The sun hugged it's supernatural beams of gold onto my lap in the car. I felt like I could soar out the window and race the car above the Golden Gate Bridge. The dazzling city of San Francisco sparkled before my very eyes and I wanted to be taken into its contents and not come out again.

“Someday,” I said. “I’ll take my children here to see its marvelous streets and buildings.”

This ‘I’ was me, Felix Buddy Hapimone. Due to the dumb gene process of the world, I was a short fourteen year old freshman in High school. I was a dramatic, creative, happy, quick-reflexed, sociable weirdo.

This incredible view of San Francisco didn’t last long though because before long, the sun’s supernatural beams of gold hugged itself into my eyes.

“Gah, c'mon sun!” I cursed. "Can you just let me take in a good view for one second!?"

A girl grinned in the middle seat of the car. “You should be one to talk. You’re the one who can wink both eyes. I’m sure the sun is only affecting one eye.”

Her name was Ruth Gabriella Umper. A sarcastic, uptight, boy-loving fifteen year old sophomore who only lived in the moment. Her life revolved around her and only her.

Then her eye became prey to another sun beam. “Gah, gosh darn it sun! I know you’re trying to give my eye a tan, but now is not the time!”

“I thought you could wink both eyes too,” teased the boy sitting next to me. “At least if you aren't busy with a face manicure.”

Truman was my second best friend. He was almost as tall as a skyscraper with masculine shapes to his physique, but ruined it with his clumsy behavior, glasses, and skinny self.

“Besides," he went on. "If it wasn’t for a face manicure then I’m sure it’s for something else.”

Ruth gave him the evil eye, but failed to make the full effect due to all the unfinished make-up that was already there. “FYI, I’m like not always putting on make-up. I just do it when I’m bored or don’t feel pretty enough.”

She turned around in her seat. “How do you think I look Hope?”

The abrasive girl looked up from petting her silver locket and shifted her attention to Ruth, intently. After a couple of seconds, Hope replied.

“Drop-dead gorgeous.”

"See? Hope agrees. Thank you. I can do it to you, you know.” Ruth smiled, not abrasively proud of herself. She lifted her foundation palette and multitude of different brushes.

Hope nodded and gave her a kind smile. "That's okay. I am happy."

I could tell in her voice though, she only did it to make Ruth happy. Hope was my secret crush girl: a caring, passionate girl who hangs out with popular girls to hide the sadness deep within her. This sadness was engraved in a silver locket hung around her neck; the only memory of her mother after the… accident.

The murder.

By the Black Figure. The guy who burned down my house and scared my whole family. Twelve years earlier, they were robbed while their father was on a business trip. At twelve o’clock little Hope had woken up from her throat being dry with thirst. As any ordinary child would, she started to get out of bed and wobble to her door. When she closed in towards the noise, she heard her mother’s breath,

Her mother’s last breaths.

There was pounding on the steps, a voice, and the door swung open with the tired and distressed mother coming in. Her face was as white as snow with a bed head and a nightgown that would look better if it hadn’t wrinkled and tear stains throughout it.

Hope asked in an innocent voice if she had spent too much time in bed with her Dad doing the holy laugh.

Hope’s mother had blushed before telling her daughter she loved her. This was the perfect thing to say somehow, because it made her last moments filled full of love for her daughter. It reminded her of how pure Hope was even when catching them trying to make a baby sister for her. Apparently, Hope gave the funniest response her parents had ever seen, causing them both to fall out of bed uncontrollably laughing.

I cracked my head open, my sister, Violet nearly had her legs both broken when she fell through our living room floor, and Mom and Dad watched both their first house they bought together become hell itself. We were lucky. The Aarons had only one parent to save four little kids.

Mr. Aaron returned from his business trip with no home and a dead wife.

…yeah

"We should meet again sometime." The Black Figure's words still rang in my ear to this day.

I shivered. Six years later and it still freaked me out like it was still happening.

Hope’s musical voice snapped me back into reality. “Wow Felix, your hair looks really blonde. It fits you.”

I wanted to compliment her own glowing skin, shining red hair, and angelic features…

-But I distracted myself by noticing once again that Truman had green eyes!

