The Steps To Your Heart

Pre-Steps Part 2.0: Found

--- Shayne ---

Being an only child can have its quirks but it can also be quite depressing. You can get whatever you can ask for without having to share it with anybody. You can ask for any kind of requests without compromises. You can even act spoiled and it wouldn't matter.

But as you get older, such childish thoughts are just what it is – "childish thoughts". Of course, you'd want more, you'd want something better – and in my case, it would be a sister or a brother.

Growing up being an only child is the best that is the best that I could have hoped for. But watching others play or mess around with their younger and older brothers and sisters just makes me think otherwise. But with how my parent's situation at the moment, I don't think that thought is in any of theirs.

My mom is a lawyer in the city while my dad is a doctor. With their busy schedules, they seldom come home. In cases when one is, the other isn't. And during times that they both are, I seldom see them speak to each other. Rather they are even more interested in all those paper work in their hands.

It wasn't always like this. This kind of set up only started when mom got an offer in a big law firm in the city and dad got a promotion in the hospital he worked at. I understood they had to do their work but at least, if they could just stop for one moment and look around them.

I'm not saying I'm experiencing some parental issues or of neglect or any childhood trauma. Nothing of that sort. I just wish they'd have some time together. At my age, I'm not that naïve enough not to understand these kinds of set up. I mean, even books have such scenarios and you don't even have to contemplate its outcome – a broken family.

I don't want that.

"I heard someone's mother died," I heard Kent, my best friend, say.

"Whose?" I asked.

"Someone from our grade but in a different class, so we'll be making flowers this afternoon." Our school is a private high school co-ed. In such cases where a student's family member dies, it's always the founder's tradition to support the family.

"What's her name?" I asked.

"I think it was the "grade skipper"," he answered. Raising my eyebrow, I looked at him puzzled.

"You know? The twelve year old girl who skipped a grade? "Grade skipper", get it?" he said mocking me.

"Funny," I answered back sarcastically.

"I was just asking her name."

"I think it was – oh, speak of the devil," Kent informed while pointing at someone. We are currently at the second floor of the school building and I was able to search for the person Kent just mentioned.

It was indeed the "grade skipper" as Kent said. It seems she was the only one in our school which the founder made as an exception due to her excellent "academic achievements". Because of that, she was quite the talk of the school in our grade ever since the semester started. Well, true to her demise, she became the representative of our grade in the last Math Competition.

I've seen her once back then. She was the aloof, timid girl who always kept to herself. I barely see her with friends, and I never heard of her joining any clubs. She doesn't even have any "leadership" aura. She's just a girl with extraordinary "brain capacity" – a nerd.

"She doesn't even look like she just lost her mother," I commented based on how she held herself as she walked by. The silence I got from Kent made me turn towards him.

"What?" I exclaimed at his expression.

"Ohhhh," he said nodding his head like he just answered his own silent question.

"I guess I didn't tell you yet. But the day she got the news about how her mother fell from the stairs, I was actually with her that day and she was pretty ... shaken up. I mean, she literally froze ... And ... And, you know ... The look she had, she literally made me shiver. You could actually tell that she he could have died just from hearing that news," Kent informed.

"I mean, literally? I myself felt her grief," he continued putting his hand on his heart like he still felt it.

Then leaning towards me, he whispered, "Don't tell anyone, but actually I cried when she did ... ... ... - - - - - -." Unable to respond, I just gaped at him. Sometimes, Kent makes me wonder whether he is gay or not.

"Ahhhh!!! I'm bored," Kent suddenly blurted after a couple of seconds of silence making me jump back. Turning, he slowly stretched in a nonchalant manner like whatever he just said was nothing.

But sometimes, I think that thought was impossible.

Smirking, I smacked him in the back and chuckled at his behavior.

"Hey, that hurts, you know!" he complained.

"Yeah, yeah," I just dismissed and continued patting him in the back.

"You'd better stop doing ..." I didn't already hear all the complaints he said after that. My mind was elsewhere - towards that "grade skipper". Did she really care? Or was she just acting tough after all that has happened to her? I can understand the grief of losing someone.

In my case, it was my grandmother whom I was close to. But I couldn't begin to imagine the despair she must be feeling when she lost her mother. It must be even worse than what I felt.

She was a year younger than us so maybe she was just trying to act mature. But whatever it was, something struck me at that moment that I heard Kent's embarrassing confession.

I want to do something for her.

I want to protect her.

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