Red Sparks

It was a beautiful day to leave me the hell alone.

Okay, I was being dramatic. It wasn’t like something bad had happened today, at least not so far, but as my mental health sometimes loved to remind me, “the night was young”. It was just not my day. I’ve been having those a lot recently. Maybe “it was just not my year”, was a better fit.

It all started when I didn’t get any of the scholarships I applied for, and had to pause college for a year, in order to work and save up money to attend the following year. Fortunately, or unfortunately for me, my ex girlfriend Izzie got hers and moved away. She didn’t want to even try to give the long distance a chance, and her leaving, took a huge chunk of my happiness along with her.

That was, more or less, a recap of my life so far. I was just an eighteen-year old, who had no idea what I wanted to do, and where I wanted to go. I knew that no other teenager my age had their life planned out, but unlike them, almost every plan that I tried to make, failed before even lifting off, because of either my financial status, or who I was as a person.

My life had never been very exciting, and I’ve never had a problem with that, because I’ve always been satisfied with what I had...until now.

I’ve always had an amazing relationship with both of my parents, Shelly and Oliver, and since neither of them had attended college, it was their dream to give me the life they’ve never been able to have. And I managed to crush it when I didn’t get in this year. It’s not that I was a bad student. I was pretty average, my grades weren’t spectacular, but I had a few letter recommendations from my teachers and a couple of extracurricular activities that I thought would make up for them.

My mom and dad have never voiced their disappointment in me out loud, but I knew it was there, and my masochistic side was coming on a lot stronger than before. I was aware that losing a year before attending college didn’t sound like a big deal to a lot of people, but there wasn’t any guarantee that I was gonna be able to save up enough money until next year. Even though my father took extra shifts at the hotel and my mother went back to work as a chef, and got me a job as a waiter in the restaurant, our financial status was not looking good.

I couldn’t help but feel like a burden every time I ate their food in the morning. Almost everyone I knew was away at college and Izzie going away was the tip of the iceberg. At least my best friend Chris didn’t leave. But I couldn’t be happy about that, due to the circumstances of his not leaving.

“Nate, are you even listening to a word I’m saying?”

Chris’s words seemed to have brought me back to reality and away from my thoughts. As always, I had no clue as to what he was referring to, but then again I usually didn’t, even when I actually was paying attention to his rambling.

You see, Chris Crawford wasn’t like any ordinary teenager, he was smart, and I didn’t mean ‘top of his class’ kind of smart. I meant like top of ‘pretty much all the classes to ever exist’ kind of smart. He had a photographic memory, and therefore knew almost everything about everything there was to know in this miserable world, that he had an interest in.

Whenever he read something, he understood it, and once he understood it, he remembered it, therefore becoming a walking Wikipedia. Only unlike Wikipedia, he didn’t have an off button.

Whenever I had any kind of question, usually about any kind of homework, it was much faster to ask Chris the answer instead of googling it. In the time I’d use to take the phone out of my jeans pocket, he’d already answer my question. It was as incredible as it was intimidating.

Despite trying not to, I’ve always envied him. I had never been excellent at anything, and as the years went by, I was always the ‘’all right’’ guy. You know what I’m talking about, the guy who was never remembered for anything particular that he was great at, because he was “all right” for a bunch of things, but never more than that. Everyone always told me that I had great potential for a bunch of subjects, but at the end of the day that was all there was, just potential. And I know what you’re thinking, that I didn’t try hard enough, that I didn’t take anything seriously enough to become great at it, that all I had to do was work harder and focus more; but it’s kind of hard to follow your dreams when you don’t even know what your dreams are.

I’ve been passionate about guitar for as long as I could remember, but I could never get over my fear of performing in front of a crowd, so that dream was off the table since the first moment I played a song.

Chris, on the other hand, had too many dreams and he didn’t know which to follow. His photographic memory opened many doors for him, but his very fragile mental health was his kryptonite.

He got accepted into every college he applied to, but his anxiety led to a mental breakdown three months ago, and his parents agreed that taking a year off would be the best thing for him at the moment.

