《We were both young when I first saw you,
I close my eyes, and the flashback starts
I'm standing there;
On a balcony in summer air.
Love story - Taylor Swift 》
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I usually liked to spend my time with myself, maybe not the way I thought I was supposed to, but the way I enjoyed it.
Yeah, call me an introvert and see if I care.
Okay, maybe I did because it didn't land me a lot of friends, but I was okay.
So most often, I stayed home, reading storybooks or watching cartoons.
Today it was a lovely sunny Sunday morning, so I decided to go out to the park with my book. I didn't have a choice because Samantha was out of town, enjoying her summer with her grandparents.
I got dressed in a cute polka-dotted dress with a belt around the waist, and combed my hair, leaving them to fall over my shoulder. I ate my cereals and then I was ready.
"Mom, I'm going to the park. Bye."
"Okay honey, enjoy and try to make some new friends," Mom yelled from the kitchen.
Yeah, right! New friends. As if anyone would want to be friends with me. I thought as I left the house.
When I reached there, I saw Lucas playing with Tyler and his friends.
They were already friends in just a week? I wondered.
Of course, they were. I had seen Lucas going out of his house every day in the past week, riding his bicycle around. He must've met them then.
"You sound like some stalker." My mind said to me.
"No, I don't," I defended. "I just like sitting by my window, reading my book while appreciating the outside view. That's when I saw him. That doesn't make me a stalker, Right? Of course, not."
I sat down on a bench in the corner all by myself and started reading my book, happy that none of the boys noticed me, because if they did, then they will pick on me again. And I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of Lucas.
I glanced upwards and saw the group of boys laughing at something Lucas said. He seemed so cool and adorable as he stood there explaining something to the other boys. I looked up at his face to see him smiling but his eyes weren't.
I must be overthinking. How can someone smile with their eyes? I pushed my thoughts aside and continued reading the book. I was so engrossed in reading that I didn't even notice that Tyler was standing in front of me.
"Hey Rae-Rae, where are your pigtails?" The annoying little brat asked me.
"It was a sunny day, so I decided to let my hair down," I replied murmured.
"Well, that's too bad."
I looked at him, confused, when he pulled my hair, hurting my scalp. All his friends started laughing, pointing at me, except for Lucas.
"Hey, why are you annoying her. She didn't do anything to you. Come on, let's go." Lucas said to Tyler.
"Luke, I was just playing with her. Right, Rachel?" He snickered. I nodded, trying to stop my tears from falling. So much for not making fun of myself in front of the boy I liked.
Wait! What?! Like? Where did that come from?
"Just leave her alone, Ty," Lucas ordered.
"Whatever. Anyways I was going home. See you in the evening, Luke." Ty said, walking away.
Lucas looked back at me and must have noticed me wiping my tears.
"Hey, I'm sorry about Ty. He is kind of mean. But don't worry, I won't allow him to hurt you again." He said, smiling at me.
"Thank you, Lucas." I smiled back.
"How did you know my name?" He asked confused.
"Oh, that! Your mom told us the other day."
"Ohh..." He nodded in agreement. "My mom calls me Lucas. You can call me Luke, all my friends do."
"I like Lucas better," I replied coyly.
"Okay, then I want a different name for you too. Something that your friends don't call you." He said.
"My friends, actually just one friend, Samantha, calls me Rach. You can call me Rachel." I mumbled, looking down at my feet.
He must think I'm a freak. First Tyler picking on me and now me having just one friend.
I kept playing with the page I was reading when he lifted my chin, "Hey, don't be sad; having just one friend is not a bad thing. And now I'm your friend too, right?"
"You're?"
"Of course! But anyways, not Rachel, Ty just called you that."
"No, he just said it in front of you. Usually, he calls me Rae-Rae." I whispered.
"That's such a cute name. I should call you that." He smirked.
"No, please don't. I don't like it." I replied hastily.
He chuckled, "Okay. Umm...how about you tell me your full name."
"Rachel Grace Williamson," I replied confused.
He wondered for a while, and then his eyes lit up " I'll call you Grace from today. How's that?"
"But no one calls me that."
