"Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused."
–Paulo Coelho
——
THE EVENING OF the following day, Stacey busied herself with her laptop. There she sat at her window seat, strands of hair from her messy bun flopping into her eyes and obscuring her vision. A half eaten chocolate bar was sitting beside her and her ocean blue eyes trained on nothing but the screen of the laptop sitting in her lap.
For a full thirty minutes, she had been trying to think up something to write as today was appropriately her 'writing challenge day'. Stacey had been doing this ever since she was twelve. She figured that she needed it if she was ever going to become a published author someday, so every Sunday, Stacey made it a point of duty to write something of at least a thousand words.
But today had turned out to be one of those days where all she could do was stare at the screen with no idea whatsoever.
Stacey grimaced, eyeing the cringe-worthy paragraph she had just written. She couldn't call herself an extraordinary writer and neither could she say she was an amateur either, but she was positive that those couple of lines she had just written were far from what she was capable of.
Irked by the fact that her creative juices just weren't flowing, Stacey hit the backspace key, until the page became blank once again. Closing the laptop, she dropped in on her reading desk and walked back to her window seat, just in time to catch her crush travel down the street on his Rollerblades.
Her next reflex was to press her face against the buggy window with drool almost escaping her mouth at the sight of him. Stacey didn't know his name or anything about him at all, but as far as she was concerned, he was hot and she had liked him ever since she first saw him. And that was when he started rollerblading around her neighborhood two months ago.
Now, Stacey was definitely sure that she was drooling when he performed a stunt and his friends cheered him on. Most of his hair was hidden underneath his gray beanie, but Stacey was able to see a few blond locks peeking out. His skin was tanned with his body toned with lean muscle.
A knock on her door jolted her out of her reverie and her dad poked his head round the door, just as she drew her curtains shut. She didn't need Martin to begin to give her a lecture on what she should be doing instead of ogling boys.
"Hey, dad," she greeted, making sure her voice was completely rid of anything that might give her away, or spark his suspicion. Wanting to act natural, she picked up her chocolate bar and took a bite.
Martin's lips tugged up in a small smile, but it waned and anyone could tell how forced it had been. "You got a second?" He asked.
"Sure," she said, completely oblivious to how his voice sounded grave. "What do you need?"
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Martin walked into her room and sat on the edge of her bed, facing her.
"I want to talk," he started and pinched the bridge of his nose, his body breaking out in cold sweat.
Now, Stacey looked at her dad carefully. He was pinching his nose and after living with him all her life, she knew he only did that when he was jittery. And when the strict and uptight Martin Furler was jittery, it could only mean two things.
One. He had a really huge client at his auto-repair shop. Two: He had some news that could possibly change their lives forever.
"What do you want to talk about?" Stacey asked, her words slow, coming out of her mouth with utmost caution.