It was very hard watching his struggles every day and not being able to help him. Even though he’s told me a million times that his psychotic break had nothing to do with me, I blamed myself.

The two of us have been together for as long as I could remember, and I’ve always been there for him whenever his anxiety would start to get bad. Although he’d been going to a psychiatrist and taking medication for years, sometimes it still got the best of him. We applied to the same schools, hoping that I would at least be able to get into one, for us to go together, but it wasn’t long after we got the letters and I didn’t get in, that he had another one of his episodes.

Because Chris was so smart, people expected incredible things from him, so the constant pressure did not help his situation whatsoever. Thankfully, I didn’t have that problem. When you were just an average person, who didn’t show a gift in pretty much anything at this point, no one expected much of me.

Nevertheless, I loved Chris, even with his obsessive need to correct my grammar, even with the fact that he made me feel pretty dumb most of the time, and even with his insane coffee addiction-which at this point wasn’t even a laughing matter.

Chris had been my best friend since...well since before I could remember. My only friend to be more precise, but that was all right since I didn’t really need anyone else. Okay, maybe sometimes I needed at least one more person to agree with me when he was annoying, but ninety-nine percent of the time I didn’t.

When he repeated the question about whether I was listening to him, I said: “You know for a person who claims to have trouble communicating, you sure do spend every moment of our time together with your mouth opened.”

“But if I stop talking then who is gonna be the one to make you incredibly uncomfortable and want to go home?” He smiled.

I couldn’t help but smile back. Chris was a giant pain in the ass, but he was my pain in the ass; and at the end of the day, that was all it really mattered. Also, it was only all right when I called him that, well me and his older sisters, who constantly nagged him. “No one can make me want to go home like you can, man.”

Chris pressed his right hard to where his heart was beating in his chest and pretended to be touched. I wouldn’t be surprised if he started to wipe out an imaginary tear from either one of his brown eyes. He was as dramatic as me sometimes. Maybe that was why no one else wanted to hang out with us. Well that and the constant annoyance that came along with being around us. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.” After I told him to shut up, he added: “Need I remind you Nathaniel that I have four older sisters, not one, not three, but four.”

Here we go, I thought to myself and it literally took me physical effort to not roll my hazel eyes. He complained about his sisters every single time an opportunity presented itself, but then again, I basically complained about everything else all the time, so I couldn’t bitch about it. I actually started to bet myself to see how long it could take him to mention at least one of them, but it wasn’t as fun as I figured it would be, considering that I was the only participant in the game. It was kind of sad to both give and receive the same amount of money every time I betted against and for him.

“Yes Chris, plenty of times actually.” I replied while I glanced down at my wristwatch. We hadn’t been drinking coffee longer than ten minutes and he had already started to discuss them, and by ‘discuss’ I meant talk trash. “Seventeen years to be more precise.”

I could tell that he was struggling whether he should correct me, just by the way his brow flinched, the second the words came out of my mouth. He seemed at constant war with himself about these kinds of things-to say the obvious and to explain why the sarcasm shouldn’t be used like that, but he always lost the never-ending battle. After a short pause, he started to ramble with the speed of light. He was saying the words so fast that I had trouble grasping them. “Actually Nate that would imply that I was able to talk just after I was born and we both know that’s not physically possible for someone at such a young age to be able to develop-“

“You’re doing it again.” I cut him off. I wasn’t angry because I knew that this was way more irritating for him than it was for me.

“Sorry.” Chris said through his teeth and shook his head like he was disappointed with himself, which I knew he was. “I can’t help it; it comes naturally to correct something. It’s not like I can control it. Anyway…” He went on. “As if I didn’t have enough bullies at school, I have to have them at home too.”

“Why can’t you for once in your life stand up to them? They can’t be as terrifying as you’re making them out to be.”

“Well then obviously you and I have a very different understanding of what the word ‘terrifying’ represents.” Chris told me. “You don’t have any siblings, therefore it’s rather difficult for you to be able to get what’s it like to be the annoying little brother. Not to mention their annoying little brother, who they only seem to find annoying, because their IQ doesn’t seem to match the interesting topics that my IQ does.”

