No Rain No Flowers

Where it all began

6 Months ago.

A knock on the door brought me back to reality.  

"Did you hear me?" Yvan said waving his hand before my eyes. I looked up at his face. His green eyes looked at me with seriousness and sympathy. With his dark hair and light eyes, he had almost every girl at our school crushing over him. Unfortunately, that included me. He had a sharp jawline and light skin. With his features, a lot of people thought he was a foreigner.  My friends and I picked on him with that, because he didn't like it when people asked him where he was from because he and his parents were born in the united states. 

"Yeah I heard you" I murmured. 

I heard my dad opening the door downstairs.

"Do you like me?" he repeated his question? He looked at me, searching for an answer in my eyes. His gaze focused on me made me harden my look. I stared right back at him with my best poker face hoping it would be convincing. 

"It doesn't matter"  I told him the truth. It really didn't matter. How much I loved him wouldn't change anything. He didn't feel that way about me so it didn't matter. 

"It's better that we are just friends right?" Yvan asked me unsure. 

Just as I was about to answer I heard a loud scream downstairs.

"NO!  YOU'RE LYING THIS ISN'T TRUE"

I looked at Yvan with a look of confusion before jumping off the couch in my bedroom. I raced down the stairs into the hall where I found my dad screaming at two police officers. 

"Dad, what the hell is going on?" I asked him unsure if I wanted to know what was going on. 

"THEY ARE LYING" he pointed an accusing finger towards the two police officers who were standing in the doorway with a look of sympathy on their face.   

"I'm so sorry for your loss," the one man said.

What loss were they talking about? I quickly looked around for cameras as if this was one of those prank shows and we were being pranked. No cameras showed up. Just me, my now miserable dad, a very confused Yvan and these two police officers with a look full of remorse. 

The left police officers took a step towards me and laid a hand on my shoulder as if that would make the news I was about to get any better. 

"I'm so sorry to inform you this, but your mother was hit by a car this afternoon and died of severe injuries on her way to the hospital in New Orleans"

_____

"Maxime, the food's here!" yelled my dad from down the stairs.

"Coming dad!" my stomach started rumbling at the word food. 

It was a normal Tuesday-evening here in New Orleans. My dad never cooked so we usually ended up ordering food. In the 5 months that we lived here, we never used the kitchen once. I usually end up eating at a friends house or with my boyfriend Jake. 

"Max are you still there?"

awakened from my thoughts I looked at my laptop where my skype-conversation with Jake was still displayed. 

"Jake I've got to go, my dad just announced the food was here. I'll see you tonight"

Jake and I were a thing for almost 4 months now. Jake is 18 which means he's one year older than me. He's actually a senior while I'm a junior. Even though we're in a different grade we got off right away. I was the new girl and he helped me with my mom's loss. He knew the feeling of losing someone. He recently lost his grandpa. Jake was very close to him and took it very hard. When I moved to town the story I lost my mum went around very quickly. When it got to Jake he finally felt like someone understood him. He told me his story and I told him mine. We mourned together, cried together and laughed together remembering the people we lost. After a while, we fell in love. 

After I closed off my skype-conversation and turned off my laptop, I walked downstairs in this still strange house. Don't get me wrong it was a beautiful house. It was a big house with a lot of room and large windows. But the big space didn't have the same vibe our old house had. The amount of space made me feel lonely. I'd made me think of my mom who could've taken all this space up with just being here. It made me think of when she was still around, and that made me miss her. 

In deep thought, I walked into the kitchen where the smell of pizza was welcoming me in. 

"Thanks, that is great news Howard!" my dad said before hanging up his phone.

"That was the sheriff just on the phone," my dad told me "He told me they may have another lead on your mother's case" 

Since my mom's murder, my dad has been obsessed with finding out who did it. He had a whole room full of newspapers and articles from that day in his study room. He hasn't slept a lot since her death and with his skinny figure and untrimmed beard, he seemed to get worse every day. It's like I've lost both my parents that day.

It hurts me to see my dad breaking himself like this but he's so keen on knowing who did it that nothing else matters to him. Not even me.

"That's great dad" I said trying to sound sincere. 

I took my pizza and went back upstairs to my room. The only space I did like in this house.

___

At 8 o'clock the doorbell rang.

I raced down in my black strapless party dress opening the door.  

"Hey girl, you coming?" 

Jenna was my best friend here in New Orleans. With her long brown hair in a ponytail and in a red strapless dress. She wore black stiletto's which didn't look very comfortable. But hey that's Jenna. I grabbed my bag and slammed the door behind me. 

We were going to one of Steven Richie's parties. He gave a standard party almost every week. He was on the football team like Jake. Steven lived in a large mansion just out of town. It was a 15-minute drive. 

"So have you seen Valentino at school today? My god that boy needs to quit looking like that before I jump his bones" 

I rolled my eyes at her.

"You better stay away from that east-siders Jen, those people are really dangerous"

She raised her left hand and pinched me in my cheek. 

"Oh my sweet innocent child, you should learn to live a little, get laid or something. They might be dangerous people but they are really good in bed unlike some goody-two-shoes from the north. At least the east-siders are really hot."

I swat her hand away from my cheek and poke her in her side. 

"Yes, really hot STD's, also very hot the whole north neglecting you if they even know 10% of what you did. Really hot being homeless too. Oh you know what's also very h-"

Before I could finish my sentence Jenna slammed the brakes making me fly to the window. I stop myself from going through the window right on time.

"Also very hot" She looks around if no one is listening to the information she's about to tell me. She comes in closer and puts one hand on my ear "Wearing your seatbelt" she whispers in my ear. 

"Oh go do something else with your life like take a sailing class, take a nature walk or fuck the whole school. Oh, wait you already did the last one" I shrug my shoulders and wipe some imaginary dust off them. 

"You can also walk you know?" She gestures to the door of my car. 

We both look at each other and burst into laughter.  I love my best friend. We can talk trash about each other all we want, but as soon as anyone else says something bad they've picked the wrong people to fight with. Someone else dares to call my best friend a slut and I'll make sure they'll never say that again. 

____

Chapter 1 is up!

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