” I asked, checking for conformation. It was a pretty huge store 
and I was sure that they would carry very large quantities of it. 
“Isn’t it silly?” 

“It’s just for fun,” he pointed out. “You were the one saying that
you’re up for something.” Damn, I knew I was making a big mistake when 
I complained to him that watching concerts at the park were becoming 
stale. “Right, but this wasn’t what I had in mind,” I retorted. “And 
what am I supposed to pay those things with?” 

“With this,” he announced, taking out a six pieces of fifty dollar bills
from the pocket of his jeans. Where did he get all that from? 

He read my mind. “It was from some job,” he insisted. 

“And you want to waste all that on this stupid joke?” He shrugged and I
questioned myself why I was so crazy about him. Other guys would be 
satisfied just being with their girlfriends but with him, it was always 
a step further. He was not budging and even though it seemed that I did 
not do it, I would eventually ended up finishing the dare that he had 
proposed to me. Just to see what he would came up next. It was silly, 
childish, idiotic, nonsensical and immature but I was guaranteed that 
there would be a whole lot of laughters. Even if they weren’t from me. 

“I’ll do it,” I finally said and walked into the convenience store. I
pushed the cart along the aisle and when I reached the shelves, I 
grabbed all of it as fast as I could and rolled the trolley to the 
counter, where there was quite a queue. The cashier, whom was a guy a 
couple of years older than me, gave me look as he started scanning my 
purchase. 

“Hey girl,” he began in a voice that wasn’t exactly soft. “Time of the
month?” And the people queuing up behind me began bursting into fits 
and I felt myself turning scarlet red as the cashier packed up the 
store’s entire stock of sanitary pads and tampons. 

*** 

The first time Dad had to bail me out was when a party I attended was
raided by the police. At that time, I was eleven years old; a minor at 
the eyes of the law. The reason that Dad had to pick me up from the 
station was because I had a drink in my hand that was alcoholic and I 
wasn’t of legal age. No matter how much I begged and begged the police 
not to trouble Dad, they were unshakable. Dad was the one person that 
could make me feel like the lowest human being on the planet and that 
was exactly how I felt every time I rode in the car with him after each 
time he bailed me out of something that I did. Since he was a big 
figure in the city, he could pull strings and got me off the hook. But 
I never did major crimes that could get me done for. I could be 
described as a young socialite that had gone wild. Which was what each 
and every cop thought when they stared at my face. 

It was the night of His seventeenth birthday when I was riding Dad’s
car, on the ride home from the station. The rides had been more 
frequent lately and I was downgraded to being the lowest living form 
that ever existed. He was two years older than me, the same age as 
Calista, and before meeting him, I wanted to surprise him with a tattoo 
of his name of the small of my back. And since I was only fifteen, I 
had to use a fake identity and the owner of the parlor reprimanded me 
by calling in the cops. There I was, seated at the back of Dad’s car, 
trying to catch his eyes through the rearview mirror but he was more 
fascinated by the road in front of him. The rides were always filled 
with silence and after we reached our building, he wouldn’t care if I 
would even go back home. Waiting at the lobby that night was Calista, 
her eyes red as though she had been crying. She flung her arms around 
me when she saw that I was free. She was usually in hysterics when Dad 
was called on to pick me up at the station. Calista was the one that 
caught hold of my wrist firmly and locked me in my room, declaring that 
I would not step out of the penthouse. I missed his seventeenth 
birthday that night and that night, when I was in my room, I found out 
the reason as to why Dad would bail me out. 

Calista begged him to. Every single time. 

*** 


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