The Other Side

Love Story

Prologue

“Erika! Come downstairs, honey, we have guests!” My mom called up the stairs as I finished putting everything into place in my edroom.

Me, at 5 years old, had moved to the small town of Rendover, California, from London. It wasn’t a spectacularly busy town, just the typical white picket fence neighborhoods. It didn’t even have a Starbucks! (It didn’t matter to me then, but once I tried their Chocolate Chip Frappucinos, I was hooked.)

I left the relative comfort of my room and walked timidly down the stairs in my blue-and-white checkered dress. It was Thanksgiving night, and my parents had invited our neighbors to dinner with us.

“Erika, meet Auntie Grace and Uncle Frank.” I smiled tentatively at them.

“Theresa, your daughter’s so adorable!” Auntie Grace cooed, reaching out and stroking my long bronze curls. “Tyde! Come meet Erika!”

I looked around wildly as a little boy, around the same age as me, emerged from the kitchen, peanut butter smeared around his lips and face.

“ Oh, Tyde!” Auntie Grace exclaimed, reaching over with a wet tissue to wipe off the sticky brown substance. “Gosh, what a mess.”

Tyde had midnight black hair and sapphire blue eyes which were fixed on me. He smiled, showing a row of peanut-butter covered teeth. “Hi there.”

I ducked my head and hid my face beneath a veil of hair. Twining my hands shyly behind my back, I mumbled, “Hi.”

“Tyde, why don’t you and Erika go play upstairs, okay?” Uncle Frank said mischievously, eyes sparkling. Tyde nodded and grabbed one of my hands, bounding up the stairs and towing me behind him.

“Which room is yours?” He asked, looking around curiously. I pointed silently to a light blue door along the corridor. He led me over, still keeping a firm grip on my wrist, and opened the door, walking inside.

“Whoa, you play Pokémon?” he said in awe, heading over to my collage wall and glancing at the Pokémon poster there.

“Ye-yeah,” I stuttered, blinking slowly. The wall was cluttered with a bunch of other pictures and posters, like my old best friends back in London, different cartoons and dancing alphabet.

“That’s epic! I’ve never met a girl who played Pokémon too! What’s your strongest Pokémon?” He asked earnestly, eyes flashing.

“Level 94 Lucario,” I answered, raising my head and meeting his sapphire blue eyes.

“Mine is Level 93 Infernape,” he grinned. “We should do a trade sometime.”

“Sure.”

“You have really pretty eyes,” he observed, blue eyes staring into my gray ones. I blushed, looking down at my toes and letting my hair conceal my burning cheeks.

“You shouldn’t hide behind that hair,” he reached out and brushed my hair away from my face. “Now that’s better.”

“Are you starting at the elementary school next week?” he asked casually, sinking down to his knees and sitting down cross-legged in the plush white carpet of my room. The floor was covered with the carpet, and the two walls rose up in a creamy blue shade. My collage wall consisted of a plastic board over the regular plaster. Another wall was a sliding glass door, which led out to an outdoor balcony/patio. My bed was made of wrought iron, and the quilt for that was covered in bouquets of blue primroses. A glass desk, an office chair and a bookshelf sat in the far corner of the room, along with a pale wooden closet and a TV sitting on a little coffee table.