COMING HOME - A Cameron Boyce Love Story

2: are you that somebody?

Ada's nerves were jumping all over the place. She watched as Libby's son carefully put an ice pack on her ankle, immediately shivering as the cold seeped through her thin leggings. The boy chuckled a bit and looked up at her, finding her reaction funny. And she finally got a good look at his face.

She immediately noticed his many freckles, and became intrigued. She had never seen anyone that looked like him before. At least, not in person that is. He looked like one of the models she used to see in windows in the mall as a young teen. He looked like he belonged on a billboard or something.

It wasn't long until she realized that she had been staring down at him and that he was staring up at her. She immediately put her head down, the heat rising in her face and her heart skipping. She still felt his eyes on her, and became uncomfortable. He was probably looking at her busted eye. Or the scratches on her cheekbone. She placed her hand anxiously over the marks.

"I'm going to make some food," Victor announced as he came down the hall from the master bedroom. "Y'all want some lasagna? Or do you still want to order out tonight?"

"Lasagna sounds good, but did you get the tofu yet?" Maya asked.

"Yes, I did, yesterday, I also got..."

Ada found herself drowning out the voices around her. She felt so out of place.

She was excited, to finally be out of the home of torture and somewhere safe. To have the opportunity to be in a new home with an actual family, something she dreamed of for years at that point, was a great feeling. It gave her hope.

But she felt like an intruder.

She felt like she was invading their space, even though she was invited. Like a bomb dropped in on an unsuspecting suburban family who now had to scramble to make room for her.

She felt like a dirty little speck. Sitting on their nice couch with her dirty gray leggings and filthy, falling apart at the seams jean jacket, surrounded by their pretty paintings and plants and the smell of clean linen. Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted when she felt the foot rest she was resting her ankle on move a bit.

"My fault," the boy said as he sat on the edge of it, picking up her ice pack and placing a washcloth underneath it and then gently putting it back down on her ankle before he glanced at her. "There, is it still cold? Is that better?"

She slightly nodded, placing her hands into the sleeves of her jean jacket. Cameron got a bit excited to see her acknowledge his words, even if it was just a nod.

"Do you, uh...," he glanced up at the TV where ESPN was on. "You wanna watch something?"

He watched as she slightly shrugged her shoulders before nodding a bit. He leaned back, reaching for the remote. He flicked through different channels before stopping on VH1, the middle of a Fresh Prince of Bel Air episode playing.

He looked back at her, his eyebrows raised in question of if that was something she wanted to watch. She did her small head nod again, to which he smiled. He found it adorable, the way she flicked her head up as if she was saying "what's up?". He intentionally looked away from her, knowing that his constant stares might frighten her or send her the wrong message. He decided to get up and sit on the other side of the couch. That way he could sneak as many glances at her as he wanted as she watched TV, intrigued by the way she looked.

Dinner and food in general was going to be a hard adjustment for Ada. She found herself having trouble eating. Victor had handed her a plate full of lasagna, and she almost threw up with the idea of eating all of it. She was used to barely eating anything at all. This was thanks to basically living off of Top Ramen everyday for the past two years since she stopped having the opportunity to eat lunch at school since she dropped out. She barely ate through half of the block of the lasagna before sitting her fork down.