BEEP BEEP BEEP! Time to Wake up Sunshine! BEEP BEEP BEPP! My alarm goes off and I curse under my breath as I roll over and slam my hand on the snooze button. Yesterday was different than any other day I think. There was that weird thing with Tyler that just weirded me out, it seemed like he was hiding something. Then there was the fight with Jack, not that that's different, but the fact that I blurted I was adopted makes that fight stand out from the rest. And then there was Faith, such an adorable girl! Though when I think about it, I realize she does look her age. But she acts like a little kid. Which is in no way bad, but it is different, a good different. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Thank God I didn't run into Jack or even Tyler. I didn't see much of Faith either after our meeting. Though we did run into each other once between sixth and seventh hour and she gave me a bone crushing hug. Told me to call her if I have any questions about tomorrow, can't find her, or just want to talk. In return, I gave her a huge bear hug. She just giggled and ran to class. So adorable!

I can hear my door open up so I pull the covers up over my head and try to hide myself from the oncoming horror. "Wake up sleepy head! It's Saturday!" yells my overly joyful mother, or should I say adoptive mother, Samantha. "You're turning seventeen today!!" Jumping on my bed she pulls my covers down and looks me right in the eye with her bright green eyes. "So, what are the plans today? Should we go shopping? Out to eat? Salon? Oh! How about we have a movie night after all of those?" She pushes her dark brown curly hair away from her face and giggles.

"I already have plans tonight mom." I respond, trying to pull the covers back up over my face. Seeing my mother's questionable face makes me sigh and I explain. "A, uh, friend invited me to go out with her at the mall... Along with a couple other people. I already agreed so I'm not going to change my mind."

"Oh," is the only thing she says when she hears this. "Okay, uh, have fun and be careful." She stands awkwardly for a few moments then continues, "What time will you be leaving to go?" I hold up two fingers and she nods. "How about I make you some lunch first then? Anything you want?"

"What about breakfast?"

"It's already noon silly! Breakfast is past. I'm going to go cook up some hamburgers though... Is hamburgers alright?" I nod and my mother skips to leave my bedroom, but pauses in the door way. "I love you honey." She says quietly then leaves the room and me alone.

Twenty minutes later my mom calls for me saying that the food is ready and I slowly sit up. Looking over at the alarm clock I can see that it's 12:26pm. I let out a big breath and go towards our old and small kitchen. We don't have tons of money to throw around and my mom doesn't like to spend it on upgrading the house. She would rather go out and buy fifteen new outfits then do something that's needed. Sitting down at the old oak kitchen table my mother sets a burnt hamburger down in front of me. She is such a terrible cook, but she tries. I finish my food at about 12:49pm and I think it will probably be best for me to start to get ready.

Walking into our shared bathroom I do all the normal stuff. Take a shower, wash my hair and body, girl stuff, brush my teeth then head to my bedroom to get dressed. I decide to go with my dark denim skinny jeans that make my butt look amazing and knee high black leather boots that compliment my now long legs. For my top I put on a fiery red button down blouse with designs here and there. My bright red hair is wavy and hanging down my back in the usual way, just hanging. But I do get quite a few compliments on my hair.

It takes about a half hour to get to the mall from my house so I leave at 1:27pm. I don't have a car since we don't have the money, so I take the bus and get to the mall at 2:03. Just in time. Entering the entrance I find Faith immediately. She sits quietly on a bench with her ankles crossed and her hands in her lap. She looks up as I enter and gives me an ear to ear smile. She stands and meets me halfway.

"I am so glad you came!" Faith rushes to say. "So, where do you want to start?" First we head to the clothing store and we both get a variety of different things and make each other try on all sorts of things. This is actually fun. "OMG! You have to try this on Lilly!" Faith shoves me a red dress with blue, green, and white streaks at the bottom, which is halfway down to my knees.

Going into the dressing room I strip off my boots, jeans, and blouse and instead pull the dress up over my head. It fits perfectly and the top is to die for. The torso of the dress is somewhat like a corset and the back has strings so I can adjust myself. The straplessness of the dress is also very hot and cute. And another thing, Jack was wrong. I in fact do have boobs... They just aren't as big as my adoptive mother's.

Exiting the dressing room I strut towards Faith and she applauds, loudly might I add. "That is so hot on you! You have to buy! How much is it?"

