Chapter 1
Cecilia's POV
“All love is sad, but sad as it is,
It is the best thing that we know.”
I sigh and close the book.
"Have you packed everything you need?"
Mom asks from her position beside the bedroom door.
"Yes, Mom!" I look up and answer her for the hundredth time the same question that she's been asking me for the past two hours, as I put the poetry book in my backpack.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I've got everything that I want. Don't worry!" I assure her.
"How can I not worry? My baby girl is about to leave us"
Not again. I groan internally.
"Mom!" I whine at her. "I'm not going forever, I'll be back home for the holidays."
Flying to a different state in the name of college wasn't something that I had planned. But what can I say? Life can be very unpredictable.
Mom was about to say something when there was a knock on my door.
My brother entered the room with a grin on his face.
"Is the toothless all set to go?"
I am not toothless.
At least not anymore.
"Yes, and please, try not to embarrass me in front of people by calling me weird names in college"
"Oh come on, I know you like it," he says with an innocent mocking smile on his face.
"No, I don't. Now get my bags to the car, I'll be there in a minute." I tell him while checking my purse to see if I indeed have everything I need.
"Now why would I do that?"
He questions in a very oblivious way with a raised eyebrow.
"Because she said so."
Mom replied. With a raised eyebrow too.
"And who's she?"
"Caleb Colton Cruz, don't make ME tell you."
"Yes ma'am," he says obeying mom in no time.
Well can't blame Caleb because people who know would never want to anger Jane Colton Cruz.
"You call me if he bothers you there. Yes sweety?"
I laugh at that and just shake my head.
I'll be attending the same college as him, the University of South Carolina.
As I said before it wasn't something I had planned on doing. I sent my applications to several colleges and his was one of them.
But plans changed drastically once I received the acceptance letter from the USC. Caleb is a senior.
He and I are the only two kids of our loving parents.
Since it was just us two, as siblings we shared a really special bond. We weren't all lovey-dovey close but we did keep up with the updates on each other.
We would always consider asking opinions of each other first if there's ever a need.
"I'll meet you downstairs sweety,"
Mom moves to the door but not before giving me a quick kiss on the cheek.
Once she leaves the room, I take a moment and sit at the edge of my bed looking around.
It feels strange to think that this wouldn't be the place I'll be living for the next few years.
This room holds so many memories and so many emotions.
A place where I could hide when I wanted, a place that would never judge me for my sleepless nights while battling my anxiety, a place that would hold onto me when I wanted to cry my heart out, a place that I would call home as it sincerely was.
"Sweety, it's about time we leave!" Mom calls me out from downstairs.
"Coming!"
I grab my phone and purse and start moving towards the door, once I reach there I turn back and glance at my room for the very last time.
I could feel tears beaming in my eyes but I shut them and somehow manage to push them back.
When I reach downstairs, my parents and Caleb are standing in the living room waiting for me.
"You ready honey?" dad asks as soon as he sees me.
I nod my head "You know I am."
Mom pulls me into a tight bone-crushing hug. I return her gesture by hugging her back.
Dad is the next to hug me, he kisses me on the forehead as we pull apart.
"You better take care of your sister," Dad says in his full stern daddy mode to Caleb.
"Bye to you too Dad" Caleb replies in a deadpan manner.
Callen Colton Cruz was what people would say, exactly opposite of his wife.
Mom starts laughing, I can't help but laugh with her.
We start walking towards the door.
"We're gonna miss you, sweety," Mom says once we reach the doorway.
"I'm gonna miss you too Mom," I say hugging her one more time.
"Well, in case you people have forgotten she's not the only one who is going, I'm going as well," Caleb says with a fake glare and pouts.
"Oh we'll miss you too honey," mom says laughing while giving him a tight hug.
"Nope, I don't think so," dad says in a sarcastic tone.
We head towards the car and start riding.
The ride to the airport is short. Caleb gets our luggage out of the car.
We say our last goodbye to our parents and head inside.
I'm already tired as I couldn't get any sleep last night. I just wanna get on the flight and sleep already.
^^^^^^^^^
All the hopes of getting some sleep on the plane was crushed.
The baby wouldn't stop crying. I don't really mind as it's understandable.
The Woman sitting next to me who also happened to take my window seat which I again didn't mind was struggling with her baby.
She kept doing some weird kinda up and down shaking that every parent does to have their kids quiet but her baby JUST WOULDN'T calm down.
Everybody around us was annoyed enough. Especially the man sitting in front of us as he kept peeping and glaring behind at the kid through between the seats.
The baby's face had turned into a bright red shade of tomato with all the crying.
"Uh, I-I'm seriously sorry for the disturbance. She's always a calm baby but I guess her father not being here has her on the edge."
The lady tried to apologize while trying to get her daughter to calm down.
Before I could tell her that it was fine,
Caleb interrupted
"Ohh it's really fine don't worry about it," He said with a charming smile on his face showing off his single dimple.
Suddenly the baby stopped crying. All four heads turned towards her. Yes four. Including the man sitting in the front.
