I remembered everything from the day my parents died.

The rain had been coming down endlessly for hours and it didn't give reprieve to the sun to shine. I had planned to sleep in, tugging hard on my blanket to keep warm whilst at the same time enjoying the refreshing kiss of cold the rain had enveloped me in, but my pitifully empty stomach had other plans, which dragged me into the kitchen.

I pulled out my favorite cereal from the cupboard and found the box empty, so I settled for some toast and scrambled eggs. Nancy had gone out to do some grocery shopping which I knew would have taken her half the day.

But that day, unlike the countless others, she returned early, only an hour after she'd left. This was the first sign that something was very wrong. The second sign was when she didn't walk into the house with tons of grocery bags in tow. Instead of carrying the brown paper bags with the red small letter 'q' the logo for our local supermarket, Nancy was empty handed. Another sign was that her face and eyes red, her shoulders were slumped as if she was defeated and from where I stood, behind the counter she looked like she was hanging on by a thread, her feet ready to fall out from under her.

She stopped by the doorway, her eyes unfocused and her expression spaced out. Then as if it took a momentous amount of effort, her eyes focused on me.

After a stunted silence and me literally begging her for some sort of explanation for her state she said five words that I would never forget, even to this day.

"They're gone. Their plane crashed."

I remembered a flash of frustration run through me before confusion then understanding settled in. My toast slipped through my fingers and landed with an echoing thud on the floor before I followed after and sank down onto the floor beside it.

Pain. Despair. Grief. Fear. Sadness. Emptiness then anger. My emotions were everywhere that day. My whole world was crashing down around me and only one thought rang clear through the following days. How was I going to be able to continue without them?

But that was me.

That was just what I went through, even without truly witnessing it happen myself.

I couldn't even fathom what Douglas went through. He'd been the one to find his mother. He was the first one to see her after she died. He was the one who discovered her lifeless body, the first one to experience his desperate calls unanswered and the feel of her icy cold touch.

My heart tore at his grief. No child should have seen that. No child should be the one to discover their parent's body. No child should have gone through what he did.

I couldn't even begin to fathom how he felt, the void that experience had left behind, nor the trauma that caused him.

And with just a couple of paragraphs, I began to slowly understand Douglas Burns.

* * *

The next day, despite finally knowing a little bit more about Douglas, I didn't know how to act.

How was I supposed to anyway?

Did I have to go up to him, tap him on the shoulder and say 'Hey, sorry about the whole discovering your mom dead incident. But hey, I finally think you're not a complete douche after all? '

Or did this situation call for your good old 'I know how you feel, man', although honestly I didn't know.

So, me being undecided old me, I decided to do neither of those. Instead I acted like I didn't just find out the night before that his mom had died of some illness and that he had found her.

"Hey there."

The sound of clicking Manolos headed my way or even the scent of Chanel No. 5 should've warned me who to expect. But I was still too lost in my thoughts after Will and Douglas went out to walk Prince around the neighborhood, which they told me was still close enough for it to not warrant me the need to follow them.

Georgia smiled down at me as she stood as always, perfectly taller than me, who was lounging on the sofa, mindlessly staring at the pages of Vogue without truly reading anything. "Can I join you?"

I wondered what angle she was playing at now. Despite her diminishing off my preconceived notions of her yesterday, I was still wary of her. Chalk it up to too many Mean Girls reruns or her perfectly applied runway makeup, but it was going to take more than just telling Douglas off to get me to warm up to her. Plus, she had every right to sit down wherever she damned well please, because at the end of the day, she was closer to Douglas and he was in love with her.

Not that I had anything against the latter.

I just shrugged before I turned my attention back to the magazine I had not even tried to read, now pretending to have been grossly engrossed in its contents.

She sat down on the chair across from me. Her eyes were on me. "You don't like me very much, now do you?"

My pretense forgotten, I turned to face her, shocked at her question.

What shocked me even more was what I saw. Instead of some frustration or hidden detest, Georgia eyed me with amusement, her lips pulled up to a half smirk and her eyes looking at me as if she knew some hidden secret I didn't.

I couldn't meet her eyes when I said, "What makes you think that?"

"You've hardly, voluntarily said a word to me, you can't meet my eyes when I talk you and you inwardly cringe when I start a sentence as if I'm going to spew lava at you."

"I do not," I argued even as I knew what a she said were all correct and on point.

"You can't even lie to deny it."

I didn't say a word, my eyes skimming the pages filled with clothes and accessories that I couldn't even dream to afford.

"I'm guessing you think I'm a real life replica of Regina George." She chuckled when she saw the expression I threw at her at her words. "Oh c'mon. Everyone's seen or at least has heard of Mean Girls."

"Fine. You caught me. But you can't expect me to think otherwise when you look like," I highlighted her glorious physique. "...that."

She scowled, her amused smirk a near memory. "I'm more than just another pretty face you know, and I like to be seen as such. And I'm sorry, but I can't do anything about it. I don't get how people can easily judge others by their appearance."

By her cold tone of voice, I could tell I had hit a sore spot for her. "I'm so sorry. I just, I was just trying to say how truly beautiful you are and I apologize if you didn't like it." Just then as if a switch was flicked, her gorgeous smile appeared again and I figured that now I could tell how truly genuine it was. "I can tell why Douglas likes you."

Her smile faded away slightly but remained there. "Douglas... He's only a friend. I consider him as a close brother."

I arched a brow, looking her over with disbelief. "And Douglas knows of this?"

She nodded. "He's known for the past..." She mentally counted in her mind, "...four years."

"What? You don't find him ... appealing?"

She chuckled lightly at my choice of words. "Appealing? That's a new one." She smirked as I rolled an eye. "But no, not in the whole date him sense. Douglas... I've known him too long to easily see past him goofy, dorky ways. And I believe that he's too scarred emotionally to truly understand that what he feels for me is just an infatuation, a passing fancy, if you will." She sighed as she chewed on a perfectly full red lip.

"Emotionally scarred?" I placed the magazine back on the table. "From his mothers death?"

She looked me over, surprised, shock clear on her face. "You know?"

I nodded. "Doesn't everyone?" Except me until last night, of course.

"Oh." Relief washed over her features. "You read the articles?"

I nodded. "But what I don't understand is that Douglas said that what I read was his father's version of the truth. What did he mean?"

Inner conflict dawned in her eyes. "Let's just say that sometimes we tend to believe that our warped version of the truth is so real that it becomes the truth that we believe in."

"What?" I wondered whether she had just said something in another language.

She chuckled. "Uncle Seb believes what he wants to believe and that's what the whole world believes is the truth about Aunt Athena's passing."

I nodded. I kinda of got it now. Just as I was about to ask her another question, Georgia stiffened in her chair, her eyes on the doorway.

Worried that I had just been caught snooping into his business by Douglas, I, too stiffened.

I was in deep trouble!

Just then, Georgia pasted on a smile. "Wasn't expecting you home so early... Uncle Seb."

Correction. I was in deeper than deep trouble!