Melanie Wicker
I told Burton that Karen knew about us. He was mad about it. He was afraid that Max would know about me cheating on him. He was afraid that Max is going to tell the others about his secret. Yeah, he told me about his secrets too. About how much money he stole from the school football team. He’s gonna be in BIG trouble when people finds out about it. But I won’t tell anyone about it because I really like Burton.

Chapter Nine
Day Five: I was aware that on that day was going to be our last day together, sticking to our pact. Five days before, Clay and I were like ordinary people talking to each other. But now, my tongue is strong enough to call him my friend. One of my good friends. I ran downstairs and I was surprised to see Clay sitting at our dining table, talking to my mom.
“Clay? What are you doing here? You’re early.” I was in my pajama, smelling all smelly and technically I haven’t taken a shower. Or brush my teeth.
Clay and mom both laughed and continued their conversation, probably talking about politics. I ran upstairs, took a shower, getting ready, thinking, what the hell is he thinking????
I hopped in his car and didn’t say anything. He didn’t say anything too. But I couldn’t stand the silence and yelled at him, “What were you thinking?????”
“What???? Did I do anything wrong????” Clay acted all in innocence.
“What were you thinking going in my house??? Kelly saw you and I’m very sure that she’s gonna tell Dolly about it!” I yelled.
He rubbed his wavy hair and said, “You mean, Kelly your sister? Well, who cares? If Dolly wanna break up with me I’ll be pleasant and if she wanna mess up with you, I’ll be there to protect you, I promise, okay? ”
This time, I rubbed my hair with question marks on my face. “Are you serious??? Oh my God, Clay! What’s wrong with you??? I’m not kidding about this stuff….”
“Neither do I, Al.” Clay laughed, “I don’t wanna care anymore about Dolly. She’s just a pain in the ass.”
I didn’t say anything. I just let him mumbled about Dolly. Maybe they both are in a fight, I thought.