“I dunno dude,” I shrugged at the same time as he started to take a sip from his coffee. “My IQ finds it pretty fascinating that your sister is hot. Oh wait that’s not my IQ, that’s my-“

He started to cough his coffee up the second the words began to come out of my mouth. Chris was the kind of person who always drank coffee, no matter what time of the day it was. He basically needed at least two cups of coffee to be physically able to leave the house in order to get a third cup of coffee. He sent me a murderous look as he slammed down the cup on the table. “Your teaming up with Jamie since the beginning of the summer to torment me needs to stop right this second. It wasn’t funny you two pretending to be attracted to one another three months ago, and it sure as hell isn’t funny now.”

“Who says we are pretending?” I smiled and watched the color drain from his face. “Sorry dude but we nobody said this thing was only going to last until the end of the summer break. I can’t stop the jokes, not when I have an entire page of them already written down and waiting for the right opportunity to use them. My to do list is pretty much getting out of bed and painting an image in your head of me and Jamie doing it on your bed.” After he shot me yet another look, I murmured: “Well what do you want me to do, lie and tell you we will stop? Cause I think that we all know we won’t. Just because it’s not funny to you, that doesn’t mean it’s not funny to us, stop taking the joy out of everything.”

“But you guys are just messing with me, right?” When I didn’t answer he repeated “Right?” louder.

“I don’t kiss and tell.” I grinned.

“Nate, you’re still in love with your ex-girlfriend.” He reminded me. “Or as you like to refer to her, “your girlfriend”.

I ignored the pang in my chest at the mention of Izzie’s leaving. Even though I knew it was coming, it was still not easy. Although before she left two weeks ago, and she told me that she didn’t want to try the long-distance relationship, I was still hoping she’d change her mind. But I couldn’t dwell on it, because the last thing I needed was to start crying in public. So, I went with the classic Nate Sparks approach: I completely ignored the problem.

“Can’t you create a different joke to torment me with please?” Chris looked like he wanted to rip his eyes out with his fingernails just by thinking about the two of us together. “One that doesn’t involve you and my youngest sister getting naked?”

“Okay, I can start making jokes about your other sisters.” I agreed. After the longest sigh I’ve ever heard him do I rolled my eyes. “Fine, I’ll cut down on me sleeping with Jamie, but I can’t speak for her.”

“Thank you.” He muttered with an unconvinced expression on his face. “See Nate? Was that so hard?”

I tried to stop talking, but I had very little control over the words escaping through my lips. “Not as hard as me when-“

“Ugh!” Chris complained. “You’re sick, you know that? Sick! I wish you had a sister so that I can do the same to you.”

“Yeah, I think that the joke of you doing my imaginary sister would be the fact that you’re actually in the same room with a girl without crying or running away.” I babbled.

“Unlike you Nathaniel, I actually have shame, something that your brain has trouble comprehending, and I will not apologize for that.”

“You say ‘shame’ I say ‘crippling anxiety’.” I corrected him. “Anyway, you can keep your shame, I don’t need it.” I really wanted to not say the next words, but my list of inappropriate jokes wasn’t getting shorter on its own. “And I can keep your sisters’ bra, the one she left on my bed after we were done.”

“Was that really necessary?” Chris was curious.

“Yes.” I responded. “As you’ve pointed out, many times, I have a mighty need to be sarcastic, inappropriate, sarcastic and immature. You see, all of that is part of being a normal eighteen-year-old guy; something that your mind has trouble wrapping itself around.”

“How we managed to stay friends all these years is beyond me.”

“Actually, I know how.” I cleared my throat, preparing to make a long speech. “As you’re well aware, I’m the laziest person on the entire planet and my apartment is only a floor away from yours, so if I were to get a new friend, then that would mean that he’d live a lot further than you and I don’t like activities that involve me moving my butt from my bed.”

“Then how do you and Jamie get it going, since you’re so goddamn lazy?”

