Severing Ties (Book 2. Ties)

6. Family Trees

Frank, Stephanie, Lucas, and I had been hanging out every weekend. We would go to the movies, out to dinner, museums, or simply walked around Central Park. I actually really liked the guys; they were fun people to be around.

Maybe that was all I needed, a change of cities and states. If I pretended not to miss Levi, I could say I was happy. The truth was I missed him way too much to allow myself to be happy. But at least I wasn't miserable anymore. I had friends, school was hard but manageable, and life at home was satisfactory; those things could make a person... happy. But I was merely satisfied and still going through the motions like Gregor Samsa from The Metamorphosis. That was all I could manage though; a monotonous life with occasional distractions to numb the pain of the absence I felt.

One day, we had been laying around on the grass at Central Park where we had a picnic. It was only Stephanie, Lucas, Amelia, and myself that day; we had a chemistry test in two days, so we organized our little study group. It turned out that Lucas was really smart and he would be receiving his bachelor's degree in biology a few months from then. Why he was in a freshman chemistry class, he did not clear up.

He was twenty-four and extremely busy trying to handle his family, school, and trying to get some work in. He had worked in a mechanic shop since he was seventeen up until the end of his third semester in university. He realized he was not going to be able to juggle so many responsibilities once he was done with his basic courses and started with his major's courses, so he quit the job at the car shop and helped his mom with the restaurant instead.

It was quite a sad story... His past I meant. His father died when he was seventeen; so being the eldest, he began to help his mother with the house and his family. He had to grow up quickly and take on adult responsibilities. When he was with Stephanie he seemed to relax for a while; there had never been a time when I had thought so hard about shipping two people. So far I had come up with Lephanie, Stucas, Leph (their nicknames together-Luke and Steph), but I had not decided on anything yet. My theory as to why I really wanted them to be together was so I could remember what it felt to love, or so I would not forget that feeling.

That day that we were at the park studying for our test, Stephanie really got entranced with Lucas. She had asked him why Amelia always wanted to be with him. So Lucas willingly told us his life story. Amelia was starting to get used to Stephanie and I, since we did spend a lot of time with her and her brother. But one thing was for sure, Amelia liked me better than Stephanie, only because I wasn't dating her brother. Quite a humorous child if you asked me, but I understood her. She did not want anyone taking away the little attention she received. Laura was a lovely person but you could tell she didn't have enough time to interact with her two sons and only daughter because of the restaurant. After all, she was the one who had to pay the bills.

So like I was saying, from that day that Lucas told us about his past and forward, Stephanie really started liking him. She was head over heels and still didn't know it. He was six years older than her, but that was of no importance because Stephanie was also another person who had to become older at a young age. Her parents divorced when she was around five years old, and her mom had always had a passion to teach, so Elena spent most of her time on school campuses. Stephanie was close to her mom because after her school day finished, she would go to the campus where her mom worked at the time and spent all afternoon until evening there with Elena. But after her mom remarried a couple of years later and had Julianne, Elena was unable to take them both to her job, so Elena hired someone to care for them at home. And that ended the tightness of the bond Stephanie and her mom had. They still had a good relationship but it was not the same as when Stephanie was a little girl.

As an effect from the lack of attention from both of her parents, the older she got, the more rebellious she became. During high school she started using and trying different types of stimulants that were affecting her negatively. Her mom loved her but was not very cautious about what Stephanie did, and her dad was a travelling man so no supervision from him either. There came a moment where Stephanie overdosed on some type of drug and nearly died. Her little sister found her passed out in her bedroom and immediately called 911. So things started to change again with her mother and sister for the better.