I look at the tag and read off, "It's $34.99."

"Only that much? Wow." Faith pulls me over to the cashier and shows her the tag. "We'll take this, and we want to wear it out." Faith takes out her wallet and hands the cashier a twenty and a ten. The cashier hands her her change as Faith says, "We should eat out fancy tonight! Show off your new dress!" I laugh, an actual laugh for once, and nod.

"If you want to, that's fine." Thinking about it I add, "But you have to wear a dress too Missy!" We giggle as we both head back into the forest of racks and both come out with about half a dozen dresses each. "These are so you." I say, handing Faith five of my six. "The other I just really love."

"And these," Faith passes over four dresses to me, "are absolutely Y-O-U!" We both rush to the dressing rooms and try on our dresses. At the end we both spent way more than intended. I ended up getting three pairs of jeans, four tops, two pairs of shoes, and three dresses, including my red streaked one. Faith ended up getting one pair of jeans, five tops, three pair of shoes, and one dress. Faith's dress ended up being an adorable white frilly dress that went down to her knees and a light blue sash around her waist. We went to tons more stores and ended up getting some makeup and accessories. We were done shopping at about half after six. "Which restaurant should we go to?" questions Faith.

"What about your other friends?" I ask. They were supposed to come with us earlier, but they got held up with something. "Are they going to come or just the two of us?"

"They said they could make it for dinner with us." Faith gives me a smile and we head out of the mall. "We can take my car to the restaurant... Which one are we going to?"

"How about we go to the Italian place about a mile away?" They have amazing food, formal, and not all that expensive. I had been working overtime at the Daycare Center anyway lately so I can do something fun for my birthday, I guess this is it.

Loading our bags into the car, I make sure our bags are separate so we won't get confused on whose is whose. As I do this Faith gets in the driver’s seat and starts up the car. Her car is easily entitled the label of nice, hot, and sexy. Her car is an awesome icy blue convertible and a Lotus at that. Sliding into the very comfortable passenger seat I move my hand towards the radio and look up at Faith questionably. "Yeah, go ahead." Faith gives me a nod as she says this and starts to pull the car out of the parking space. Flipping on the radio I start to flip through channels until we find a decent channel we both agree on and listen to the hip hop song currently playing.

A few minutes later we arrive at the Italian Rizzoli's restaurant and jump out of the car to go inside. "When are your friends going to get here?" I ask. Faith just gives me a smile and nods to behind me. Turning around I see a black GT Mustang screeching into the black top parking lot and come to a stop two parking spaces away, no cars between us and them. A couple seconds later out steps a dark blonde from the driver’s seat. The dark blonde wears a plain white button down shirt, black dress pants, and a black leather jacket along with dark sunglasses to cover his eyes. The dark blonde also goes by Tyler Elms. Coming out the passenger side door is no other than Jack Woods. He sports the same style of black dress pants, but instead wears a light blue t-shirt and a denim jacket. Spinning myself around on my heel I slam my hands down on the top of Faith's car to get her attention. "These are your friends you said to meet us here?" I nearly yell this and Faith looks at me with a confused face.

"Uh, yeah. You know them?" Asks Faith. "This is Jack Woods, my boyfriend. And this is Tyler Elms, mine and Jack's friend." Faith is dating Jack!? What the hell!

"Yeah, sadly, I do know them." I say the 'sadly' part quietly so I won't be heard. If it was up to me I would leave this instant and not look back. But I am way too hungry and it would just be plain rude, plus I have no ride back. I give a sigh and try to give Faith a grin. "Okay," I agree, "Let’s go."

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About sixteen minutes later we are seated at a booth for four. Jack and Faith sit together on one side and on the other Tyler sits to my right. I guess I don't mind sitting next to Tyler, but Jack, no way. Faith sits across from me, and Tyler and Jack sit across from each other. I can feel my blood boiling, but besides that everything seems to be going okay. Jack has for the majority stayed quiet and hasn't even talked to me once except to say hi. And Tyler only said hi and some small talk. Picking up my menu, as does the other three, I begin to read the menu. "So, what is everyone going to order?" questions Faith when the hot waiter comes by.

"I'm going to have the ratatouille special and some extra sauce and root beer." answers Tyler. "You guys?"

