Chapter 2

Kayla and I lounged across her bed, nibbling potato chips and watching Gossip Girl re-runs on her sixty-two inch television, something which she had never really appreciated to its full extent. Her room was the complete opposite of mine, almost sterile in its cleanliness without a single item out of place.

Anyone who walked into her room would believe that she had OCD... until you walked into her bathroom, that is. While her room was spotless, her bathroom was strewn with beauty treatments, make-up, and various paraphernalia, which seemed to grow in volume each moment you glanced at it.

The only child to a cardiologist mother and a neurologist father, Kayla rarely saw her parents. In fact, she had been raised almost entirely by her grandmother, whom we both called Nana. Nana had moved in to help raise her granddaughter after her husband tragically died of cancer, something which she was still pretty sensitive about (who could blame her?). Niklos had always maintained that Nana had filled the empty void in her heart with Kayla, and perhaps he was right. In their own way, Nana and Kayla had managed to heal each other, for although she refused to admit it, my best friend was emotionally starved by her parents.

Kayla sighed wistfully, resting her head on her hand. "If only Chuck were real, I swear I wouldn't let him run away from me like Blair did."

I rolled my eyes at her, biting another chip and reveling in the cracking sound it made. "Kay, if he ran away from you, you'd probably chain him to your bed and feed him strawberries and cream until he was either sick or gave up."

She chuckled at that but denied it profusely, but she knew it was true. Kay was a clingy girlfriend at best, probably why she hadn’t had a boyfriend in months. I wasn’t about to tell her my theory, though. She’d completely turn it around and ask why I haven’t had a boyfriend in years.

My last boyfriend moved to Texas with his folks, and long distance just doesn’t work – so I found out when he cheated on me with his new biology partner. Ever since, I hadn’t been able to find a guy who’d even look at me in a romantic way. Not that I’m looking, though.

My cellphone rang, the Macarena blaring loudly from my school bag on the floor. "Hi, Mama." I answered after reading the caller ID.

"Callie, your father and I have to attend an alumnae meeting at the university tonight, and I'm not sure what time we'll be back. I left food from the restaurant in the fridge for you, but there should be more than enough to take over to Kayla's place if you decide to spend the night. Just message me with what's happening. Ok?"

Woah! Mother letting me have some form of independence? Well, independence as long as it involved Kayla and Nana, that is.

"Yes, Mama, I'll ask Nana if it would be an inconvenience first." I replied (mother had trained me well), watching as Kayla mouthed 'please stay'.

"Ok, that's fine. I love you."

"I love you too, Mama. Enjoy the meeting."

I rolled my eyes at Kayla, knowing that she was barely holding back the need to tease me.

"Hi Mama, yes, Mama, I love you too, Mama." Kayla mocked, giggling.

I grabbed a pink, fluffy pillow and launched it at her, successfully managing to tip her off-balance, and she fell off of the bed. Still laughing, she chucked it back at me, crouching on the floor and using furniture as a shield. She missed terribly, and I threw the pillow back at her with all my might, just managing to hit her leg.

“If this was war, you’d be legless.” I informed her, narrowly dodging the pillow.

Callie 1, Kay 0.

A knock on the door interrupted the impending pillow fight, but we still clutched our weapons just in case a surprise attack came.

"Come in!" we called in unison, staring at the door.

Nana entered, wiping her wrinkled hands on an apron tied around her petite waist. She grinned at the two of us and picked up the stray pillow, throwing it gingerly to me. "Callie, my dear, are you going to stay for dinner?" she asked.

She didn’t even react to the pillow fight evidence. Personally, I think she really didn’t care what we did as long as we were having fun and not getting up to mischief.

After asking her for permission to spend the night and informing her of the food my mother had left for us, Kayla and I decided to fetch everything we needed from my place. We climbed into her silver BMW convertible, a gift from her parents in compensation for them not being there on her sixteenth birthday, and drove the few blocks to the relic, which was my home.