“I said I was lazy, not insane.” I reminded him. “For your sister I would always find the strength to move my lazy ass.”

“That was so deep, and surprisingly sweet if you think about it.”

“But then again, I don’t have to do any work if she’s the one who gets on top of me-“

“And you had to ruin it.” Chris sighed. I could see his expression turn into one that brought a wrinkle in his forehead; he always did it subconsciously when he started to think really hard. I both hated and loved that we knew each other so well. After long consideration, he added: “Your incredible laziness can’t be the only reason why we don’t have any other friends.”

“Oh no that’s actually because we are horrible and no one in the right mind would want to hang out with us.” I elaborated.

“Actually, that makes perfect sense.” Chris nodded.

Even before kindergarten, it had always been Chris and me and no one else, and I was okay with that. I mean sure, I wanted to hang out with other kids, but I didn’t need to. Chris was annoying enough for about ten people, so I wasn’t exactly craving for new friends. Oh yeah, and, it might have been because no one wanted to be friends with me, because I was well…myself.

Suddenly his words snapped me back to reality. “What are you thinking about so intently?”

“Oh you know, how even if I work double shifts every day for the rest of the year, I’m still not gonna get enough cash to go to college next fall; how Izzie has probably already had guys hitting on her at Brown and how my parents think I’m failure, but they’re too nice to admit it. So pretty much the usual.” I shrugged. “Seriously man, I’m so stressed that I can’t even think of a good joke about me and Jamie screwing.”

“Wow that is serious.” Chris spoke with a concerned tone and not a mocking one, like he was worried about me. “Come on Nate, if you’re a failure then I’m a failure as well. Missing a year of college is not a big deal, a lot of people don’t start their freshman year at eighteen.”

“I know, but it kind of sucks how almost everyone in our generation has either started their school year or started their traveling year, and we’re one of the last people that’s still here.”

“Hey, what about Rachel?” He spoke her name with enthusiasm, and when I pointed out that we didn’t know anyone by that name, he added: “Rachel Red?”

“What about Rachel Red?” I knitted my eyebrows.

Rachel Red was the daughter of the ex-billionaire, now millionaire because of his recent divorce, Richard Red-AKA, my dad’s boss. As well as the boss of half of the USA; since he had more hotels than I could count. Richard was the owner of the hotel ‘Palace’, where Chris and I were currently because I had just finished my shift at the cafe, and we were waiting for my dad to finish his, so we wouldn’t have to walk home.

I’ve never met Rachel, but the reason why my dad had been working so hard all summer was because she was going to move here from London. She spent the whole summer traveling through Europe and was going to stay for a month or two to visit her brother Ryan. He was the one who oversaw this hotel when Richard was away…so in other words, always.

I had met Ryan before. Not a lot of times, because he was constantly busy, but he always treated my father with respect and gave him bonuses whenever he truly deserved them. His father, on the other hand, was a different story.

He was famous for dropping by once a year and complaining about everything. My dad always celebrated after Richard’s visits were over. His divorce was pretty much the main topic of discussion for months. Although his wife was the one who had an affair and decided to get a divorce, in order to marry the guy she had an affair with; she was claiming that her husband was also constantly cheating on her, but they couldn’t find proof. Richard, obviously, claimed he never cheated so that she wouldn’t get more money out of him. After about a year, the divorce was finally over and that was the reason as to why his daughter moved from London-to live with him instead of her mother.

Ever since my dad found out she was moving here, he had been working nonstop. Arranging people to remodel the biggest room in the hotel-which was where she was going to stay-filling out paperwork and constantly arguing on the phone with the people who were supposed to move her things. That was why my dad was working so late today-because there were problems with her flight. He had been waiting for five hours and she was still a no-show.

Over the years I had heard a lot about Rachel, from my dad, from Ryan, from the media, so I wanted to see who she was for myself. I was going to be seeing her a lot, considering I was working in the place in which she was going to be living, and it was nice to have one more person my age who wasn’t away at college.