I sat on Clay’s bed and waited for him. Then, there he was, with a statue on his hand. He winked his eyes and placed the statue right in front of me.
“What is this, Clay?” I asked and rolled my eyes.
“Okay, let me ask you something. Are you a good kisser?” he asked.
“What?!”
“Yeah, that’s my question. Are you a good kisser?”
“What are you talking about? Well, technically, I’ve only been kissed by Ben and that was when we were kids. So, technically, no, I’m not a good kisser. But what’s your point?”
Clay rested his head on the statue’s shoulder and said, “Today’s lesson. Kiss.”
Hahah. Kiss. It’s true, I’ve never had a real kiss before. Was quite disappointed that I had to kiss the statue instead of Clay at the moment.
“No, Clay. This is stupid. I don’t want to kiss a statue, its stupid!” I disagreed. But somehow Clay managed to change my mind by saying, “Listen. I just wanna help you out here. What if Ben kisses you on that night, at prom? And you have completely no idea what to do? What will you do? I thought that you wanna give Ben a chance. Well, here’s your chance. By the way, the statue’s skin is like, human skin. Here, touch it.” I listened to him.
“To make this less awkward, let’s just close your eyes. Here.” Clay covered my eyes with a cloth. It was a stupid idea, I admit.
Clay held my head, buried his hands in my hair and slowly leaned the statue towards me, I assumed, because I couldn’t see anything. And then…… our lips met.
Well, the statue and I. The weird thing was that I was feeling nervous. My heart couldn’t stop beating. My hands were shaking. My palms turned wet. I couldn’t breathe. Is this Clay? Is this Clay kissing me? I stopped the kiss and took the cloth off of my eyes…. Gah! It was not Clay. It was definitely the statue pressing its lips against mine. The effin statue!
“This is stupid! I’m done with this, Clay!” I said and I was pissed off because Clay couldn’t stop laughing. He was like, rolling on his bed, laughing hard, ah! Who am I kidding? Clay’s a jerk!
Since Clay’s parents were still on their honeymoon, I hanged out at his house a little bit longer. We stayed up, talking about lots of stuff. All kind of stuff. “I’m….. I’m gonna tell you why I cried on that night.” I finally decided to tell him. He nodded his head, waiting for me to continue. I went on, “My dad……… left us. One day, he took all of our money and ran away with a woman, much younger than my mom.” My eyes started to turn rheumy. I stopped from talking for awhile, just to get myself back on track and continued, “I remember, on the night he left, he hit my mom for the first time. He left bruises on her, right here, on her left eye and her shoulders. And you know what Clay?” My tears started to fall. “I don’t know where he is right now! He just disappeared and left us living in this f*****g misery life, oh God!” I cried. I could feel the pain in my heart, it hurts so much. I hate to think about dad. He just makes me cry and I hate crying.
Clay wiped my tears and held my hand. He looked into my eyes and asked, “Can I ask you something, Al?”
I nodded and he asked, “What makes you decided to tell me about your father?”
I stared into his eyes and thought about the reason. I was not sure why too. I was not sure why I told him. I never tell anyone about it. Not even Ben. Not even Stace.
“Maybe because I’m starting to trust you.” I told him.
Clay blushed. He smiled and said “Listen, you have to forget about him. You have to move on. Maybe he’ll come back one day. Who knows he’ll turn out to be someone better?” Clay stroked my hair and pulled me into his arm, comforting me to stop me from crying. I didn’t want to break it. I love to be in his arm. I felt safe and it felt like home.
When I was in his arm, I could feel that my heart was beating incredibly so fast. I pulled myself away from him because I was feeling quite nervous at the moment. He looked at me, directly into my eyes. He did the ‘question mark’ face. But my heart was still beating so fast. Hey, what is this feeling?! Stop! It hurts so much.
“Don’t stare at me too much, Al. Or not you’ll fall for me.” Clay suddenly said. I blinked my eyes twice and said, “Well, don’t stare at me too much Cabot. You’ll be surprise to see yourself wanting me so bad.”
We both laughed. Technically, rolling on his bed laughing so hard. It was like…. LOL or something.
Clay drove me home, again. We were having such great time. “See you tomorrow, Clay. At prom. I know that tomorrow is going to be a bad day for you, with having Dolly around. But don’t worry, Clay. Her boobs are great. They’ll keep you out from the misery,” I joked and hopped out of the car. He rested his head on the steering, trying to stop laughing. Probably thinking about Dolly’s breasts.
“Promised me one thing,” he went on, “You’ll dance with me tomorrow. Just one song.”
“Of course, Clay.” I promised.
“One more thing, Al. I’m sure Ben will fall for you, don’t you worry. And I promised you before. That I’ll turn you into someone that anyone in this world would die for just to have a date to the prom with you. Ben will love you. And I’m sure he’s the right guy for you.” Clay suddenly said. I looked at him and found myself thinking about something, totally the opposite. I want Clay to be that guy, not Ben. He drove home, without knowing that he gave me the realization that I’ve fallen for him.


Clayton Cabot
I know, today is going to be the last day I’ll ever get the chance to spend my time with Al. Because by tomorrow, I’ll stop loving her. By tomorrow, I’ll be sure that she’s not gonna be mine. And I did something beyond me today. I kissed Al. Yes, I did. But she thought that she was kissing the statue, I’ll never let that happen. Hahah. I couldn’t stop laughing when I think about it. God, it was the happiest day of my life.

Karen Parkman
I was accepted in the cheerleaders by Dolly mainly because I was blonde. I have no talent in dancing, whatsoever. Dolly never knows about my life where I live in a poor environment, clearly I’m not rich. Sometimes, I have to act like I’m a rich girl and pretended to be someone I’m not. Doing all that just to fit in. Just to be popular. My mom would have sex with different guys just for money. You can say that she’s a whore. But most of her clients are rich people. More to like a high-class whore. No one knows about it except for Mel. So far, she never tells anyone about my secrets. She’s a great friend. Well, let’s just hope she won’t tell anyone about it.

Chapter 8
I ran to Ben after class and he was with a girl, somehow. The girl was wearing a cute blue blouse and she looked adorable. I’ve never seen her before. Maybe she’s new, I thought. She has this Latina innocence face that will make you smile every time you look at her. When she saw me, she suddenly jumped and hugged me, yelling for my name. “I’m Roxy! Roxanne Garcia!” she said. I jumped too when I heard her name. Roxy and I had been friends since forever but we’ve never seen each other before, but emailing each others for years. “Ben told me. You’re his friend! I cannot believe it’s you!” said Roxy. Roxy is incredibly cute. She may have a little problem with her English but her Spanish accent is definitely sexy. I envied her!
What I realized about Ben and Roxy was that, they both looked cute together. Ben looks a little like an Eurasian, but he’s definitely not Asian and Roxy looks more to a Latina kind of girl, and she definitely looks like Jessica Alba. She’s so sweet!!!!