She was straight off staring at Caleb and was looking at him with her mouth quite open and eyes filled with curiosity.
She then pointed her both hands toward him which only meant that she wanted Caleb to carry her.
I stifled a laugh and tried to hide it as much as possible.
Now Caleb can be all sweet but he is not a big fan of kids which just made the whole situation kinda funny.
Caleb's hesitation was visible but he grabbed the kid nonetheless. Holding her like a sack of potatoes in the air away from him at an arm length.
"Don't be a rude bastard and hold her close to you dumbass," I whisper hoping the lady wouldn't hear and I guess she didn't as she was fidgeting inside her bag searching for something!
"I am holding her close!! How much closer should I have her?" He whisper yells.
"Well lay her on your chest or something!"
"Do I have to?" He asks
"Yes you do,"
He did as said with a definitely heavy heart.
He smiled at the kid as she nuzzled her head in the crook of his neck.
Okay, now that was unexpected. It was clear that the man in front along with the lady next to me were surprised as well by the way she stopped her search and was looking at them.
"I guess problem solved then..." I smiled at the lady
She returned a great smile, especially to my brother.
Just to be near her daughter, we ended up switching our seats. She ended up sitting between me and Caleb.
I sighed looking out of the window.
Well maybe now I could just drift off and have a slumber sleep.
^^^^^^^^^
It was now early in the morning around 6:00. After a quite long flight, We finally landed somewhere around 5:30 am.
I looked over at Caleb as he was still waving at the kid and her mother as they walked away.
Caleb spent the whole flight playing, singing and basically babysitting the baby which is still hard for me to believe.
We walked out of the airport and towards the cab.
The apartment in which Caleb was staying, well where now I'll be staying as well was something arranged by dad as he did not want Caleb to stay in dorms or a fraternity house in that case.
The cab ride was silent as neither of us had enough energy to talk.
The cab pulled up at the parking lot of a well-maintained building. Well, this had to be expected.
'Belle maison' was written in bold at front of the building.
Not bragging about it or something but dad makes quite a good lot of money considering the fact he owns a lot of restaurants all over Texas.
"Ready to see our new home?" Caleb asked while getting our bags out of the cab.
"Yeah" I replied in a deadpan mode. A
5 hour 30 minutes flight ain't fascinating for me.
"Someone's tail has no energy in it I see"
I flipped him in return as my tail actually had no energy to argue back.
He then proceeded to carry our bags and led me inside the building, the lobby was not just clean but damn it was beautiful as hell.
I could say the same about the elevators. As we stepped into the elevator which had enough space to take in at least 8 more living creatures.
Caleb pushed the floor button 6.
"We stay on the 6th floor," he said as a matter of fact.
"Oh really? I thought you just pressed the button 9!"
He gave me a strange look and laughed at my reply, though I don't know what was funny about it.
The elevator came to a stop and as I was exiting I bumped into something, or someone I'd say.
Looking up I see the source I just bumped into.
Now now now, I've seen guys. Pretty guys, handsome guys, whatever.. you name it.
But this?
Tousled blonde hair (probably bleached I feel) a hard texture on his face with high cheekbones and sharp jawlines. And ocean blue eyes...
Ocean Blue Eyes?
Ocean blue eyes!!
Looking in mine
I feel like I might
Sink and drown and die..
I was so engaged in singing Taylor Swift internally that I did not realize how he was looking directly at me.
And then he smirked. His smirk snapped me out of my trance.
That was all it took for me to suddenly find him utterly unattractive.
"Like what you see?" he asked in a way that would have had any girls go weak in her knees. But no. Not me. I gagged in response.
"No" Caleb huffed and hugged him. The Blue Eye Guy hugged him back but continued to stare at me.
As they were moving apart from their hug Caleb noticed how his friend was still staring at me.
He shoved his friend's shoulder and gained his attention.
"Done checking out my sister?" Caleb asked.
"Not quite yet" The friend replied as if it were no big deal to admit that he was indeed checking out his friend's sister.
"Well better stop it" Caleb said more like ordered and then looked at me.
"Anyways, Cel this is Evan, my friend-"
"Best friend" Evan corrected .
"Worst friend and Evan this is my sister Cecilia." Caleb introduced.
Evan gave me a look and held out his hand for me to shake it. I shook his hand and he smiled. A genuine smile. He had dimples on both sides of his cheek.
Caleb carried our bags from the ground, said bye to his friend and started leading the way toward the apartment.
I was about to start following him when a hand grabbed mine.
"See you around Cecilia" He leaned in and whispered before giving me a boyish smile and proceeding to walk in the opposite direction.
Uhhhh?
I went forward to catch up with Caleb.
"Cocky friend," I said
"Good friend" he argued
"Dumb friend"
"Best friend"
"Hot friend"
"Eww, shut up Cel" he scrunched his nose. I was laughing as Caleb unlocked the apartment door and stepped aside asking me to walk in first.
"What the..." I was left speechless looking at the apartment.
Should've expected it.
A goddamn duplex!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