My mother's roses were in full bloom, so I picked one for Nana; a deep red one with a touch of pink in the tip of each petal. I stuck it in a glass of water and made a mental note to remember that it was there, placing the dishes of chicken salad and kotopita next to it on the kitchen counter. With that done, we headed upstairs to my room to fetch some clothes for school the next day, as well as the necessities like deodorant.

Kayla's eyes fell on my brother's letter, and she picked it up, slowly running her fingertips over his scrawled writing as she read, laughing whenever she came to the funny parts. I think that she'd had a secret crush on Niklos since we reached puberty, not that I could blame her. My brother was extremely good-looking and alluring to the female kind. At six-foot-three, he was guaranteed to be taller than every woman he came across, but he wasn't the tall, stringy type. The guy had broad shoulders and muscles, which he was proud of. In addition to his attractive body, were his flawless skin, perfectly groomed eyebrows, and pale blue eyes framed by long, pitch black eyelashes,

which made most women green with envy.

"So, how is he enjoying Greece? Had he found a girl who can put up with him yet?" Kayla probed, setting the letter back down and heading to my wardrobe to pick out clothes for me.

I watched as she pulled faces at my clothing, obviously disappointed that her taste of style hadn't rubbed off on me as much as she had thought.

"Nope, last time I spoke to him, he had said that all he's been doing is playing soccer with the locals and attending classes. When I asked if he had found anyone to satisfy the parents with, he had laughed and said that the Greek girls seem to look straight past him and don't even bother to look a second time."

Kayla giggled at that. "I suppose that Greece is covered with guys who look just like him, so there's nothing special in that department there. The poor guy."

Kayla eventually sighed in frustration and yanked a pair of jeans out of my cupboard. "I swear I'm going to burn all of your jeans at some stage. How on earth have you managed to accumulate so many of the blasted things?"

I watched her fold the pair she'd taken out before she placed them into my overnight bag. I gathered the last few essentials before we picked up the food from the kitchen on our way back to her car.

That night, as we sat on her bedroom floor, completing the piles of mathematics homework we had been subjected to, the conversation turned to the new English teacher.

"Mr Peterson is drop-dead gorgeous! At least there will be a reason for us to go to English now." I commented, punching a few figures into my calculator.

"I suppose he's alright, I've seen better." Kayla sounded unlike herself.

"You don't like him, do you?" I probed, hoping to get some more information than what her body language was screaming.

"Well, he's alright, I guess. I just get a strange feeling about him. What do you think of the assignment for this semester?"

I took the hint that she wanted to change the topic and went with it. Kayla wasn't the type of person you pushed for information. The harder you pushed, the quieter she got.

"I have no clue what to do for it. There's no one in my life who really knows about life and death for me to consult. I guess I'm just going to have to think some more about it."

Kayla bolted upright, light flashing in her eyes. "I have an idea! We can ask my dad if he can get us into the hospital as candy-stripers."

"As hospital volunteers? Do you think he could? I mean, it's a brilliant idea 'cause we can gain some community service hours while we're at it, but the hospital are apparently rather sticky about who they accept now days; ever since that time when a crazy volunteer almost stole a baby from the nursery."

"My dad will give us references, and we'll be watched constantly, but at least we get to get our assignment done. The hospital has been short of volunteers since that incident."

The plan killed two birds with one stone, figuratively speaking. Our school demanded that we have a minimum of twenty hours of community service before we graduated. It was their attempt to make sure that we gave back to the community, and it also increased the chances we had of getting into university. Unfortunately, I only had five hours.

"Well, I'm on board if you can get your dad to agree."

A smirk spread across Kayla's face. "Oh, he'll agree, I'll just play the guilt card and say that it's a way for me to spend some time with him and mom. It will also give me a chance to experience what working in a hospital may be like. My parents want me to follow in their footsteps and become a doctor."

She cringed at the thought. It was blatant to all who knew her where her path lay. Design was her life, and she would follow her dreams with or without her parents' approval.