Under the Stars

1: And So, It Begins...

Ring. Ring. Ring.

"Hello?... Yes... Okay. I will send her down right away."

"Miss Eliotte Romick, you need to go to the office." Mr. Dubravetz, the government teacher told me.

"Yes, sir," I responded as I began to pack up my belongings.

"What did you do this time, El? It's only the first day of junior year." Came the voice of my best friend.

"I don't know Stev. I don't know." I snarked back at him. "Take notes for me, will you?"

"I don't know El. I don't know." He replied in a tone that was eerily similar to my own.

"Thanks," I said as I left to find out why I was beckoned by the school secretary. And so, it begins...

I know what you are thinking: "Why does she have a boy's name?" Well, it's unique for a girl and it is just like me. You see, my parents named me after the two of them, Eli and Charlotte. Dad always called me "Lottie." He said that mom loved it as a nickname, so he made sure it stuck and it did. He was the only one to ever call me "Lottie" and I loved it. My mom and dad loved each other. They loved that I was their creation. They were so proud to have me as their daughter that they wanted to show it in every way.

My mom was a beautiful woman. She was of average height, slender build, with long, perfectly wavy, ash blonde hair. Her most striking feature, though, was her eyes. She had the most vibrant gray eyes that I had ever seen, but only in pictures. My mom died when I was two. It was sudden and unexpected. One Saturday morning, mom and dad were on the couch cuddling while watching me play, or so he says. It was their typical Saturday morning routine. Mom told him that her head was bothering her, so she stood up to get some Tylenol for it. Dad told me that she took two steps and then collapsed on the floor. He said she wasn't breathing, and he tried CPR, but it was to no avail.

Once the EMT team arrived, they proceeded to continue CPR but she was pronounced DOA at the emergency room. The coroner determined that she had a ruptured aneurysm in her brain. He said that she probably felt like she had a severe headache or migraine and when she stood up to go take something for it, was when she died. He said, though aneurysms happen, he had never seen one as destructive as the one mom had.

My dad was my hero. He struggled with the loss of mom but kept strong for me. He was my rock. I could always count on him, no matter what. We grew close, as one would imagine. We lived in an older two-story home. My dad owned his own construction company, so he slowly did improvements to bring the house up to date. I learned to build and fix things by watching and helping him.

Dad was a strong man, tall, muscular, and always sporting a tan due to his occupation. He was a handsome man and with darker brown hair and blue eyes, he complimented my mom perfectly. People always told me that I was the perfect mix of both my parents. I had my mom's face and eyes, but my dad's hair and build. By the time I was in high school, I was taller than most of my friends, lanky, yet muscular for a girl, and very shy, except around my best friend, Stevien.

Stevien Daeshim Jones: my best friend and next-door neighbor. He was tall and, even though men aren't typically referred to like this, he was beautiful. He was perfect in my eyes. He was of African American and Asian heritage. His father, Darius, was born to an African American father and a Japanese American mother. Mrs. Jones, Lucy, was born to second-generation Korean Americans. 

Stevien was the perfect mixture of his parents. He had his father's beautiful dark, chocolate eyes, and athletic build. He had his mother's silky black hair with wonderful, soft curls that always made me want to run my fingers through it. He had a gorgeous smile, along with perfectly placed dimples, that always made me want to swoon. In high school, he was about 6 feet tall and still growing throughout each year. He ended up at 6 feet, 4 inches tall, but didn't reach that height until halfway through college. He had his father's tall, athletic build which was evident in each sport in which he participated. He was a three-sport athlete in high school, captain of all three teams, soccer, basketball, and baseball our senior year. 

Stevien was also a straight-A student, taking all the honors classes that he possibly could. His family pushed him to be the best he could be in all aspects of his life. He was the guy that all the girls wanted to be with and the guy whom all the guys wanted to hang with or be. I was an A student, though not a straight-A student. I kept my grades up well enough to be in the top ten percent of our class, but Stevien truly lived up to his middle name, Daeshim: "greatest mind." He was the greatest mind in our class, if not the whole school. And while he had the greatest mind in school, he didn't always use it outside of school. We were always getting into trouble together because of his goofy antics. I knew how his parents would react to some of the stunts we pulled, so I took the blame for most of them when we got caught. 

We, we were next-door neighbors, friends, best friends. We were always getting into trouble together because of his goofy antics. I knew how his parents would react to some of the stunts we pulled, so I took the blame for most of them when we got caught. However, there was something about Stevien that felt different to me for a long time. After my mom died, it was just Dad and I taking on the world together and that was how it stayed until the Jones moved in next door when I was five, just before kindergarten started.

The Jones family consisted of Darius and Lucy Jones and their three boys, Stevien Daeshim, Jeremiah Kwan, and Tyrus Jung. Stevien was just five months older than me. He was a fall baby whereas, I was a spring baby, so we were in the same classes growing up. Jeremiah was three years younger than Stevien and Tyrus was a year and a half younger than Jeremiah. Jeremiah and Tyrus were a bunch of trouble when they were together. They shared everything, which left Stevien by himself most of the time. 

I think Stevien enjoyed having someone to play with who was his age, so we played and played. We played everything together from different sports to Legos, from Hot Wheels to horses. He was always reluctant to play horses with me but with a small pout combined with a set of puppy dog eyes from me, he would always concede with a small smile. We developed a special friendship together. We grew so close that we could almost always tell what the other was thinking without needing to say anything.

Since Stevien and I were neighbors, we would walk to school together from elementary school through high school until he got his driver's license. Once he had his license, he would usually drive us both to school. Then, I would sometimes walk home by myself during the fall and winter, depending on his sports schedule. In the spring, he played baseball and I played softball, so we usually were able to ride home together after our team practices. When games began, we rode the bus together to away games, and he would take me home after we got back. The baseball team always took the back of the bus first, leaving the front to the softball team, so Stevien and I would sit in the middle, between the two teams. We would sit and talk, work on our homework, or study together during those trips. The trip on the way back home often ended with one of us sleeping on the other, if not both of us resting on each other, because the adrenaline was wearing off.

That is how it was until Beth-Ann came into the picture. Stevien always took me to and from school until she put a stop to it. I knew then that things were going to change between my best friend and me before we graduated. Most people knew we were just friends, but the cheerleader captain, Beth-Ann McCrary, always made a point to belittle me. I usually pushed it aside trying to not let it get to me. She had a crush on him, then again, there was hardly a girl who did not have a crush on him. She, however, was always flaunting herself around him. Eventually, Stevien said he would go on a date with her at the end of our junior year of high school, just to get her off his back. I was convinced it would make things worse and it did, for me. 

Word Count: 1559