"Oh, Ryan, don't be sorry. It's all my fault, really. I wasn't being myself. You see.." She paused and looked out over the lake for several moments. "Before we can go on, I have to tell you something." Turning toward him, she put on her most serious face. "I don't normally tell this to people, because I don't normally have a reason to. But I think you should hear this." Sighing, she took his hand in hers and studied it. "As I said, I've lived with my mom and dad my whole life. What I happened to neglect to mention was that I have a sister." She kept her gaze on his hand, refusing to look into his eyes, her voice becoming hard. "Her name was Gina. Growing up, I was always jealous of her. She was pretty, popular, always good with people. She never had a shy moment in her life. I wanted to be Gina so badly, but I knew I never could. At home I had been marked as the quiet smart sister. There was nothing I could do to change that. But here, I thought that I could start over. Be more like Gina, and less like me. And when I meet you, I did what I thought Gina would do: let her emotions lead the way. But that was Gina's one major fault. It always got the guys, but.." Alicia looked up into Ryan's eyes, tears brimming in her own. "But they also got her pregnant. She was only sixteen. She claimed her current boyfriend loved her, and that he was going to propose and they were going to get married. My parents tried to tell her she was to young, that she should have been smarter. "Like your sister," they said. Gina was so furious that she packed up all of her things and ran away from home. The last thing she said to me before she left was, "I hate you. I hope you're happy with your books, because they're the only thing in life that will ever have." I was only seven. That was the day I grew up." A tear ran down her cheek, and she brushed it off savagely.
talk to you tommorw ))