Hope's flowing spirit was magic. I just wished nobody was hot so I abided by my church. It frustrated me slightly that she was as beautiful as she was. I wanted to compliment her own glowing skin, shining red hair, and angelic features, but I distracted myself by noticing once again that Truman had green eyes. Before I could answer, the car stopped and he said, “C’mon, we’re here."

I was pulled out of the car along wherever I found us in the right theater. "We are gonna have so much fun." He went on. "C'mon Hope and Ruth, I see you! You too, Violet!”

“Thanks!” I finally replied to Hope, but I didn’t think she heard me over his voice talking about all the scenes and the story of the play. I took the front row and my sister, Violet sat on my right with Truman on my left. Hope sat next to Violet and Ruth sat next to Truman.

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"I hope the guys are really hot," she whispered to him.

"You can imagine them to be hot," he whispered back.

The lights dimmed, the curtain opened, and the actors came on set. Their voices ranged with emotions and I felt as if I was in the scene myself. I almost responded to some of their lines, but as I said my first letter, Violet put her hand on my mouth. Truman hushed me.

In the middle of the play I heard Hope crying softly. I could tell she was thinking of her mother because she was looking at a picture of her on her silver locket. Whenever she had gone to a fun event such as this, she wished her Mom were there. The lighting on the stage made her tears sparkle. After a while, she closed the locket and focused on the play.

It was epic.

And it ended before I knew it.

I stood up first in amazement and clapped and everyone around me did also. We went outside and started adjusting our eyes again to the sun’s golden beams.

“That was great!” I said.

“It would have been better if you hadn’t responded to their lines,” Truman said jokingly.

“Whatever.” I responded. “At least I didn’t have to go to the bathroom during the most intense scene.”

Ruth giggled. “Cut it out guys."

“Let them. Let guys be guys.” Hope giggled with the two girls for a little bit.

“C’mon, I want to see the city,” Truman said.

We noticed a crowd of people gathered in a circle.

“And I think we’re just about to see a piece of it," he said with a powerful grin on his face. We dashed to join the crowd. I shuffled through men, women, and children in order to get to the front of the crowd. There I saw what was going on. Two strong men and a woman were performing tricks. It looked like they were warming up for an extreme performance.

“Now that’s a site I want to see," Ruth said, gazing upon the men’s giant muscles in awe.

“Okay everyone,” said one of the men. “We are from Great Britain trying to get into a college, but we need money. We are going to do a performance and then if you are ever so kind, you will tip us.”

I don’t know about the others, but he sounded really nice to me. It sounded as if he really wanted to get into this college.

The show started. They did lots of tricks like riding a really high unicycle and balancing the woman on a guy's shoulders while they were balancing on a ball at the same time. The acts were petrifying. Once, they had one of the men climb up a gray ladder above everyone. Even if we were standing on a five foot high platform, the ladder still would have been higher. That thing wasn’t leaning against anything either. It seemed as if whoever was on it was sure to fall off. Heck, getting up there in the first place seemed impossible. These performers were an unstoppable force of nature. I looked at Violet, Truman, and Ruth. They were astonished by the looks of it with eyes that gazed in such wonder and amazement. Ruth's eyes however, were fixed on their muscles. Weirdo.

A semicircle away I could see Hope. She was looking at her silver locket and whispering, “I wish you can see this, Mom… with me. I love you.” She then held her locket in her fist tightly, bowed her head, and closed her brown eyes.

The world seemed to stop in that second. I looked around. Everyone was frozen like on television, and I found myself walking across the stage to Hope. I kissed her on the cheek and wiped away her sparkling tears. No words could express the love and sympathy I had towards her at that moment. I realized that no matter what was going on we should think about those we love. The locket meant everything to Hope. I slowly retraced my steps to the place I was standing before.

Once I was there, the world started again as if nothing had ever happened. Hope opened her eyes, let go of her locket, and raised her face still red from crying. She went to wipe her tears, but realized there were none. She looked up to the sky and said, “Thank you, Mom.”

I gasped in horror realizing that time had actually stopped and I had gone towards her. I had wiped those tears off of her face. I felt my hand and it was wet which made me almost faint in shock.

