My life right now could be described as perfect; I have the most amazing guy, family, friends, even career. But, I remember it all didn’t used to be like this. It was almost five years ago to be exact, I was 17 in my senior year of high school. Thinking of this brings all the memories back to me like it was yesterday…






It wasn’t even 6’oclock and my alarm started buzzing, the sun wasn’t out, and I couldn’t hear anyone awake either. But, if I was going to be on time to my first day of school, I would need to get up and moving, fast. So, I jumped out of my wonderful soft bed, walked across the hall to the bathroom me and my little sister share, dumped my clothes, and took a hot shower. Once I got out, I walked back to my room. Now, the search was on, for that first outfit I was going to wear. Ugh, this is what I hated about high school everyone was so judgmental. I mean, if you showed up in khakis and a polo shirt, people would call you nerdy. Wear, a cheerleading outfit, and you’d be a snob. But, in my case I’m neither of those. As some people would call it, a “plain Jane”.

I grew up being told by my mother and father, that I was their beautiful little girl, and was going to have plenty of guys fluttering around me. But at the time, being my little self, the thought made me wince. Boys were gross, weren’t they? All they did was run around and pulled out girls braids. Lucky for me, I was smart. I always hid behind the big old oak tree, which was located in the very far back corner of our playground. Boys were mean, gave you weird looks and giggled at you with their friends. But, I believed my mom and dad, thought I was going to grow up being the center of the world. I guess they lied. How could they?

Finally after maybe ten million times of changing I ended up wearing a black dress with lace at the bottom. I might get yelled at by the administrator or someone but, I don’t care. That’s my new motto this year; don’t care. I’m tired of being too stressed out over grades, people, family, church, and all that other junk. I’m gonna be carefree, an independent young woman. My hair was just brushed through a couple of times, it’s jet black (which I hate) and wavy.

I finally got to the point where I could go downstairs and eat a chocolate pop tart, (which I eat every morning) and had a glass of milk. My little sister Lindsay was up and moving as it was going to be her freshman year, so (yay) for me I get to drive her to school in my stupid black 97’ Ford mustang.

While waiting in my car for Lin to come out so we could leave I saw our neighbor, he was leaning against his motorcycle twirling his keys with his finger. I didn’t understand why he sometimes just stood there and looked off into space. But, oh how cute he was. Just only maybe the hottest guy in school, tall blonde shaggy hair, played football. He was like a god, walking around a small little town full of snobby people. Me, id call him cocky they way he always held his head high, and walked around with attitude.

It was his brother that really stood out, but of course he was off in his first year of college at Harvard. Bummer huh? He was so unlike his younger brother Hans. Still very tall, but had curly black hair, that I would refer to as wild. He was very smart, AP classes all throughout his high school. The best thing about him was those big blue round eyes, goodness they were gorgeous. Yeah, so you see I get into a trance whenever I think about him. Here comes Lin finally walking down the side walk…

When I drove up into the school parking lot, it was empty. How odd, usually very crowded with everyone’s vehicles and people standing out talking. It was 7:45 exactly; school starts at 8:00. I drove around the parking lot to the back where the buses are, and didn’t see any. Okay, so now this is getting weird. Where is everybody?
“Lin are you sure we have school today?” I asked with a sigh.

She replied “Umm, I dunno why wouldn’t we?”

“How would I know, jeez that’s why I was asking you. Common sense, I mean really” I said very sarcastically. I always hated Lin’s stupid remarks. She was always immature. This got old pretty quick.

Lin then said smiling “Ha-ha, I got you Laila! School was closed today because the new principle died in a wreck or something last night.” Wow she was really getting annoying. I freaking got up at 6 just so I could drive all the way up here and see that school was closed.

“What do you want Lin?” I bit my lip, uh oh.

“Ohhh, please! Can we go to the mall? Please!” she kept asking with big begging eyes.

“No, you know I hate the mall, now were going home. So, I can go back to sleep and you can stop bugging me.


Later that day, I was outside swinging on the porch swing listening to my favorite song “The time of my life” and saw Hans working out in his garage. He’s been out there a lot recently, I didn’t know why either. All I could hear was a clank clank noise, which was possibly made with metal banging. And so, with my new carefree attitude, I decided to walk across our front yard and into his. I walked up to the little garage side door, and knocked softly.

“Mom! Can you please just leave me alone! I don’t care if Ash called 40 times today!” Hans said in a very irritated voice.

“Oh no! Sorry Hans, it’s me Laila” I said swiftly.

“Sorry bout’ that Laila, come on in.” Hans said while he opened the door.

“Aha, thanks” I said with a smile. So I walk into the door and I see this old dodge truck, it looked like he was working on.

“So, what’s up?” Hans said questiongly.

“Sorry, I came over to see what you were doing in here” I said.

