STAR STRUCK: epilogue continues (book 2)

Chapter 9

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Chapter 9

A Little Trip (#2)

still 19 days before take-off

yet a few years in the past

~~*~~

Stella was a lively kid. She terrorized the dogs of the neighbors. She talked to the birds in their backyard and she always played in their vast front lawn where the garden was. She liked the spring. She loved the summer. She shone bright wherever she went.

I can't believe I was seeing how my mom was when she was a kid.

She's everything like what I had imagined. Fun, spirited, pretty and the center of everyone's attention. It also brought me relief to see that her parents, my grandparents, loved her very much.

But everything about this was foreign to me. Who are these people? This happy family that I never knew, who were they?

Would I ever get the chance to meet them?

A little after showing bits and pieces of Stella's time as a toddler, a new person was introduced in the flashbacks playing in front of us.

A boy about the same age of my mom, which was roughly ten years old, introduced himself with a hand outstretched during recess in school.

"My name is Castor," he said.

I looked over at the adult version of the boy in question. Adult Castor smirked at me and motioned to keep looking.

Stella was usually an easy kid to be friends with, but something was different with Castor. She could tell. She looked at his hand first before saying, "I don't know you."

Castor gave a nervous laugh.

"I'm new here. I moved in a few weeks ago," he said.

"Where do you live now?" Stella asked, starting the interrogation.

"It's the blue house with the white roof, beside the big oak tree up the hill."

Stella squinted her eyes, suspicious. "I know that house. That's in my neighborhood."

"I thought all kids here are from the same neighborhood?"

"Not the point!"

While it was entertaining to see this side of my mom, it was more fun to watch Castor be unsure for once. Given he was young and inexperienced, probably already in this for the job but weren't mature enough to think things through, it was to be expected. But it was satisfying nonetheless.

Shallow of me to feel malice over a kid, I know. But it doesn't count if that kid is a possible god who has already lived a thousand years although without his knowledge.

"I just wanted to be friends. I don't have any friends yet. You're the first one I ever talked to," young Castor said.

I know that tone. I know that look. I've seen and even used that before.