Day three: “Let’s go look for your dress! This is my favourite part.” said Clay. We were at the shopping mall and he brought me to the one of the finest dresses shop. He browsed through, looking for my dress and I was amazed that Clay is good in this dress stuff. Maybe Clay has a little gay-feeling inside of him, I joked to myself.

“You’re good at this kind of stuff, Clay. You’re a true….” Before I could finish my sentence, Clay interrupted by saying, “guy… I know. I am a true guy. If you’re gonna say gay, Al, I’ll never forgive you.” I grinned and said, “Okay, I won’t say anything.”

Clay pulled out a red dress and gave it to me. “Try this on.” He said. “Nah! It’s too slutty. It has the hey-boy-I’ll-be-your-one-nightstand attitude. I don’t wanna show off my cleavage!” Clay raised his eyebrows and asked, “You’re mocking Dolly, aren’t you? Well, whatever, like I care.”
“Why won’t you care? I mean, she’s your girlfriend, right?”
“I just…. don’t….” he shook his head and continued browsing.
“Just… out of curiosity, why did you decide to date her in the first place, anyway? Was it because of her boobs?”
“No…”
“Because she’s popular?”
“No….”
“Her money???”
“Look… It’s none of your business, okay?!” Clay snapped. He looked angry but more to like a soft one. It was like, no matter how mad he was to me, I’ll never get offended. But I just acted like he did offend me and just stared at the floor. He turned to me, feeling guilty. “I’m sorry, Al.” he went on, “I just… don’t ever wanna talk about it. Having Dolly around is pathetically boring enough to spoil my mood and I just wanna have a great time with you today. What do you say, Al? Not to mention Dolly’s name ever again?”
I looked at him and smiled, “I understand. Okay, I won’t say her name ever again.”

DOLLY! DOLLY! DOLLY! DOLLY! DOLLY! DOLLY!

“Good….” Clay mumbled. “Here, try this dress on. This is definitely the perfect one.” He passed a gorgeous black dress, a perfect one for prom, a dress that any girl would kill to have it. WTF! It’s incredibly expan-freakin-sive!

I went to the fitting room and tried the dress on. I was still thinking about Dolly. Why did Clay dated her in the first place? Is it because of the money? He looked angry when I brought up about the money issue. Yeah, it’s definitely about the money.

I stepped out from the fitting room, looking all classy, I admit. Clay looked at me and gulped. Saw his Adam’s apple moving up and down his throat. He just stood there with his hands in his pockets and stared at me, without saying anything.
“Is it okay? Or is it too sexy?” I hesitated.
“You....look…” Clay stopped. “You look beautiful.” said Clay with a smile.
I came to him and fixed the collar of his shirt, since he was not wearing any tie. “Aww… Thanks Clay. No one had ever said that to me before.”
Clay laughed. “Aww…. You’re so sweet! You remember what I told you…” he pinched my nose and did his cute-but-not face.
And you wanna know what? He paid the dress for me.
But I paid him back.
And he paid me back.
And I paid him back.
On and on and….. on.

“Now, you’re gonna need a haircut.” said Clay. I gasped and looked at him. “No! not going to cut it. Having long hair is so much better, Clay.” He grabbed my hand, forcing me to see his hairstylist. Yeah, he has a hairstylist. I mean, how cool is that?!

“Hey, Chuckie my man!” Clay greeted a guy, his hairstylist, I assumed. Chuckie has the weirdest hair where he coloured his whole hair pink and braided his front hair. Yeah, he’s definitely gay, I thought.
“Chuckie’s gonna make your hair straight, Al.” Clay told me.
“Yes, your face is small. So you’re gonna have to live with a straight hair, I’m telling ya!” Chuckie explained.
I looked at Clay and did my puppy-eyes. “No, Clay! I’m cursed!”
“What?”
“Yeah, every time my friends started to straighten their hairs, I kept on losing them as my best friends, you know. And I’m not kidding about this shit. I mean, look at Stace. Look at her hair, looking all straight and ended up fighting with me.”
“Are you kidding me, honey?” Chuckie trying to get in the way.
“I’m not kidding here, honey!” I answered him back.
Chuckie looked at me and raised a pair of wide eyes and said, “Yeah, you’re right. She’s right, Clay. She’ll look better in a curly hair. But I’m just gonna make it curly yet not too curly.”
He grabbed my arm and pulled me to his chair and started to wrap cloth on my body and stuff. He applied some stuff on my hair, apparently didn’t smell so good. It smelled like shit! And started to perm my hair. Chuckie started to sing one of my favourite song, Clumsy by Fergie. That was when I started to fall asleep.

