Half My Heart

1) Owen

Alaina Nova always wore a necklace around her neck - a golden chain link with a glassy pink obsidian heart necklace attached to it. If you looked close enough, you could see a crack running through the middle of the heart.

Not that she'd let anybody get close to her, of course. I simply had the good misfortune of tripping over her leg and pulling her down with me onto the ground last year in gym class. We were on the same team for volleyball and I jumped in front of her trying to serve the ball across the net before it fell on the ground. She just stood there like a deer in headlights doing nothing and she was gonna let our team lose!

It's like she's never played volleyball! You'd think people in California would know how to play considering they live on the freaking coast! It's been 2 years since she came to live with the Rybny family and she still hasn't gotten the sport down. The only sport she is remotely good at is swimming which luckily helped our small failing team get to regionals.

I guess she's not all bad, but she's certainly an enigma. Her eyes are blue, but a striking shade of violet and her pale skin is surprisingly clear without a hint of acne. If I didn't know any better at first glance, I'd say she was one of the vampires from "Twilight" with the cold aloof attitude and the inhumanly good looks. Except, a vampire doesn't suck at sports, so that theory is out.

Yesterday, we were playing volleyball again and I had the amazing pleasure of having this volleyball goddess on my team. We ended up staying after class doing 30 push ups under the watchful eye of our coach and the winner of the game, Ivan Rybny, who decided to do the push ups with us even though he won. Apparently it's some kind of supportive boyfriend act to cheer up Alaina and it's annoying.

"You know you don't have to do everything together right? You can let her do her push-ups on her own and relax considering you won."

And you don't have to show off that you can do more than 30 push-ups under a minute either. Stop making us feel like wimps Ivan!

"I just felt like doing some extra strength training, Owen. Supporting each other helps push us to get stronger," he said with the sincerest smile ever. He actually believed what he was saying! He could probably say that Santa exists and still have that smile plastered on his face.

That is the nicest guy you'll ever meet, so seeing the announcement of his disappearance on the evening news broke my heart.