As soon as the door of the elevator opened, I ran to his apartment. I barged in his room, only to be greeted, again, with sloppy lick on my face.

 

 

 

Typical Luke, leaving his door open…

 

 

 

Chapter 1: Meet Luke.

 

 

 

‘Aw man,’ I moaned a bit aggravated. ‘Look what you did Luke. Now I’m covered with your drool…’  But the dog just wagged its tail rapidly and panted showing me its long red tongue, as if seeming happy and innocent. Argh… Stop. I need to control myself before any of this would happen again.

 

Okay, you might think that I’m a bit neurotic here, but I’m actually not. I know that talking to a dog is a thing that only neurotic people do. But, believe me, in my situation here, it’s different, cause this dog understands. Now I sounded more neurotic to you guys, but it’s the truth. I, myself had a hard time believing.

 

I sat in a couch, waiting for him to ‘change’ again. ‘How long will this take you? I still have classes to go to.’ I impatiently waited, rubbing off the excess drool on me made by the innocent one. I have to admit, even though I wanted to leave, I just can’t leave him. You know, worse comes to worst, something bad might happen. I grabbed a towel, the most vital tool in watching him when he’s in that form. You’ll eventually find out later why.

 

Suddenly, a puff of fog filled my eyes; this is the part I hate most, having to get my eyes all watery because of that smoke. Amidst the smoke his face appeared. Grinning.

 

‘Sorry,’ he panted, ‘to keep you waiting.’ I threw the towel without a word. And he wrapped his lower abdomen with it. The sight of him will always leave you breathless, even with me, who must have seen him topless a zillion times. You never get used to his toned abs and tanned skin. 

 

‘S’okay,’ I replied mumbling.  Suddenly he reached out for me, oh God, is-is he, gon’na… kiss me? Wait, not now. What to do? What to do!?

 

He reached out for my hair, ‘You missed a spot,’ he smiled, ‘of my drool.’ I was left there embarrassed. I can’t believe I thought he was going to kiss me. Oh God…

 

‘Don’t you ever ever do that again!’ I sounded like a mad mother.

‘Do what!?’ He is in the verge of laughing, as he sat down casually on the couch opposite where I was sitting.

 

‘Oh, don’t you play dumb with me,’

 

‘Okay, okay, I give up,’ He surrendered, lifting both of his hands up. ‘I will never,’ a stifled laugh escaped out of him, I wanted to stay mad but I couldn’t. A smile crept out of my mouth. ‘-drool over my best friend, Allison Stewart. Better?’

 

‘I think so,’ I joked, ‘Okay, I have to go, I grabbed my bag that was lazily stashed on the floor, ‘I missed calculus…’ I sighed and walked straight outside the open door.

 

‘Man,’ He stood up and followed me towards the door where he leaned. ‘don’t make me feel guiltier, come up later,’

 

‘No thanks, tons to do.’ I had to fight the urge to look at his topless body, it’s not everyday you see topless hot guys talki- hold that thought, did I just say my bestfriend was hot!? No-no-no, imposible, it might just be my rush to go to school, yeah, that’s it.

 

‘Well, see ya’,’ he waved.

 

‘Bye,’ I headed to the elevator, and to the busy street.

 

Okay, maybe you’re wondering how on earth it all started. When I was 10, my aunt moved to the apartment that was vacant next floor of ours. I always saw her, and there was always a boy about my age or maybe 2 years older tagging along.

 

I tried acting friendly and always said ‘hi’ to him, but he always replied by staring at me like I’m someone he wanted to kill. And he will run away.

 

One time, when I’m sure that he isn’t at anywhere my aunt’s apartment, curiosity got the better of me and I asked my aunt if he was her child. At first her expression became hesitant to answer my question, but then her eyes softened. ‘No,’ she replied. Judging by the tone of her voice then, her answer was unfinished.

 

‘Then why do you keep him? Is he an orphan?’ I grew more and more interested with the boy.

 

‘Some things are better left undiscu-‘

 

But her reply was cut when we heard a loud bang, and the door flew open. There revealed a boy with tear-filled eyes. And then he ran. Of course I ran after him, along with my aunt.

 

While my aunt was searching somewhere asking people along the streets if they saw a boy with dark messy brown hair crying, I decided to go to the place where anyone my age would go. Playground.

 

There, I saw him crying at the back where he was excluded from the sight of every kid on that playground. His eyes began to fill with anger.

 

‘Why are you here?’ He demanded it almost sounded funny when he said it because of the hiccups that followed every word.

 

‘Uh, I just want you to know that Aunt Mary is very worried,’ I said taking a step forward. ‘let’s go back.’

 

‘No, why do you care?! Why don’t you just mind your own business?!’ He shouted, ‘you keep on minding other people’s business and ruin their life.’ We are now standing face to face a good 3 feet between us.

 

Of course, me, being ten and all, ‘Alli don’t!’ Someone shouted at my back, my temper got the best of me. ‘Who are you t-‘

 

Suddenly, my eyes were filled with fog. A second later I opened them and the boy was gone.

 

I turned to look at that person who shouted my name a while ago, it was Aunt Mary.

 

‘Aunt Mary, h-he’s gone! He’s disappeared!’ I felt really really bad.

 

‘It finally came out.’ She murmured something under her voice that I could not understand. ‘No, he didn’t disappear.’

 

I didn’t know what reaction my face showed, one thing for sure then, my aunt isn’t in her mind right now, it can’t be that he’s still here, cause in front of me was just a small brown puppy, unless….

 

‘No way,’ My eyes widened with shock.