The Princess Pages: A Girl Like Cinderella

Song Forty Three

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

Lucy stood at the doorway of the mansion, drenched from head to foot, her books in tact. In the living room, her brother had set up a fort made out of blankets and pillows piled onto each other. A second later, a brown-haired head poked out from the castle of large cloths. The brunette in the wet blue hoodie and dark pants found her mouth curving upward.

"L? What happened?"

One long explanation,one hot shower, and several hours of waiting for nothing later, the Heartwood siblings settled across each other at the dining table, happily eating the food Lucy had prepared for the evening: freshly baked lasagna, chicken wings, pork chops, and chocolate souffle for dessert.They talked and laughed in between bites of the delicious food.

"Someone stole your bike?" Vance echoed, spearing a pork chop into his mouth,then chewed.

Lucy, now changed into a loose TRENT MORGAN shirt and red pajama bottoms, nodded her head sullenly while she poured ice-cold water into her brother's glass.

A thick silence enveloped the clothed table, a tension heavy in the air.

It might not show much, but Lucy was extremely sentimental, especially with her parents' gifts to her and their old possessions. Vance knew how much that bike meant to his older sister. She'd gotten it on her tenth birthday, mere months before their mother died from a terminal illness.

She didn't even need glasses. The thick, black-rimmed specs she wore everyday once belonged to her father, Lance Heartwood. Lucy sported them always as a sentimental gesture. A few weeks after his funeral, she removed the lenses and replaced them with grade-less glass, allowing her to see the world through her regular eyes. Everyone but Vance and Carter just assumed she needed a pair of spectacles.

Vance gulped some water before asking warily: "Are you going to look for them tomorrow?"

"Yeah," the long-haired teen answered, as if it was unnecessary to even ask her that.

"But what if.." Her blue-green eyed brother trailed off, focusing on his plate of yummy lasagna.

His words hung in the air, and Lucy knew what he was trying to say. What if.. her bike was gone for good?

She was going to search every nook and cranny in the huge campus for her beloved ride.

The pale brunette felt a warm hand on top of hers, and she glanced up at her little brother.

"Be careful, okay?" he reminded her, as though he were the elder sibling.

Lucy gave him a short smile. "I'll be fine, V."

"That's always your lie," Vance mumbled, drawing his hand away from hers.

He sounded just like Carter.

"Beverly's not coming home tonight either," the 6th grader remarked, his eyes surveying the front door. He was aware of his stepsister's late-night dates.

"Seems like it." Lucy shrugged in a careless manner, lifting a forkful of lasagna to her mouth.

A brief silence from her brother's end prodded her to look at him again.

"Why are you staring at me, V?" she inquired him.

"If you want to dance tonight,you can."

Lucy was taken aback by her brother's directness. Sometimes he was too smart for his own good.

"I'm not leaving you alone here," she riposted with a cynical snort.

At that, Vance raised a brow, aiming a spoon her way. "Home Alone."