When I saw my hair, there was only one word popped out in my head. AMAZING. It was freaking amazing. Chuckie is like THE BEST hairstylist ever. Clay stood behind me as I stared at myself in the mirror. He touched my wavy hair and said, “I hate to admit this but you really look like Avril,” he went on, “but…. A much prettier version of her.” I looked at him and smiled. Hahah! He didn’t have to praise me that much. But yeah! I sure look like Avril…

Day Four: Clay brought me to a house, but I didn’t know whose it was. I stepped out from the car and walked to the porch. The house was beautiful. It was like white houses. Slightly small though.

“It’s my aunt’s. Her name is BayGee. You gotta meet her, she’s amazing. Much better than my mom. Fun Aunt BayGee!” Clay mumbled.
I tried to run to the car and just escape from meeting fun Aunt BayGee but Clay managed to stop me from running. He grabbed my hand and quickly wrapped his arm around my neck. He knocked the door and there she was, fun Aunt BayGee, standing in front of us, slurping a glass of margarita.
“New girlfriend ei, Clay?” she asked. She has this seductive voice that would make any man fall for her. She is just so classy, glamorous and yeah, Clay was right. She’s amazing.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Aunt BayGee. But I’m still with Dolly,” said Clay.
“When are you gonna dump that bitch? Every time she looks at me she’s gonna say “Oh Bay! You look awesome! Gain weight?” with her pathetic little face,” and she whispered to me, “Dolly is such a bitch…” She punched Clay’s shoulder and asked, “But who is this, Clay? She’s pretty…”
“Oh, the reason that brought us here is that I’m gonna need you to teach Al about some stuff. About all the makeup’s and stuff. ” Clay explained to Aunt BayGee.
“Al, you just have fun here, okay? I’m gonna go somewhere else” Clay said and walked away. She pulled my hand and brought me to her room. Her room is like heaven! Huge closet with makeup’s lying around everywhere, but neatly. There was this one box of green eyeliners, blue, black and more. Sets of different colours of eye shadows. And the lipsticks… lots of them. That woman is glamorous!
“Since that Clay is not experience in this kind of stuff, well he’s not gay anyway, you can’t blame him. I’m gonna be taking over his place. It’s all about me and you today, yeay!” She hugged me. I just couldn’t stop laughing.

She took the black eyeliner and drew in on my eyelids. She did it so fast yet so neat. “You have such nice skin, Al. That’s why I’m not gonna be applying any foundation on your skin. Being natural…. Is perfect, you know what I mean?”
She taught me, “When you draw on your eyelids using eyeliner, better not too thick, honey. You don’t wanna look like some emo kid trying to get some attention.”
“And when you put lipsticks on your lips, you don’t just completely put it on. You’re gonna have to draw the perfect shape, you know.”
“If you can’t stand the brush, you can just use your own fingers. Fingers are the best brushes of all.”

And I did learn a lot. A LOT. I was not expose to these kind of stuff since I was a little girl, imagine how lame I look like when Aunt BayGee asked me, “Did you ever apply any makeup’s on your face?” Imagine……

Aunt BayGee thrust two tickets in my hand and said, “I know how much you love Avril Lavigne. Here are the tickets to her concert next weekend. Do bother to bring Clay with you, okay honey? I can see how much you mean to him.”
“No, Aunt BayGee! This is too much.” I disagreed because I know that the tickets cost a lot of money.
“No-no. Please… accept this. I’m not going anyway; you might as well just use the tickets.” She mumbled. I looked at her, nodded and thought, Yeah, maybe I should just ask Clay to the concert. He had been a great friend.

Max Hidedross
Mel is my girlfriend, but I’m in love with Stacy Maidren. Yeah, Ally Filter’s best friend. I am aware that Stace is in love with Clay now. I mean, who wouldn’t. That guy is like…. ‘The Man’. If I could be somebody else in one day, I would choose to be Clay. I mean, seriously? That dude live in the life of heaven. He’s loaded, dating Dolly, a hottie, and he’s the everything. I mean, I hate him for being Clay and not appreciating himself as Clayton Cabot.