“I see, well im remolding this old truck my dad got me for my birthday since I love working with trucks.” Hans informed me. He was looking at me with those same eyes his older brother Adrian has. I almost kept starring into them until for half a second I realized I needed to reply.

“Whoa, that’s so cool! Who taught you how to do all this?” I said quickly.


“Hmm, well it’s sort of a long story…” Hans said, while he turned around, walked towards the mini refrigerator in the corner of the room. I could see dust everywhere, engine parts, oil, grease, yuck. He reached down into the fridge and got two cokes.

“Want one?” he asked.

“Sure, thanks!” I said with a grin. God, he was so hot. I wonder why he was talking about Ash earlier, maybe they broke up. Last I knew they were like the cutest couple in school. Been dating for years. Guess they broke up recently over the summer, how weird. It’d been about a minute before he said anything else. But, I took the coke from his hands, popped the lid, and took a sip.

“Uhm, so what was with the whole Ash thing you were mentioning earlier?”

“Well, Ash and I broke up two weeks ago. Cuz’ she cheated on me with that Jr. Tony Steamens guy. Turns out she’s been calling the house 24/7 asking my mom to get me to take her back.” He said with an eye roll.

“Are you going to?” I asked curiously.

“Going to what?” he asked confused.

“Take her back.” I said bluntly.

“Oh, got’cha; I really don’t know. I liked her and all, maybe even loved, but when she turns around and breaks everything we have…” he then turned around facing the wall.

“Hey, you don’t have to talk about it, it’s okay.” I said, hoping he’d still keep talking about how much he hated her. I was really falling for him. It’s not like I’ve never noticed or had a crush on him before.

“Yeah, I have a bunch of stuff to sort through. Hopefully it won’t be that difficult.” He paused, then grinned at me and said, “Hey, I just realized we haven’t talked since…” Hans said as he starred at the floor.

“Oh my gosh Laila! I’m so sorry I shouldn’t have mentioned that!” He said still starring at the floor with a frown.

In that moment I felt my stomach drop, and my eyes started to water. “It’s okay.” I said with a sniff.

Of course he hadn’t forgotten; nobody did. That one stupid, careless night…



Hans interrupted my train of thought when he took a step forward and touched my arm. “Laila, I am so sorry, it’s just…I’ve missed you so much. Every day I have some moment where I remember us as kids running around in Old McGregg’s pasture chasing the cows. Or, when we were just hanging out at your house, laughing at Lin dancing to her game. I miss that, I miss us.” Hans said as he leaned closer to hug me.


At that very instant moment when I felt his arms embracing me, all those years of holding the pain inside finally released. I started to sob, I couldn’t believe after all these years I had held that one night inside and had not released the pain. I missed Hans too, but I didn’t know how to tell him that. I was stuck, inside a thick wall that would not allow my emotions to surface. My father was the only person that ever really understood me. And watching him die was the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced. What hurts the most is that I was the cause for his death…

Only a few seconds had passed while being hugged by Hans when he said “Laila, come back to my life, please?” He said with a sigh.

I squeezed my eyes shut, and said “Okay”.

He then released me, wiped away my tears, looked into my eyes and grinned. “Thanks LayLay!”


Later that night while I was getting ready for bed I heard the doorbell ring as I was in my towel walking to my room. I froze, and decided to walk downstairs and see who it was. I was the only one home. Mom and Dad went to watch Max’s first karate class while Lin was at her boyfriend’s house. As I walked down the stairs I could see the dim porch light and a human shadow standing in front the door. When I reached the bottom step and walked to the door Mailo (our Yorkie) came running to me. I shooed her away and unlocked the door slowly.

It was Hans holding my silver charm bracelet. “Hey! Oh! Woah! Um, sorry!” He said while he jumped back into the darkness.

“It’s okay, at least I have a towel on, ha-ha.” I said with a smirk.

“Well, yeah... right. So anyways I think your bracelet fell off or something because I found it in my garage.” He replied quickly

“Ohmygod! Thank you so much! Can I go get dressed really quick and we can talk?” I said hoping he would say yes. There was a long pause as I was standing in the doorway with my towel.

“Yes.” He finally whispered, with a sigh.


As soon as he replied, I ran back up the stairs to my room and shut the door. My clothes were everywhere! Piled all on my bed, the dresser, even on the floor! How was I going to find anything? Well, actually what was I looking for? My Nike shorts and my favorite Under-Amour hoodie. When I spotted my shorts, I snatched them off the floor, slipped them on and continued to look for my hoodie, while I combed through my soaking wet hair. I was going crazy, my heart was beating at a very fast pace, and I felt very nervous. Why? Because, I like him? NO! I couldn’t… especially after…


I found my hoodie scattered on my bed with all the other shirts, pulled it over my head, and headed back downstairs. He was still waiting outside the door, so I finally took a deep breath, opened the door, and invited him inside.