"Tortellini all the way man!" Jack exclaims. Jack sees my questionable look and explains, "its pretty much ravioli, but bigger and cheese inside instead of meat. And for my drink just some ice water."

"Oh, I see." I say. "I'll just have spaghetti and meatballs with a root beer as well." We all look to Faith as she orders lasagna and sweet tea with lemon. So classy.

Faith and Jack start to whisper into each other's ears and giggles escape Faith's lips. With them being all lovey dovey I turn to Tyler to attempt at small talk. "So, the weather is nice today..." The weather is nice!? What the hell! That's the stupidest small talk in the world of small talk.

Tyler chuckles at this and replies to me, "Yeah, I suppose it is." I give a slight nod and go back to staring at the table in front of me. Jack is whispering into Faith's ear and Faith is slightly shoving Jack in a playful way. They look... Happy. I guess I am happy for them, but, I just really don't want Faith to get hurt. Yeah, I've known her for about one day, but I feel really close to her already. Like she is a meant-to-be friend, fate. I'll attempt to get along with Jack for Faith's sake, but the first tear that spills from Faith's eye will immediately result in the losing of one of Jack's eyes. "Uh, I'm sorry about yesterday." Turning my head I see Tyler scratching his head. He actually apologized? Why? He wasn't the one who did the wrong. I give a shrug to Tyler, not wanting to say something stupid or start to ramble.

Looking around I take more notice to the restaurant. The walls are painted a pretty red with golden designs and swirls on it. Our table is in a corner like area and there are about maybe one or two tables with in even a bit of earshot, but they seem happily engrossed in their own conversations and couldn't care less about what we talk about. One table has a middle age couple sharing a plate of spaghetti and laughing. While the other has a group of three teenage girls with baked Alaska between them.

Soon enough the amazingly sexy male waiter comes back by our table and bring us our beverages, not food yet. Seeing how awkward we look he tries to ease the mood. "How is everyone today?"

Jack looks at the waiter and gives a slight frown. "Well, my girlfriend and I here are very well," I can tell Jack made sure to make it known to the good looking waiter that Faith is taken, by him.

The waiter gives them a smile and looks over to Tyler and I. "And how about this lovely couple?"

Lovely what? Did he just call Tyler and me a couple? But before I can comment on that Tyler is speaking, "We aren't a couple." He is quick to say this and takes a sip of his root beer.

"Oh, well, in that case," the waiter looks at me and hands me a napkin with a phone number written on it. "If you're not busy tonight or sometime, then you should give me a call." These guys piss me off. I really don't want to have an outburst, not here, not now. "You look hot in that dress by the way. My name is Zach, what's yours?"

I can see that Faith looks a bit worried, I understand why; this guy probably hits on all the ladies that come through the doors. Jack looks unworried though. He knows me the best honestly out of each of them. We used to be super close, he probably thinks I'll have an outburst and start screaming at the waiter. Tyler, well, I can't see his face right now, for if I turn to see his face it will be too obvious that I want to know what they think. I don't want Jack to be right. I don't want to have my outburst when he thinks that is what I will do. I will prove to him that he doesn't know me as well as he thinks he does. "Lilly," I say in a seducing voice, giving a girly giggle I add, "Lilly Vokida." The waiter smiles at me and gives a flirty wink. Oh, how that pisses me off even more. I try my best to look calm and interested on the outside, but I'm not sure how long I will be able to keep this up.

"I'll be back in a minute with your food," the waiter says this and slips away to retrieve our food.

As the waiter becomes out of ear shot Faith and Jack turn towards me and Tyler just sits there. "What the hell Lilly! Are you seriously interested in that piece of crap?" Jack exclaims.

"Maybe I am Jack."

"Lilly, you should be careful; those guys usually aren't good news." Faith looks at me with a worried expression. She looks so worried and caring. I don't want to lie to her by doing this.

Jack looks over to Tyler, "What do you think Tyler? Tell her she needs to be careful."

I turn to look at Tyler and he looks me straight in the eyes, "Let her do what she wants to do. I don't think anyone can change her mind." Jack starts to protest but Tyler just looks at him and slowly shakes his head at his friend. "And Jack," Tyler nods his head towards me, indicating something to Jack.

