https://www.wattpad.com/story/32569316-bittersweet-expectations-hate-at-first-flight-0-5

By Tuesday, the following week I had just about lost my mind. Will had gone around telling everyone about our 'date'. At hearing this, Douglas had shot me an impassive look, that I knew hid disappointment at me and my so called 'letting his cousin down easy'. The ground we'd made into a somewhat slowly forming friendship was surely lost, or at least that had been the conclusion I'd gathered after him not uttering a word in my direction other than a 'Hi', ''Do you want something to eat?' or 'You can go home now.'

I would've explained the circumstances behind the 'date' but whenever I did, he would suddenly have something better to do.

As soon as Quincy let me through the door, I handed him the paper that Sam had handed me as soon as I came up to the gate.

"Where's everyone?" I asked him, my eyes drifting off to study the intricate designs of the house like it always did, and as usual it landed briefly on the spot the painting had been hung on just weeks ago. I wondered where it was now and why it had suddenly been unceremoniously taken down.

Quincy walked towards the table by the staircase and placed the paper there, before turning back around to face me. "I believe Mr Davis has gone off to look for a certain type of bread and Ms Frost had went to get her mani-pedi done, I believe the term is."

"This early?" I asked him, surprised as I took a chance look at the ivory wall clock on the right of the staircase. The time read 8:35. "Are they even open now?"

"I believe her exact words in answer to my reiteration of the same question was 'the early bird catches the worm'."

I smiled, amused at his imitation of Georgia as I pictured the words escaping Georgia's lips. "Trust her to say something naive as that. Where's Douglas?"

Quincy's eyes drifted towards towards the second floor. "I believe still in bed. He was reading until late last night."

It took me a while to appropriate my thoughts and come to the conclusion that Quincy was serious. "Douglas reading?" I asked, shocked. Douglas and reading were two words I wouldn't believe could be put together. He gave this presumption of himself like anyone did by the way they walked, talked, dressed or their background. The saying 'don't judge a book by it's cover' was very relevant here.

I had judged Douglas to be one of those people that was rebellious and would party until the early hours of the morning. After all, that had been the picture the tabloids painted of him. The party boy that squandered his father's wealth and would have a more likely chance of being caught with a bottle of Heineken than a first edition copy of Pride and Prejudice.

Quincy nodded. "That's the only way he can fall asleep comfortably," he replied. "If he doesn't read, he won't sleep. Or if he does, he always wakes up an hour or two later."

I would have found that hard to believe but then again that was the same case with Nancy. One that I myself had tried countless times to prove wrong only to discover it was true. "Then what does he read? Playboy?" I asked with a half joking and half serious manner. After all, what would someone that looked like him have to read.

Quincy arched his brow with distaste and that was the closest I'd ever seen Quincy get to any form of a glare. "Why don't you go find out for yourself, Ms Sanders?" He asked, as he picked up the paper from the table he'd left it on and handed it over to me. "Just place the paper next to him on his bed and he'll wake up. Simple."

I nodded, knowing that my face must be flushed with embarrassment. Quincy, as I've discovered this past couple of weeks hardly lost his temper, the only time he did was because one of the maids had forgotten to leave a set of clean towels in Douglas' bathroom and so he had to call down for one. Thus, it was quite a feat if he ever did lose his temper, and I guess my small comment, suggesting Douglas read porno magazines late into the night must have struck a nerve. "Uhm..." I tucked a straying strand of hair behind my ear nervously. "Where is his r-?"

"Last door on the right," he interrupted me, before forcing a smile.

"Uhmm... will he be... presentable?" I asked, stopping myself from saying naked instead. After all, from the many exposures to a guy I've had the pleasure of seeing, that is in movies or reading in books, they tended to opt for sleeping in their birthday suits or if they were proper enough, wearing only their boxers.

Quincy released a small burst of a chuckle at my face, I guess. "I don't know really," he answered. "Mr Burns is a temperamental young man," he offered as he started making his way down the hallway that led to the kitchen. "Oh," he stopped suddenly and turned back around. "But I do believe, he won't be reading any Playboy magazine, mind you." Then without another word, he disappeared down the hallway.

That does it. Quincy now hated my guts. But who can blame him after all. Stupid, stupid mouth! I thought. Stupid brain for even thinking such a question.

Knowing I had no other choice but to wake Douglas up, I slowly started up the staircase to the second floor.

Douglas' room was easy to spot, thanks to Quincy's directions and soon enough I was standing outside, trying to calm myself down, whilst worrying over whether I should or should not enter the room. After all, a person's room is the most personal place you could be in.

I knocked softly on the door and called out his name, hoping I would be spared the prospect of entering his room. From the couple of months I've known Douglas Burns, I discovered that he didn't like people interfering into his business and I guessed that would also extend to his personal room.

