What Love Is

Chapter 1

Dedicated to soulwriter2 for being my first supporter :) thank you.

Rowan Calloway paused with one hand in her thick auburn hair, the other, stretching for a hair clip that was unfortunately, desperately, out of reach. She let out a peeved sigh, inching over until she could barely pick up the clip, afraid that the perfect twist she’d recently achieved after a full hour of styling would slip from her fingers and her rebellious tresses would fall back to her shoulders. It wasn’t that she disliked her brown hair with its shiny deep red tint, it was that she and her unruly hair were not friends, let alone on speaking terms.

She rooted the clip into place, a small puff of air escaping her naked lips as she proudly watched the up-do hold.

Pressing a button on her cell phone, causing the screen to light up and wait for her command, Rowan checked the time and found her mouth slipping into a frown. Of course, she would be the one to spend all of her time fixing her hair and not preparing her face with an array of liquids, brushes, and pencils.

She felt somewhat refreshed after the steamy shower she’d treated herself to earlier in the morning, but her belly still churned with anxiety. Naturally, her father had told her not to worry, but what fresh-out-of-college nursing student was not nervous for their first interview? No, she mentally corrected herself, she wasn’t a student anymore. She was a licensed nurse, fully prepared to heal, or at least attempt to heal, everyone that walked through hospital doors.

Her brother, Seth, was outside the bathroom door, and she could certainly tell. He was clumsy, loud, and did not have a graceful bone in his body. She smiled as she heard him accidentally hit the wall.

“Are you done yet?” the fifteen-year old whined.

“Sort of,” she replied, amused. “I still need to shower, curl my hair, do my makeup, my perfume…”

“Would I be better off peeing in the bushes, Rowan?”

“Probably,” her lips spread into a wide grin as she smoothed her tube of vanilla lip gloss over them. She met her own eyes in the mirror, sleep-deprived from tossing and turning all night, but still the rich, deep brown she’d always known.

Rowan surprisingly found a small comfort in that. Some things didn't ever change, while the world tumbled on around her.

“Come on,” she heard her father’s teasing voice in the kitchen and the sizzling of breakfast in the pan. “Rowan, you’ve been in there for nearly two hours, sweetheart. Poor Seth out here is about to wet himself.”

“I really am,” Seth emphasized.

Rowan chuckled, slapping on a light coat of mascara and deciding to skip all of the other sparkly and ridiculous things she could do to her eyes. And, of course, this was an extremely professional interview. She couldn’t walk into this poor man’s office covering everything in glitter.

She rolled her shoulders and briefly admired the dark burgundy jacket that accented her capable shoulders, and snug black skirt that hugged her thighs above her knees. She smiled at herself in the mirror, silently asserting that she must, under any circumstances, keep her nerves under control.

When she twisted the door knob and went to swing the door open, she wasn’t startled when the door smacked into her little brother. He gave her a quick, sweeping, glance and then darted around her, brusquely shoving her into the hallway. She stumbled in her meager two inch heels as Seth slammed the door.

“It smells like girl in here!” he complained loudly.

“Want something to eat?” Peter Calloway asked, flipping an egg in the skillet. She could easily see him from where she was, peering cautiously into the worn black pan at a nearly burnt egg. He had yet to shave this morning, nor change out of his pajamas. She recognized the familiar dark blue, fuzzy pants decorated with Homer Simpson and frosted pink doughnuts.