Jack sighs and turns towards me once again. "Lilly, I am sorry," He so doesn't want to do this. "For being rude and," Is Tyler making him? "Inconsiderate to your feelings yesterday." That sounded so fake. Suddenly Jack adds, "And I'm sorry to hear about the adoption thing. If you need a brotherly shoulder, call me." Now that sounded 100% real. I can feel a tear drop spring to my eyes. Suddenly, Jack adds in a jokingly voice, "Got is Tiny Tits?"

Giving a laugh I nod and say, "I got it Aqua Man." After that conversation almost everything seemed to be fine. Jack and I got along for the most part except some joking around, Faith was happy go lucky, and Tyler joined in as well most of the time.

A few minutes later though, Zach the waiter returns to our table with a cart of trays. Setting Jack's and Faith's food down first. He then gives Tyler his food. Coming over to my side, Zach brings a chair beside me and sits in it backwards style. He probably still thinks I'm into him. Zach sets the food down in front of me and leans on the back of his chair with his chin. "You know Lilly, you're quite sexy." Is he serious? Calling me sexy? I can feel my blood start to boil again. I don't like where this is going.

"Thanks for the food." I say this blankly and hope he gets the point to leave us be.

"Hey babe," Did he just call me babe? Putting his hand on my knee, totally visible to the others, he continues, "Wanna go see a secret department of the kitchen with me?" As he asks this his hand slightly rises up my leg and under my dress. By this time he is touching my thigh. I try taking deep breaths, but I can feel an explosion about to happen. Suddenly I hear a lot of chuckling and see that the teenage girls' baked Alaska burner has gotten a bit bigger then supposed to. Zach shrugs this off though and starts to not just touch, but rub and massage my thigh!

Can you please no longer touch me?" I ask in a disgusted voice. I am getting very ticked off at this point and wish he would just cut it out.

Zach the waiter looks shocked and hurt for a moment, but regains his composure and leans into me. "Come on baby, don't play hard to get." He gets closer now and begins to kiss my neck; actually, a lot lower then my neck.

"Dude!" Zach jumps at this and looks over to Jack. "That's so wrong man! Stop. She's like my sister to me and I don't want the image of her about to get laid embedded into my brain!" At that Faith elbows Jack in his gut and he apologizes. I know he was joking, trying to get Zach to stop without having to start something.

But Zach decides not to listen, at all, to what Jack said. "Baby," Zach draws this out for a while and starts to kiss downward. At this time his kisses are hovering over my cleavage area. If he goes any lower then he will be kissing my breasts. "I want you with me now."

Bring my hand up I grab a fist full of the shaggy blonde’s hair and pull his hair and head away from my body. I shake my head at him. I know my face is totally red at this point, being my anger and embarrassment both. Zach doesn't want to give up though and quickly lifts his head up to mine, taking my lips with his. Zach just kissed me; actually, he is still kissing me. My eyes are wide open in shock at this moment.

Pulling away I shove my foot into that place between a man's legs. Zach yelps in pain and at the same moment I hear a yell as the teenage girls' burner starts to produce flames that engulf their bakes Alaska. Zach falls off his chair and onto the floor while holding onto his man parts, that must've hurt, bad. Another person comes by and turns off the teenage girls' burner, not really helping with the flames though. Soon enough they have to get a fire extinguisher to put out the flames and the girls leave in a fit, as well as Zach.

"Are you okay Lilly?" asks Faith. I give a reassuring nod to her and take a bit out of my spaghetti. Faith gives me some glances, but begins to eat her food as well.

Jack gives me a good long stare, but decides not to push me about it tonight and eat his meal. But Tyler doesn't want to stay so quite. "He is such an ass whole!" I giggle a bit under my breath and Tyler begins to question me a bit. "Are you sure you're okay? I can go beat the crap out of him now if you want." Tyler says this while looking at me with very considerate eyes. I... I don't think a guy has ever looked at me like that, especially not the Tyler Elms. "He really shouldn't have kissed you." Hearing the last part puts tears in my eyes though. Tyler sees this and asks, "Was that..." dramatic pause, "your first kiss?"

I just sit there, not wanting to answer the question and Tyler, Jack, and Faith's eyes all widen. Is it that hard to believe? "OMG," says Faith.

Trying to get off topic I am quick to say, "So, that fire thing with those girls' Alaska... Weird wasn't it?"