"Douglas," I called out again when he first didn't respond.

I placed my ear slowly against the door, hoping I could pick out any sound of movement or any form of response to tell me that I had completed my task, but there was none.

"Douglas," I tried again. After doing that for what felt like nearly an hour, I threw caution to the wind and turned the door handle and slowly pushed against the door.

An A3 sized poster featuring a lean and really tan guy with hairstyle styled from the 80's wearing a pain of red shorts, holding a yellow and red surfboard with a backdrop of a beach was the first thing I saw in Douglas' room. The name Sean Collins was written at the bottom.

The next thing I noticed was that the room had a theme of gold and white. It was strangely clean for a boy's room. I'd picture it to be something messy with clothes strewn all over the place and posters of half naked women all over the walls.

Candles lit the room and a huge white closet sat on the right of the bed with gold ceramic vases in the middle. A huge body was covered over with the white and gold comforter, just a small view of brown hair appearing just over the comforter.

I made my way towards the bed and called out, "Douglas. Douglas." I didn't dare touch him for fear he would jump out at me. Instead I continued to call out his name. When he still didn't answer me, I slowly placed a finger on the comforter and tugged slowly, revealing half of Douglas' face and half a blue cover covering the other half of his face.

I placed the paper softly on the table beside his bed before slowly picking up the book to better read the title.

Shock. That was the only thing I could plausibly think. Douglas Burns was reading The Great Gatsby, a great classic of the twentieth century. And by the looks of the state it was in, it was an old copy.

I checked the page that had been left open, presumably the page that Douglas had been reading up til last night. In the many lines inked into the pages that Douglas had been reading, one stood out, mostly because it had been underlined with a pink pen.

'There I was, way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every minute.'

F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Awarding him a sense of masculinity, I concluded that this wasn't originally Douglas' book. Douglas would never use a pink pen. I hoped not, at least. So, with a finger placed between the pages to mark the page, I flipped to the front of the book.

First edition was what caught my eyes first, which did not surprise me at all. It was expensive, getting a first edition of a book, but then again, the Burns was all about wealth.

I turned the page over and there in the same pink pen, inked on the top right corner of the book.

Athena L Rockwell.

This was his mother's book. Rockwell must have been her maiden name.

I chanced a glance over at Douglas and he was still lost to the world. His face the mask of innocence, free of a frown, glare or anything that had marred his handsome features throughout the day.

I hadn't ever had the chance to read the book, and the movie was still in it's case back at home, still unwatched. That had been the movie mom had been looking forward to watching once news got out that it was being made into a movie. But she never had the chance to watch it. They crashed a few months prior to it's release.

Nancy had purchased it once the DVD had come out, but neither of us had mustered up the courage to slip it into the player and watch the entire thing. I don't think I could ever muster up the courage.

I flipped through the pages slowly, making sure not to make too much of a sound, fearful of what Douglas would do once he spotted me holding his mother's book. Throughout the book, there were pink pen markings everywhere. Some were words written, some were lines, underling certain sentences. And some markings were just doodles of hearts and faces or drawings.

I stopped at a random page to read a sentence that Mrs Burns had underlined.

"The loneliest moment in someone's life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart,

and all they can do is stare blankly."

The reality of that quote struck home. My whole world had fallen apart when my parents dies and I could do nothing about it. I couldn't change it. Dwelling on what could have been couldn't bring them back. The what ifs that I tried my best to not wonder out loud could not change anything. All it did was drill through the emptiness and make it deeper. All it did was make my heart tear at the possibilities that would never come to pass.

I flipped through the pages landing on another quote.

"When I first met her, I knew in that moment I would have to spend the next few days

rearranging my mind so there'd be room for her to stay."

I couldn't help but smile a little at the thought of a younger Mrs Burns reading through the book and giggling like a teenage girl at the lines that would leave any woman's thoughts in complete disarray.

The line that I landed on next took me ages to comprehend and read over, and over, and over again.

"I fell in love with you because of the millions of things you never knew you were doing."

I couldn't read past those words. I fell in love with you because of the millions of things you never knew you were doing.

One of the sweetest, sweetest lines ever. Mrs Burns had the same conclusion because the words had been underlined not once, not twice, but several times, over and over again. Each time with a different colored pen. Pink, blue, black, red, purple. Underline, underline and underline, as if each time she read the book, each time she read the line, it always left her smiling.

"I fell in love," I read out loud without meaning to, the words were spinning inside my head over and over again. "I fell in love with you because of..."

"...the millions of things you never knew you were doing," a familiar deep voice resounded, drowning out my voice. Then I saw the bed move in my peripheral vision, and a body rise up and sit on the bed.

Douglas Burns had just woken up. And here I was reading his mother's first edition copy of The Great Gatsby.