"Exactly," he sighed happily. "Come on now, let's play."
"You want to play with me?" I asked, unsure.
"Yeah! Are you doing something?" He inquired.
"No, nothing. I was just reading 'Matilda'." I showed him my book.
"Then, shall we." He offered his hand to me.
"Okay." I couldn't explain how happy I was as I took his hand and got up from my seat.
Is this what we call a meet-cute? Because it feels nice.
We walked in the direction of his house and I wondered if he was taking me to his home. But he didn't stop in front of his house and kept walking towards his backyard. I kept following him silently, nervous but excited when he stopped walking. I turned towards him to see him smiling widely at me, looking cuter. "You want to see something cool?" he asked.
"Sure."
"Come with me; It's my secret place." He said, pulling my hand.
"Your secret place?" I asked.
"Yeah, I found it the other day. No one knows about it. Not even Ty. That's why it's my secret place."
Why he wanted to show it to me when it was supposed to be a secret, I had no idea. But I didn't care. Did I mention he was cute?
I asked him as we walked, "Then why are you showing it to me?"
"Because we're best friends." He said enthusiastically.
"Bestfriends?"
"You said earlier that you have just one friend. Don't worry now, because, from today, I'll be your bestest friend."
"Really?" I asked, unsure.
"Really." Seeing him smile at me, I couldn't control my emotions as I jumped and hugged him. But as soon as I realized what I just did, I pulled away nervously but he hugged me back.
"Come on now, let's go." He said, pulling away.
We went to the backyard of his house and walked through some woods. Soon we reached an old cottage house.
The small cottage was perched on the plain near the woods, so old and poor that it was surprising how it was still standing. Yet it looked alive and welcoming with a thin silver trail curling from the crooked stone chimney. The sides were the same grey slabs as the walls were made of the wood and the roof was clearly stone. The cottage was the only thing there. There were no other houses around it, and this one looked abandoned.
" It's so beautiful," I said, smiling at Lucas.
"I knew you'd like it." He seemed happy.
We wandered around for a while, and then he said, "Come on, let's play hide and seek."
"Okay." I smiled at him.
"I'll count till ten, you go and hide till then."
As soon as he starts his count, I rush towards the side of the cottage and hide behind a letterbox attached to the wooden wall. As I sit there, my book slips out of my hand and falls open revealing the letter I wrote to Luke last week. But before I can pick up my book and close it, I hear a rustling sound so instead of picking up the book, I picked up the letter and threw it in the old letterbox, acting on my reflex. The rusty letterbox was covered in a thick layer of dull grey sheen so as I dropped the letter in the box, a bit of dust swirled in the dry air making me walk backwards.
I felt a hand tap my back, and all the blood drained from my face, "Gotcha!"
Oh my God! Did he see the letter?
"Your turn." He said, making me panic.
"W-what?"
"I said your turn. I caught you. Now you count, and I'll hide." He explained, making me relax a bit.
"Oh yeah, Right." Phew, that was close.
Why did I even write that stupid letter? Lucas has already become my friend. I wondered, walking away. Well, that wouldn't happen again because I won't be writing any letters to him, anymore.
We played together for a bit longer and then headed back home.
...
Later that evening, mom told me that she'd invited Luke's family for dinner. I picked out my favorite yellow floral dress to wear for dinner and brushed my hair, letting them fall over my shoulder just like this morning. I wore my favorite lavender perfume and then made my way to the living room.
Dad was watching a football match as I sat down beside him, waiting impatiently for the arrival of Luke's family. I never thought that I'd ever get a friend other than Samantha maybe because I never needed anyone. But now that I had spent some time with Lucas, I couldn't contain the excitement I was feeling, to meet him again. I wondered if he was the same excited to meet as I was to meet him when the doorbell rang.
Dad was getting up, but I beat him to it, "I'll get the door." And then I rushed and opened the door to find Lucas, Anna, and Liza, all dressed up, standing in our doorway.
"Good Evening. Come on in." I smiled at them and took a quick glance at Lucas. He looked handsome as always.
"Where's your Mom?" Aunt Anna asked.
"She's in the kitchen, preparing the dinner."