At saying that all three of them exchange a look. The first to speak is Jack, "You guys seriously think so?"

Tyler answers Jack by nodding and Faith whispers, "Finally, another girl!"

"What are you guys talking about?" I question.

They're keeping something from me. I know they are. I guess it's understandable that they would, they seem like such good friends and this is the first time we've all hung out together. But still, they're keeping something from me; a secret. I hate secrets. "What is it?" I ask.

"Well," Faith starts, "You see the thing is,"

"Faith! What if we're wrong?" Tyler blurts. "We don't want to be wrong, not with this."

"With what?" I ask again.

The three exchanges a look and finally Jack speaks up, "We believe that you, like us, have something special about you."

"Something special?" What in the world do they mean?

"Yeah," Faith continues for Jack. "You see a lot of hot and fiery things seem to have happened today and yesterday, with you around." I stare at Faith questionably and she sighs, "The fire in the cafeteria, the dead grass after you sat on it, the girls' Alaska, and" holding up her plate, Faith shows me her burnt food, "my dinner."

Tyler chuckles and begins to speak as well, "You know the four elements? Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire? Well, we think you have that 'something special' like us, and it has a lot to do with the elements."

I just stare at each one of them questionably and Jack lets out a big breath. "Fine, watch this," says Jack. Jack puts his hand near his nearly empty glass of water and suddenly I see a small, barely noticeable, light come from the palm of his hand. My mind must be playing tricks on me, because almost instantaneously, the glass is filled to the rim with fresh water. With my eyes big with shock Jack gives me a grimace and continues to speak, "Did you see the light? On my hand?" I quickly nod. "Only those with, uh, something special can see it, when it's on themselves or on others. And since you can see it, you have that special something."

"This..." What should I think of this? It's so weird. So not normal. So... Different. I don't want to be different. They... They must be joking. Pranking me. This prank, it's way too much. "This isn't funny."

"It's not supposed to be funny." says Tyler. "It's serious."

"I..." I pause. "I can't believe you guys would go this far for a prank!" I jump from my seat, leaving my burnt spaghetti behind and going towards to big golden double doors to leave. "Don't look back. Don't look back," I whisper to myself. But, being the dumb and idiotic me I am, I glance behind me. Faith is staring down into her folded hands, looking concerned and upset. Jack infuriated and his hands are balled up into fists. Tyler though, is following me out, only ten feet behind. Noticing that I begin to half run half jog out the doors. Being the winter season it is, I can easily see my cold breath in front of my face. Glancing behind myself I notice that Tyler is still pursuing me. "Stop following me!" Tyler doesn't say anything and just keeps jogging behind. He could easily catch up to me, but he keeps his distance. I need a place, a place away from him and the rest. And I know just the place.

I quicken my pace from a jog to a full out sprint, and about three minutes later I am approaching a big arch with the sign "North Park" on the top. Ducking under the chains that signify the currently closed park, I rush to my favorite spot. The swing set. Sitting down on one of the black rubber seats, I look around for any signs of Tyler. For a minute I don't see Tyler at all. Maybe I lost him. Or not. Suddenly I get a push from behind and my swing goes high. Giving a surprised yelp I look back and see Tyler, smirking.

"I..." His smirk disappears. "I don't want to talk. Go away."

"You don't believe us?" Tyler looks at me, which makes me turn around and face forward on my swinging swing. Tyler goes and takes the spot on the swing to my left. "Why not?"

"N- No proof. And it sounds crazy. And..." Why am I telling him, especially Tyler Elms, this? "I don't want to be different anymore. And th- that's way different then just being adopted and no friends."

Tyler's eyes looked to be filled with concern and Tyler begins to swing at the same pace as I, though my swing is slowing down. "Jack showed you proof. Yeah, it does sound crazy. And different is good."

"It, it wasn't enough proof. That could have been faked so easily."

"Want more?" I nod. "Okay," Tyler jumps off his swing and grabs some snow and dirt off the ground. Dusting the snow off, he now only holds a handful of plain old dirty dirt.