“Okay everyone, thank you for joining us on this bright sunny day,” said the other man. “Now if you will please…"

But that’s all I heard. I grabbed Ruth, Violet, and Truman and left the crowd. Hope realized we were leaving and so did she too. We met together at an ice cream place where they inquired about why I left the performance so quickly.

“I… I just thought that we should visit other places," I stammered, still startled about the time freeze.

“Are you crazy!?” Ruth murmured. “I could have been there alllllllll day and when I mean all day I mean for-ev-er.”

“I take it this is our turn to let girls be girls,” teased Truman to Hope. Truman, Violet, Hope and I laughed.

“C'mon, let's go see other places. We haven’t gotten all day," Truman said impatiently.

And see places we did. We went to a fun house mirror maze where I kept on crashing into myself. I had a couple of experiences where I was on my way to my friends, slammed into a mirror, and couldn’t seem to get to them. Time after time again, I found Ruth putting on make-up in front of all those mirrors and admiring herself.

“Feliximo my boy, experiences like these don’t just smack into you,” she always seemed to say as she walked toward one of my reflections in a mirror and then smack into another one. It was hysterical. She would have to immediately go back and fix her make up once again post smack. I felt bad for the clean up crew. It took a while for Hope, Violet, Truman and I to get out of the fun house too. When we finally did, we had to wait half an hour for Ruth to finish ‘perfecting’ herself and come out.

After that, we went toward the ice cream place again and got ice creams. The ice cream place was called ‘All American Ice Cream’. The walls had red, white, and blue stripes on it. Free for people to take, they had free miniature American flags. The tables were in the shape of stars and when I counted all the tables there were fifty in total.

“Isn’t this place going a little bit overboard on the American theme?” Hope questioned as she saw that the door was a big American flag door. “No wait, hold that thought… They are going overboard.”

“Let’s just hope that they don’t only have three flavors,” I said, “Blue ice cream flavored blueberry, red ice cream flavored raspberry, and white ice cream flavored vanilla.”

Everyone nodded and laughed in agreement. Luckily, they had more than three flavors and everyone sighed with relief before laughing some more. I got Fudge flavored ice cream. Violet got blackberry Gelato. Hope had Strawberry flavored Gelato with Ruth getting Cookies ‘n Cream and Truman only getting Vanilla as usual.

“Why do you always get vanilla?” Violet questioned as we were walking to our next destination. “I mean always get vanilla like every single time. Don’t you want any different flavors?”

“I can’t have any other flavor.”

“Why?” asked Hope.

“It’s a little humiliating.”

“Just spit out the info True,” demanded Ruth.

“Nah.”

“Please, with a cherry on top?" I begged.

“It’s just…” Truman nervously said. He paused, then blushed, “I’m allergic to any other flavor of ice cream. It gets really irritating sometimes that I can’t have any other flavor, but I just deal with it. Once, there was a time when I had chocolate, but then I was stuck in the hospital for a while. The flavor of chocolate ice cream was sooooo worth it, but the hospital part wasn’t at all. This allergy was passed down from my great grandfather.

“Whatever,” responded Ruth. “That’s not that embarrassing.”

“It is to me,” Truman mumbled.

“Whatever.”

“Was there a time when you weren’t allergic?” Violet inquired.

“Up till age six I wasn’t allergic. It’s been eight years now.”

“My Mom is sorry that this disease has been set upon your poor soul,” Hope said.

“And how do you know that?” I asked.

“I can hear her talking to me sometimes,” she said. “It keeps me together. She talks to me through this silver locket.”

“Tell her,” said a musical voice. Although Hope’s mother wasn’t there, I could somehow hear her talking.

“Who said that!?” I squealed.

“Are you asking me?” wondered Hope.

“Tell her,” I heard the voice say again.

“Tell her what?”

“Tell her what you did to her during the performance, what I gave you the power to do for my daughter."

“Felix, are you okay?” Hope asked.

I wasn't sure, but when a deity from above tells you to talk to her daughter who is also your crush, you listen. I grabbed Hope and pulled her into a corner.

I waved to the others. “We’ll catch up," I said as I waved to the others. Then I faced her.

“Hope, I need to tell you something.”