“Well I dunno about you, but I really wanna meet her.” Chris said. “I’ve been following her on social media, and she has been to so many amazing places, it would be great to ask her what’s the best to visit. Also, I’ve been trying to work on my social skills with strangers and my therapist thinks I should put myself out there more.”

“Hold up, you decide to actually try to communicate with another human being that isn’t me, your family, or your shrink, and you want that person to be Rachel freaking Red? C’mon, what would you two even have in common to talk about? I mean she’s a billionaire who probably has more important things to do like ride horses or attend charities, or whatever it is that rich people do in their spare time. Besides, even if she wasn’t famous, why would she want to hang out with us? I mean most of the time, even I don’t wanna hang out with us.”

“She hasn’t even arrived yet and your dad said that this will be the second time she’ll be in New York. That means that the only person she knows in this city is Ryan. She has no one. She’ll have no other choice but to hang out with us.”

“Is that what it’s come down to, to search for people who have just moved here, because that’s the only reason why they’ll want to be our friends?” I murmured.

“Your words, not mine.” Chris shrugged and then I heard the double doors of the Palace open just as Chris said: “Speak of the devil.”

In life you meet a lot of people. Some of them have an impact on your life, some of them don’t, and some help shape you into the person that you are supposed to become. You almost never know how important a person will be in your life the moment you meet them, but I somehow knew about Rachel.

I had seen her in pictures, but it was another thing to be looking at a photo of her, and to be looking at her in real life. There was just something about her that separated her from the rest of the people in the hotel. Unlike me, who could never be picked apart from far away in a crowd, because I was so alike to everyone else, she wasn’t. Whereas I didn’t have anything out of the ordinary-height, looks, athleticism. She was different in almost everything, the way she walked, the way she made an entrance with doing absolutely nothing except breathing.

If I didn’t know she was, I still would have guessed that she was Rachel Red. It wasn’t that hard to figure out, considering that there were about a dozen workers who were dragging her suitcases, while she was only carrying a grey cat in her hands and a ridiculously small purse.

Rachel walked like someone who was coming down a runway. She was dressed in clothes that looked extremely expensive, and was wearing makeup that looked like it was put on by professionals. Not that I’d know how professional makeup looked, but if I had to guess, I’d say that this was it.

She removed the glasses from her face and flashed the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen before in my life. Her hair was incredibly long, reaching her waist, and it had the famous ginger color that the Red family were famous for.

She sure did know how to make an entrance. While I always quickly passed everyone all my life, because I didn’t think I was interesting enough for anyone to want to pay attention to me, she did the exact opposite. She seemed to have that kind of effect on people, when you looked at her, she made you want to notice all the things about her. Everything about her screamed power, while everything about me screamed ‘irrelevant’.

I knew I really needed to stop checking her out, because I couldn’t be a hypocrite and cringe at the thought of Izzie thinking about someone else, when I was thinking about Rachel right now, but it was easier said than done. I mean who the hell looked like that after a flight. Not that I’d know, since I’ve never been on a plane, but still.

A girl like that only existed in the pages of some elite magazine, on a runway, or in the movies. I hated myself for drooling over someone who wasn’t my hopefully soon-to-be-long-distance girlfriend, but it wasn’t like I was going to start anything with Rachel. Just looking at her wasn’t a crime…was it?

I was pretty much the least superficial person in the entire world…at least until about a minute ago. Since I was extremely easily annoyed, the only thing I cared about was whether the girl I was interested in dating was a pleasant human being.

But Rachel…she was a different story. All my life I’ve tried to be the better person and never judge a book by its cover, but when it came to Rachel, I feared that I was going to be physically attracted to her no matter what kind of person she ended up being; even if she was the spawn of Satan.

While she was coming toward me, I prayed that she was nice, just so I wouldn’t hate myself for checking her out. I hated being that guy, one of the pretentious assholes that judged the girls by their physical appearance, when the physical appearance was something, we could not control but were born with; instead of judging them by the way they acted-something that we could actually change.

“Miss Red!” My dad’s voice was the reason for me to snap out of whatever daze I appeared to be in.

