My bodyguard

In the past, I have always tried to do what's right. I was my parents' favorite child, their perfect little angel who would do everything to make them smile. The model student who never broke the rules in terms of homework completion or curfew observance.

Why would I want to start a fight? I had the ideal life, after all. Your dream home, complete with acreage to roam and a great climbing tree in the front yard, is waiting for you on this quiet, secluded neighborhood. They were the ideal parents: rigorous yet affectionate, and never, ever at odds with one another. The ideal circle of private school mates since kindergarten. Even the ideal male companion, who is kind, thoughtful, and courteous at all times.

Once I turned sixteen, everything changed.

A wet night. The arc was excessively steep. Front glass illuminated by blinding headlights.

After the vehicle accident that took the lives of my parents, I felt as if I awoke in a different universe. Where the opposites are true. What I fear most is a future without my family and friends. Exactly where I have zero resources.

Aside from David

A few days after the accident, he turned up. My parents made a stranger, an old army comrade of my dad's, my legal guardian, and I have no idea why. Perhaps they were caught completely off guard. In most cases, no.

I don't recall anything from that period since I was completely numb. Just that David paid little attention to me while he was preoccupied with the interminable arrangements for my parents' wakes and burial and, god, I don't even know. The fact that he was attractive enough to spark a thousand daydreams. Amidst my mourning and while shivering with a cold that has persisted to this day, I was nevertheless able to see it.

David sent me off to boarding school the day after my parents' deaths and has ignored me ever since.

Except when I get into trouble.

It was four years after that dreadful birthday that I finally found out how to catch his attention. A buddy of mine came up with the fantastic idea of taking a jet to Madeli for a long weekend of drinking and partying. Help me shake the specters associated with my birthday and move on. I was just eighteen and it was time for me to let go. Fun. The idea was ridiculous then, and it's still ridiculous today.

Have some fun if you have parents. People with enormous holes in their chests where love once resided aren't the ones who get to have all the fun.

I was bored out of my mind, so I made an effort to enjoy myself. It's far too entertaining. Too much booze. Too much sun. Overly many attractive Spanish guys with too friendly hands.

Okay, so I had emotions.

David came out of nowhere, all grim reaper-like, and took the man who was kissing his way up my stomach while I did body shots in a string bikini. Taking off his collared shirt, he stuffed my obnoxious, inebriated body into it and drove me back to school.

At that time, I had persuaded myself that he was not really so attractive, and that the whole thing had been a fabrication of my traumatized 16-year-old brain in response to the biggest tragedy of her life. My naiveté. That he was as attractive as I recalled, and even colder, was no surprise.