Chapter 7

Still on day two: Clay left me hanging around in his room and left for about 20 minutes. His parents weren’t in the house. They went for their fourth honeymoon. Such a lovely couple. My parents never even go for a second honeymoon.
When I think about my father, I could feel the pain in my heart. It hurts so much. Felt like somebody stab on it, constantly. When I was a little girl I always wondered what it feels like to have a father. To have somebody comforting you when you are afraid of the sound of the thunder. Or somebody to teach you to ride a bike. I never blame my mom for not being there for us. She had to work 24/7 for the money and she didn’t have much time to keep us company. You can say that, I’m living in a loveless world. Less love given by my mother. No love given by my father. Loveless world. I’m amazed that I could manage giving fake smiles to my friends these years. Everyday, I went to school, laughing my asses off, went back home, and cried to myself.
“Think you could fit in this high heel?” Clay suddenly asked. I quickly wiped the tears flowing from my eyes and nodded. Yes, I was crying. I didn’t want to cry but every time I think about my father, I never have the energy to stop the tears from flowing. I stood up from Clay’s bed, not facing him. Still thinking and trying to find a way to cover up my rheumy eyes. Technically, it’s never easy to hide your red-coloured eyes. I could hear his footsteps coming near me. “What’s wrong, Al?” he asked, softly. I looked at him, trying to look all happy and asked, “Where you get THAT from?” I pointed at the black high heel. “Oh, it’s…. Dolly’s. I went to her house and took it. Don’t worry, she won’t know about it. Dolly only wore this once. She’s too rich to even wear it twice. She would just buy a new one.” I nodded. Clay didn’t even bother to ask me about why I was crying. It was like; he didn’t even wanna care about me. I was like….. nothing to him.

Clay took my hands and placed it on his shoulder. I pulled away. “I can’t dance…. I…. never even dance. Plus, with the heel.” He didn’t care. He took my hands and placed it back. The radio was playing one of my favourite songs, I’ll be by Edwin McCain. “Then, let this be your first dance then. It’s okay, Al. I’ll lead.” Clay mumbled.
He slowly touched my waist, holding it softly with his nice and warm fingers. Chills raced through me. He slowly moved, step by step and before I could realize it, I was actually dancing with him. My body was so close to him, a distance of five centimeters to his. We looked into each others eyes. He was so charming. So extremely charming that I could not take my eyes off him. He has the perfect jaw, the kind of jaw that I would love to place my fingers on. His nose and…… lips. I would give up everything just to kiss those sensual lips. God, he is the perfect creation by God.
My heart skipped a beat when he slowly pulled me to him. Our cheeks touched and I felt like I was electrified when he placed his chin on my shoulder. I couldn’t catch my breath at the moment. And I could tell that Clay couldn’t too. I wrapped my arm around him, and slowly laid my head on his shoulder and danced to the song. I felt comfortable with him. It was my first time dancing with a guy and I was actually enjoying it. Enjoying every single step and touch. It was like heaven. Wonderfully like heaven.
He faced his face to me and smiled. Even with that light smile he sent shivers down my spine. He slowly touched my face with his right hand and my neck with his left hand. He slowly leaned his face towards mine. Is this it? Is this going to be my first kiss with Clay? Am I in love with him? Am I in love with Clayton Cabot? I asked myself at that very moment. I slowly closed my eyes, waiting for his lips to touch mine. Maybe when he kisses me, I could find the answers for my questions.
“You need to practice more on your steps. You’re a little clumsy, Ally.” Clay suddenly said and pinched my cheeks. I just stood there, speechless.
“No wait! Were you thinking that I was going to kiss you?” Clay asked sarcastically, holding his breath from laughing. I faked a laugh and protected myself from drowning into the shameful moment, “No, asshole! I was counting my steps. What makes you think that I was waiting for your kiss? I was holding my breath from smelling your smelly breath!” Clay didn’t continue to laugh. In your face, Cabot! I laughed to myself.
“And please…. Please don’t talk too loud. And you might not wanna mention the word asshole anymore. It’s beauty suicide.” Clay shot his bullets-words to me. He might be thinking, In your face Filter!