"Okay, I'll go and see if she needs any help. Liz, let's go." We came across the hall as Aunt Anna greeted Dad and went inside, followed by Liza.
"Hey kiddos, why don't you go upstairs and play in your room. Your Mom will call you when the dinner is ready." Dad suggested with a smile.
"Okay." I chirped. Taking Lucas's hand, I headed towards my room.
My bedroom walls were painted pink that pulsed in the light, sprinkled with various posters of cartoon shows and my drawings. The comforter was pulled over my bed. A desk sat in one corner, and a few shelves were pushed against the walls, filled with books. Some books sat on the floor in front of the shelves.
What can I say? I loved reading books.
As we entered the room, Luke glanced around the room as if memorizing the whole place. That's when he spotted his room across my bedroom's window walked towards it as I followed behind, "That's my room."
"Yeah," I whispered, thinking about the first day when he had just moved in and caught me staring at him.
"So," He turned towards me, "I saw you the other day, looking at me." He said, scratching his neck.
"I wasn't looking at you." I immediately defended myself. Yes, I was.
"Oh, you were!!" He said it so adorably that for a moment, I was going to admit to him.
But I lied, "No, I wasn't. I was closing my windows, and you just seemed to catch me at that time."
"Sure." And he didn't believe me.
Everything became quiet for a minute as I broke the silence, "Why didn't you talk to me that day?"
"Which day?" He asked, confused, now sitting on my bed.
"The first day when my Mom and I went to your house." I sat down next to him.
"Ohh, that...I was just nervous in front of your Mom." He explained.
"Okay, then why did you talk to me today?" I asked, confidence-building up inside me.
"Because you're pretty. Very pretty." He directly looked into my eyes and smiled.
"You too," I whispered.
"What?"
"I mean your eyes. They're beautiful." And you too. I'm sure my cheeks must be flush with red.
We sat there talking to each other as I admired how adorable he was when he talked and how his eyes shone whenever he smiled. He talked about his life in New York, I talked about my school. Later he told me how he used to watch and play football with his Dad and how he wants to become a football player in the future.
"You must be missing your Dad a lot, right?" I asked him.
"Yeah, I do. But I don't want to. He let us go, just like that and he hasn't even called us ever since we moved in here." He replied, with a mixture of anger and sadness.
"It's okay if you miss him. He's your Dad. It'll all be okay one day." I said the exact same words Dad told me when I cried for Charlotte last week, taking his hand in mine.
"It'll be okay, right? You promise." He asked, staring directly into my eyes and all his sorrow enveloped me and I promised, hugging him.
We didn't even realize we were hugging each other for so long until our Moms called us for dinner. We took our seats on the dining table, Lucas to my left Liza in my front.
All the elders talked about the admission procedure of Lucas and Liza as we sat there, eating our food silently. Apparently, Lucas and I were going to go to the same school and everyone was happy about it. After dinner, we sat on the couch as Mom served us our bowls of pecan pie.
"Umm, these are delicious, Mrs. Williamson," Luke said with a mouthful.
"Thank you, Sweetheart, and you can call me, Emily." Mom said, smiling at him.
This all seemed to be the start of something new and the happiest person in all of these was me.
Aunt Anna insisted on staying back, for helping Mom to clean up but Mom refused by saying it was their first day in our house, maybe some other day.
Later that night, I laid down on my bed thinking about all the good things that happened throughout the day. Mom was happy to have a new friend, I was happy to have a new best friend, everything was perfect so I decided to write another letter to Lucas, thanking him for everything.
"You weren't going to write to him anymore, remember?" My mind interrupted.
"Yeah, I wasn't, but what's the harm in writing if I'm never going to give it to him," I said.
These letters will always remain a secret.
With that thought, I started writing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
18th June 2006
Dear Lucas,
Thank you for today. I couldn't explain how happy I'm to have got you like my new friend. You saved me from Ty today, just like a hero. Then you played with me and showed me your secret place. You're so adorable; I like you.
Liza is lovely, and your mother is also very nice and kind. I like them as well.
I just hope we stay friends for a long time.
Yours truly,
Rachel.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With that, I went back to sleep with a smile on my face.
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