When my dad finally caught up with her, he introduced himself: “First of all, I’m so sorry that your plane was late. I specifically told them to grab all the things you needed days before you were traveling instead of doing it the morning before and making you late.” He was rambling and I wanted to tell him to shut up, but I was still speechless. He took out his right hand out of his pocket and said: “I’m in charge of your stay while you are here, so if you need anything always call and I’ll be right there. My name is Oliver Sparks-“

“Don’t care.” Rachel rolled her blue eyes and I immediately knew that my prayers had not been answered. I cursed under my breath and knew I was in big trouble. This was going exactly the way I hoped it wouldn’t. “There are too many people who work here, so I do not have the patience or time to actually learn their names. That’s why I decided that I’m just gonna call every guy Jack and every girl Jane. That alright with you?” She asked, but then shook her head. “Oh who am I kidding, I don’t give a shit even if it is, Jack.”

Of course that it was too good to be true. I should have known.

My dad seemed to be struggling to not get mad. “Oliver is not a difficult name to remember.”

“And being fired is not a difficult thing to understand.” Rachel smiled with a devilish grin. Brilliant. Usually this was all it took for me to stop finding girls like her attractive, usually. I was the world’s biggest hypocrite.

“All right then, since you’re not a big fan of learning the names of the people who work for you, maybe you’ll remember my son and his friend. Ryan mentioned that you didn’t have anyone to show you around and if you’d like I’m sure that Nate and Chris wouldn’t mind. There’s plenty of ways to get lost in New York without a tour guide.” Oliver pointed at Chris and me and when she turned around I felt like she literally just noticed that we were there, like we weren’t important enough before to even spare a glance before this second.

I have no idea why I expected her to shake our hands like a normal person. Probably because I wanted to believe, no needed was the more appropriate word, that she wasn’t really the devil. I needed to believe that not every beautiful, rich girl had to be a bitch; that there was still faith in the world, but the world let me down once again. “Why would you think that I would even consider befriending the son of someone who is an employee of my dad’s hotel?”

Before my dad could say something, Ryan showed up out of nowhere and hugged the hell out of her. “Rach!” He screamed as he wrapped his hands around her waist, and I was surprised when Rachel returned the embrace with as much enthusiasm. She didn’t strike me as a hugger, she struck me like someone who could and would strike someone if they ever bothered to touch her.

“Where’s dad?” Rachel asked. “He was supposed to meet me when I landed, but I didn’t see him.”

Ryan’s smile suddenly evaporated. “Yeah, about that…”

“He’s not coming.” Rachel concluded with a blank expression. I couldn’t make out whether she was angry or just sad. Whatever she was, she hid it incredibly well, because I couldn’t read anything from her face. I wouldn’t want to play poker with her. “I mean why would he come, It’s not like I’m someone important or anything. I am only his daughter.”

“You know he wanted to come.” He said. “You know that.”

“He swore it would be different if I moved here.” Rachel told her brother.

“It will be.” He promised. “Maybe dad’s not here, but I am, and when I get off work tomorrow, I can show you around. I have a list of places we need to go and things to see. New York isn’t a small town.” He flashed her a smile and then petted the cat that I completely forgot existed in the first place. “Hey Pancakes.”

When Ryan was petting her cat, Rachel smiled. Out of all the minutes I’ve known her, her face had been strict, irritated, but she seemed to soften around Ryan. I figured that she was the kind of person who was only relaxed around the people she loved…or maybe I was just fooling myself. There had to be more, there had to be. I didn’t want to think that someone who was as pretty as her on the outside, could be so ugly on the inside. Like everyone else, she had a story, and for some reason I made it my mission to get to know her better and maybe try to fix whatever the hell was broken with her. I had an unexplainable urge to want to mend broken things. Also I was trying to keep myself busy with every possible thing I could find, in order to not drag myself into a depression spiral because of Izzie leaving.

