You made me feel

C H A P T E R O N E

We've been planning this trip for weeks now, and we finally made it.

To Melbourne, not that we planned to leave Australia, but we always wanted to visit one of the bigger cities.
April, my best friend since we were babies, got a job offer here, after finishing her internship, and since we fell in love with Port Lincoln on our trip here when we won at a radio game, I chose to move with her because she's the only person besides, my parents, who didn't give up on me when I was close to losing my mind. We leave the little boutique, and she tells me about how horrible her date yesterday was, and I tell her about the guy I texted with.
"What do you mean?" I ask her while we walk through a small alley.
"I mean that if he wanted he would have replied by now."  She answers and sips her triple-choc-coffe-iced, I don't have the slightest idea what she's drinking.
"Yeah, that's why I deleted his number, I'm too old for this shit." I'm not gonna sit here and cry over some random dude who doesn't know what he wants.

You ignore me - bye.
You answer three days later because you fell asleep - bye.

"April, it's not like I don't want to get to know someone okay, it's just-"
Someone bumps into me, I'm getting wet, warmth spreads over my shirt and then I realize the pain.
"Shoot, that's hot, hot as hell," I cry out and pull the fabric off of my body to release the burn.
"Oh my God! I am so sorry I didn't see you, I-" a deep voice says.
"No, no it's fine I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking-" I look up.
Meeting the most beautiful greenish-brown eyes I've ever seen. He looks down at me with the same glance. I open my mouth but nothing comes out.
"Let me buy you a new shirt, let me pay for the cleaning service, what do you prefer?" He asks and I just stare at him, shit say something.
"No, no. It's fine our Airbnb is around the corner. I can change. Do you want new coffee ?" I stumble over my own words.

What is happening, why can't I look away?
"Cleo, hey, we gotta go," April says and I flinch, I turn to her.
"I'm coming," I answer and look back at him before I go.
"Kody, with a K."
"That sounds extraordinary"
"My mother wanted to keep the capital letter in our family." He says and I feel him searching for something in my eyes, just like I do in his. A man I haven't noticed until now, whispers something in his ear. I hear people chattering, and flashlights flashing. It's 1.45 pm in the middle of the day. Who uses flashlights? The voices come closer, the noise of cameras flicking intensifies, and I hear people screaming his name.
April pulls my arm: "Bitch, move we gotta get outta here!"
"I have to go, nice to meet you, Cleo," he says tilting his head and giving me a half smile.
"You too, Kody with a K," I say and raise a brow. He walks past me and the cameras, flashlights, and people seem to follow him, because once he's gone so are they.
"What was that?"
"Pretty sure a celebrity, I have no other explanation for this crowd." April answers and spins me around.
"You need a new shirt, I'm not going to a museum with you while you look like this." She makes a disgusted face and I roll my eyes. We walk back to where we came from and once we reach our Airbnb I walk to the bathroom and start cleaning myself up.
"Ha! I found him!"
"You found who?" I ask while I take my pants off.
"Kody with a K!" She imitates him.
"How the hell-" I don't finish the question, I know damn well what she's capable of.
"He is a big, big, damn- very big fish!" She mumbles.
"What?"
She clears her throat.
"Apparently his parents own half of Melbourne. They invested in real estate and damn, he is the best example of 'born with a silver spoon in his mouth',  you should have let him pay for your shirt."
"The shirt was five bucks!"
"So? Never mind back to Mr. Kody McAndrews, born on Juli 14th, 1990. He loves dogs, and pasta, and is the only child of Kim and Kristian McAndrews." She inhales sharply and continues reading "He donates a lot of his money to different charities such as children, healthcare, and also to animal shelters, hmm nor bad, not bad." She nods and walks towards me.
"His mother is from Korea and his dad is Australian- bla bla bla- met on a charity event- bla bla bla- yeah nothing else about him"
"Sounds good so far, but there's more, isn't it?" I ask.
"Nope," she plops the p. "No red flags."
"Okay, I am done. Let's go." I changed into a burgundy blouse and black jeans.
"You look better now. Let's go see some dinosaurs." She takes my hand, we walk out, turn right, and walk down the road we came from again.
"That son of bitch!" I spit and stay still.
"What is it?"
"He wanted me to look him up. That's why he said -"
"Kody with a K!  He's a genius." April finishes my sentence and we laugh at the epiphany.
"Pretty smart of him," I say and shake my head as we walk over to the museum. I'm still not over the fact that he looked me in the eyes for so long. It was like only he and I existed at that moment. We scan our tickets and go inside. The museum is huge. We walk to the exhibition next to the entrance, where there is a huge dinosaur skeleton.
We walk past it and turn left. The dinosaur skeletons are behind huge glass walls.
"How long do you think they needed to put all of this together?" I ask.
"I have no freaking idea but it is really impressive isn't it?"
"It really is." I was never a big fan of museums as a child but now as an adult? I could spend weeks, months even years traveling across the country and visiting every kind of museum. 
Before entering the big hall where the dinosaurs of the Triassic period are exhibited,  April takes a booklet and starts laughing. The group of tourists who are a hall ahead turn around. I raise my hand and apologize.
"What is so funny? Their gazes almost killed us," I look over her shoulder but I don't understand why she is laughing like that.
"Look at this coincidence," she starts and spins around and shoves the booklet at my face.
I take it off her hands and walk through the exhibition as I look at it.
"It's Mr. McAndrews, look at him all smiling and dirty in his paleontologist clothes." 
I look at the picture, next to the article about the 'Be a paleontologist for a day'. It's him with two boys and a girl digging holes and smiling into the camera.
"Uuuh, bitch! What is that smile?" April mocks me.
"What smile? I'm not smiling," I press my lips together and feel my cheeks warming up.
"Mhm, mhmm. Just like you don't smile when that cute delivery guy brings us pizza on Sundays."
"Shut up. We have a lot of dinosaurs to look at. Here take your booklet back." I give her the booklet and look to my right where a family of Stegosaurs is grazing.
We walk through the Jurassic period now and April summarizes the article for me.
"He brought this project to life. He was talking with children in an orphan home and some of them mentioned how much they loved dinosaurs and that one day they wanted to be paleontologists and find dinosaurs and name them after themselves. So he called the museum immediately and they started creating, planning, and organizing everything necessary for this project. A month later everything was ready."
"Impressive," I nod as we move into the next hall and three giant pteranodons are circling over my head.
"He is too good to be true, isn't he?" April says but I don't reply my eyes are locked on the big screen next to the T-Rex. A blonde elderly woman with glasses in a dark green jumpsuit and a man with silver hair, and greenish brown eyes in a dark gray suit holding a big check and smiling into the camera, captioned: "I always got what I wanted as a child, no matter if I needed it or not. Now it is my turn to give to those who need but can't afford." - Kody McAndrews, August 2023