Dear Ryan & Emma

Day 4

"Okay, so here is how it goes. Draw a line and we'll have your grandma count to three than start and we take off..."

You are probably wondering what the hell is going on. Remember yesterday Alexander and I agreed on that running competition. Turns out he was quite serious about it. He was at my door first thing in the morning which would be 7 am! (I'm seriously starting to think he has some sort of problem.) Had my grandparents all hooked up on the race and now 10 minutes later I'm still half asleep but on a start line and about to run at least 500 meters.

I'm so hating this!

"Wait, wait, wait. What do I get out of this? I obviously have beaten you before so I'm not interested anymore." I was whiny ad tired and most of all sleepy.
"Can I get back to bed and maybe do this at some reasonable hour of the day!"

Alex just gave me an exasperated eye roll and signaled for me to stand by the line.

"You and I both know that wasn't fair. You had quite the head start and the moment of surprise on your side . It doesn't count. Now man up and head down for a real competition." He was puffed up and ready, warming up, jumping and stretching like a pro. He even had one of those silly headbands on his head.

"I'm a GIRL! So goodbye or goodnight or whatever!" I turned on my heels grumpy as hell but Alexander wouldn't have any if it.

Five more minutes of arguing and I was doing it just to make him shut up about being lied to.

"On three...one...two...three...go!" We took off at the same time and grandpa was waiting at the finish line to see who crosses it first. Needless to say Alexander won due to the circumstances. We still had only 5 seconds difference which should be speaking greatly for me!

"I won!? I won! Yesss!" He was doing the happy dance jumping around like a maniac. "Take that, Maliya!" He was pointing and had that happy and a bit evil spark in his bluish eyes. And he was laughing. And it was contagious!

By the time we got back grandma was starting on breakfast. And being the great hostess that she is, she insisted on Alexander staying for breakfast. 

Now, I know what you think - this dude shows up at your Granny's hause at the crack ot dawn and insists on racing her grandaughter for god knows what reason and she finds it totally alright to wake you up and actually make you race the guy. First of all, that's Granny for you. Second, it turns out, just like Dean, Faith has been spending a lot of time with my grandparents and they've even been over at dinner in Faith and Alexander's house a few times. The conclusion to that being - my grandparents knew Alexander better than I did and so they found nothing wrong with him being over, or so it seamed. We had breakfast and as always it was amazing. Alexander and I enjoyed a pleasant conversation about nothing really and we even made some sort of a date for tomorrow to go jogging together. So after about an hour Alexander was on his way home, fed and excerised, might I add (that almost sounded as if he were a dog). Well, anyway, it was fun, however reluctant I was to admit it. It was exactly the summer I had hoped for so far.

I was sitting with Granny at the kitchen table discussing our plans for the day when she started asking funny questions. And by funny I don't mean the lol ones.

"So, Alex... How come he finds his way here on a fabulous summer morning to ask, of all things, to race you? You've been here a total of 4 days and that's counting today, so when did you manage to befriend him?" I don't know why, but it almost felt accusatory her question.

"Well, I officialy met him the other day on the lawn, if you must know. Faith introduced us and then I hung out with them for a while before coming home. And then yesterday we just sort of ran into each other, so we walked the dogs together. After that we raced here, no biggie. Why do you ask?" she looked like she was in on some big secret and I wasn't, so she now had to figure out how to break the news to me.

"Look, Mouse..." oh, my childhood nickname - this conversation is about to get unpleasent. "Alexander is a great boy if you want to hire someone to mown the lawn or help clean around, but he is not a great boy to be friends with. He was sent to boarding school when he was only thirteen and for a crime, no less." she sighed. "You know I'm not someone quick to judge and neither is your granfather. We gave the boy a chance. He is fine around us, me and grandpa that is. He is more than respectful to his mother and of what I've seen an amazing brother to Faith. But poor Steve... he has a hard time dealing with Alexander's outbursts."

I was about to explain to her that family drama wasn't something that I shoud be nosy about and nither should she. I mean, my grandma was great and all, but we all have our falts. Hers? She was a bit of a gossip girl, which meant that at times she overstepped some boundries. And I don't know why, but I simply wanted to jump to Alexandr's defense. While he obviously had some problems, he's been quite nice to me, grumpy only around Dean. And then again, who was I to judge...

But Granny was set on giving me her advise on the subject that is Alexander and so her lecture continued "Then there was the Dean accident... Mouse, sweetie, all I'm saying is, it's good that you're making new friends, I just wish you were more careful about choosing them. I'm fairly certain that Dean has shared at least a little bit of this problem with you, so you know that Alexander could sometimes be, well - explosive." she patted my hand, rose from her chair and smiled. "Now how about we continue with our plans for the day. How do you feel about planting some gourgeous flowers. These dogs of ours seem to have either eaten or dug out all of mine." she gave that high-pitched voice only disstressed grandmothers could master and then we both laughed as though our conversation has been about some joke all along. 

We spend the day planting flowers among other things. My grandparents were nothing, if not gardners so any day that they'd spent having mud up to their elbows, was concidered a success. It wasn't all fun for me, exspecially for my poor nails, but I still concidered it a pretty well spent day, bonding with my family. The dogs, of course wanted to help, but concidering their lack of opposable tumbs and all, they ended up just making the situation muddier. Come to think of it, if anyone back in Seatlle saw me like this, I'd never hear the end of it. 

Come evening, I was spent. I just wanted my bed, a fluffy pillow and some well deserved sleep, but I just couldn't shake the thought that there was more to Alexander's story. If he was just some unrulable boy with anger issues, Faith wouldn't have gotten so close to him, wouldn't have trusted him so much. I drifted off, dreaming of colorful flowers and a certasin smily face behind them...

Rule №5: People usually aren't what they seem. Even less often are they what others described them to be.