"What are you do-" Tyler cuts me off by hushing me and raises his hand to hover over the dirt. The same bright light appears in the palm of his hand and all of the sudden a green stem grows from the dirt. The stem continues to grow until a single lily, very beautiful one at that sits in the dirt in his hand. Pulling the lily out of the dirt, Tyler walks it over to me, as my swing is now barely moving. He takes the lily, does a sort of polite bow, and offers me the lily. Tyler Elms, the Tyler Elms, is giving me, Lilly Vokida, a lily. Doesn't seem like much to be said aloud, but it makes my heart flutter and my stomach has butterflies. Why? I have no idea. I'll just blame it on the whole using a special something.

"I know it sounds crazy, I didn't believe my mother when she told me about it. She has it too, you know. And Jack and Faith's dad both. You, I don't know. And it seems you haven't known until now because of the adoption." Tyler looks at me again with eyes that feel as if he is taking the pain from me and putting it in himself.

"So," I say, whisking my head to the side so I am no longer in his intense stare. "Jack's water, you're earth I'm guessing, and Faith is wind?" Tyler nods. "And I-" I take in some air. "I'm fire?"

Tyler nods as he sits back down on his swing and starts to slightly swing himself. "It's really hard to believe, I know."

We sit there in silence for a while. "Can you tell me more?"

Tyler looks over at me and gives me a smile and nods. "Well, one of each our parents' had taught us most of what we know. And you know whose element is whose. But with each person of us comes a different gift that not even our parents had, and they had something we didn't, an extra if you will." Tyler glances at me then twiddles his thumbs as he resumes, "Faith is wind, and her extra is the weather, which in a way relates to her wind, and she can fly. Her emotions affect the weather most of the time. Jack, as water, can breathe under water and has amazing healing abilities. And I am earth, which is connected to most living things. So I can feel others' emotions and if someone puts enough emotion into a thought then I can hear it, I can also plant things into peoples' minds, kind of like mind control, but not." He looks at me again, "When I broke the test tube in science yesterday, I was able to reimburse it with some energy, since it was small enough. But you saw, and I tried to plant in your mind that it must be your mind playing tricks on you, but it didn't have much of an effect."

I give a nod, making sure he knows I'm following along. "What's my extra gift?"

"I don't know yet, we all found these out by chance." He scratches his arm as he begins to swing himself again. I look down into my hands and the lily shines brightly in a way. Not glowing per say, just bright. I lift the flower to my nose and inhale the wonderful scent. "I, uh, like your dress by the way."

I glance down at my red dress. It is very pretty. Picking at the frilly end I open my big mouth, rambling time. "So, would that mean that...? My... One of my real parents had a special something?" A nod from Tyler. "Samantha doesn't know anything about this then. And, she wouldn't understand..." Tyler just stares at the ground and lightly swings back and forth. "This special something, it's big. Does..." Tyler looks over at me, straight in the eyes. "Does your dad know, even though he doesn't have a special something?"

"My mom," Tyler starts, "she told my dad when I was young, but my dad thought she was playing a joke on him. He thinks that to this day."

"Oh," is all I say.

"I'm sorry by the way."

I turn to look over at Tyler. His eyes are studying the wood chips on the ground, like he wants to look anywhere but at me. "For what?"

"That guy, Zach, he took your first kiss, didn't he?" At that Tyler looks up and meets my eyes. I don't say anything and just avert my eyes, looking into the beautiful lily Tyler had given me. "I see." I can hear Tyler getting up from his swing. I can also hear the shuffling of feet and movement of wood chips beneath them. Suddenly Tyler is knelt down in front of me, searching my eyes. "Forget about him and that kiss, a kiss doesn't mean anything unless you put feeling into it." I lift my head to see Tyler's eyes, but am shocked when instead I find him leaning in to kiss my forehead. But, I just moved. I lifted my head, making where my forehead was, where my parted lips now are. And where his lips just landed.

Tyler Elms, his lips, they're... They're touching my lips. Kissing my lips. He, he meant to kiss me forehead though. In a friendly way, right? More? I don't know. All I know is that the Tyler Elms' mouth is pressed against mine. You want to know what else I know. I know that I just felt a spark, like electricity, going through my body. And that the rubber seat beneath me is getting very hot. And that out the corner of my eye I see lilies popping up randomly throughout the snow covered grass. Want to know what else? I also very much can see that Tyler's once closed eyes are opening in shock and realization, the realization that his lips are on mine, not my forehead.