Whenever I helped someone in any kind of way, whether it was volunteering, giving away blood, or just giving advice to a friend, I instantly felt better. When I focused on other peoples’ problems, I cleared my head from mine; that way I fixed myself by helping others. Not that I was only helping others to feel better about myself, that was just a bonus. So, I decided that Rachel Red was going to be my next project…whether she liked it or not.

Growing up without a dad in her life must have been hard for her and moving to an utterly different continent because her mom cheated on her dad and then divorced him, had to scar her in some way. I just wished that the scarring hadn’t gone too deep and she wasn’t too proud to let me be there for her.

When Ryan stopped paying attention to the cat, she looked at my dad. “Thanks Oliver for getting her here, you can go home now. You’ve been working for how long today? Twenty hours out of twenty-four? Get some rest, you deserved it.”

After her brother said that Rachel faced Oliver as well and her eyes narrowed and somehow I knew that whatever she was going to say was not going to be pleasant. “What he needs is to learn how to properly schedule flights.”

“Rachel!” Ryan complained. “Oliver is one of the hardest workers in this place, cut him some slack, it wasn’t his fault.” After she rolled her eyes Ryan seemed to want to say something, but he sealed his mouth shut. “Well did you at least meet Nate and Chris?”

Hearing Ryan say that; I could feel the hope flood into my system. I knew that Rachel was mean, but she seemed to not be so mean around her brother, maybe she was just having a hard day, maybe it was her flight that pissed her off, maybe it was her dad with not being here.

I took out my hand to introduce myself and Chris followed in my footsteps. “I’m Nate Sparks.” “Chris Crawford.”

“And I’m way out of your league.” Was Rachel’s response.

“I have a girlfriend.” I stated even though that wasn’t completely true anymore. At least, not according to her.

“And I’m still way out of your league.” She repeated and then rolled her eyes like she couldn’t even believe that she was wasting her breath on me. I’d never wanted to hit someone more than I did at that moment.

“Rach, come on, you’re probably pretty tired. You got a big day ahead of you tomorrow. I’ll call dad-“

“You can tell dad to drop dead.” She snapped. “I’d tell him myself, but I can’t seem to get a hold of him in the last eighteen years, not even on my birthday; so you can leave that message.” She muttered and with one swift motion she turned around and began to stomp toward the elevator. The sound of her billion inch heels was still ringing in my head as she got out of my range of sight.

Ryan sighed and then looked at all of us apologetically. “I’m so sorry for my sister. What she doesn’t lack in beauty, she lacks in manners. I know I shouldn’t be making excuses, but it has been a tough couple of months. I hope you’ll understand.”

“It’s alright.” Oliver was the first one to respond. “She had to wait a few hours to take off and then travel the rest of the day, only to find her father wasn’t waiting for her as he promised he would. I’d be pretty rude too if that happened to me.”

“No you wouldn’t.” I smiled. My father was the nicest person in the world. He wasn’t the type of guy who thought that he shouldn’t take out his frustration on other people just because his day went to hell.

“No, I wouldn’t.” He repeated and smiled back at me.

“My sister has been through a lot.” Ryan started explaining to Chris and me. “This has pretty much been the worst year of her life and she needs somebody right now.” My eyebrows got scrunched together. What was he getting at? “I didn’t mean that it has to be you guys, but she needs friends in her life now more than ever. I know that she can be very difficult, but she’s all alone right now. Again, I’m not trying to make excuses for her behavior; I’m just trying to explain why she is the way she is. And I’ll totally understand if you two want nothing to do with her, but you guys are great and she needs someone who is at her age at this moment, so I’d be very grateful if you even considered befriending her.”

“Are you kidding me, she didn’t even want to give us a second glance.” Chris pointed out. “Even if we tried to be her friends, she wouldn’t want us to.”

“I know it looks like that, but there’s goodness if you break that ice that blocks her heart.” Ryan promised. “Just keep that in mind, okay?”

I wanted to argue, but I knew that Ryan was already as embarrassed as anyone could get, and I didn’t want to make him any more uncomfortable than he already was, so I just nodded, and Chris did too. I was aware that tomorrow I was going to be in hell, but I never figured that today was the day I’d be meeting the devil.