Clay drove me home that night. He tried to cheer me up by bringing up weird subjects in our conversation. “We’re one of the winners. One of the sperm survival.” He said. I looked at him and rolled my eyes. Well, yeah, I was still mad at him for treating me like shit. Like I was being a slut or something. But I couldn’t lie to myself that at the moment we were dancing, I was drowning into Clayton Cabot’s world. I was being a slut because Clay’s not single. He’s Dolly Maggien’s boyfriend. I was such a slut for wanting him to kiss me. No one could blame me, Clay’s a hottie. Clay asked me, “Before you go back in, can I ask you something? Why were crying actually, before?” Finally! He does care about me, I thought. I looked at him and gave him a light smile, the kind of smile that I barely give to anyone and walked in to my house leaving him waiting for my answer.

Mom was sitting in the living room, apparently, crying. “Mom! What’s wrong?” I ran to her and hugged her. She was trying to hold her tears and tried to say something, but I couldn’t understand of what she was trying to say. “Your sister, Kelly. She….” I wiped the tears running down her cheeks. “Kelly…. She….. She ran away…”
“What?!” Wha…Wha…Why?...” I couldn’t believe of what she told me. It was for the first time in Kelly’s life she ran away from home. Apparently, mom and Kelly had a fight while I was hanging out with Clay. Kelly told mom that I was a lesbian. Mom was trying to protect me and that hurt Kelly.
I quickly ran out and saw Ben was sitting at his porch in a robe, reading a magazine. “Saw my sister, Ben?” I asked.
“Well, yeah. She told me she’s going to meet her ‘true’ sister. She even yelled at me, and I’m not sure why. What’s that suppose to mean?” Ben asked.
Dolly! That bitch popped out in my head. Kelly must be with Dolly now. Kelly used to tell me that she rather have Dolly as her sister. That she ashamed to have ME as her sister.
So there I was, knocking on the door, preparing to face my greatest nightmare, Dollien Maggien.
“What are you doing here?” Dolly asked, sarcastically. She was wearing a ‘sexy’ black nightgown with makeup on her face. Is she with Clay now? Are they going to spend the night together? Why would she dress up at night? Freak, I thought.
“Where’s my sister?” I asked, tiredly. Dolly came near me and did her evil-whispery-voice saying, “Are you kidding me? You’re here, in the middle of the night, out of nowhere, disturbing me from my sleep, just to ask me… where’s your sister??? She’s not here!!!! Now go back to where you belong!” she yelled. She was trying to make a statement that she was rich and I was not. “What are you doing here, Al?” Kelly suddenly appeared behind Dolly. I was right. Kelly was there. As a sister, I could sense that she was there from the very beginning. I took her hand and pulled her out. She shoved me. It hurts, not externally but internally.
“Kelly, mom’s waiting for you. Please,” I begged, “Please consider her feelings.” I could feel that Kelly was thinking about dad. About how our life had been since dad left. I took her hand once more. This time, she didn’t shove me. We went back home, holding hands. Another hope grew in me. A hope that she would love me back.
Desperation occurred in me. Why did Dolly dressed up in her slut-nightgown? Are they seeing each other tonight? Are they going to sleep together tonight? Did they ever sleep together? Some say Clay’s a virgin, but really? I picked up the phone and dialed.
“Hello?” Clay answered.
“Clay… Um… It’s Al.”
Clay laughed. “The world is going to end!” he said.
“What??!”
“Why? This sudden call? You never call me,” Clay asked curiously but sarcastically.
“Well, whatever, Clay! I was about to ask you something but you’re acting like a jerk now! Whatever!” I hung up. Yes I did. Thank God he was acting like a jerk. Or else what could I say to him because I really didn’t have anything to ask. When you’re desperate, yeah…. You’ll do anything. But it was worth it. At least I got to know that Clay was not spending his night with Dolly.
I jumped to my bed, placing my head on the pillow thinking, what is this? What is this feeling? I couldn’t help but smile when I think about Clay. The guy that used to be in my I-hate-you list.
I haven’t been smiling for years, but I’m smiling right now, just because of Clay, I thought. I took a look at Ben’s room. He was there looking at me, but he was not smiling. “You’re smiling.” He suddenly said, “And why is that?” I looked at him and just smiled. “Apparently, Ben. I was not sure why, too.”