"So what do you think of the new girl?"

I shrugged the phone up to my ear as I placed the cold bread in the toaster before pushing down on the lever. I had always felt bad that this was about the limit of my cooking skills. However, my mother was almost never around to teach me, and my father considered cooking to be non-gentlemanly. Honestly though, I think he just told me that because he didn't know how himself.

"Not sure. Odd name though, right?" I said, remembering our visit in the coffee shop. Now that I thought about it, I could see the resemblance between her and the girl I once knew. Same hair, same attitude, same dress. And her eyes. There was no mistaking it was her.

"I know, right!" Paris exclaimed, giving a laugh, "So, do you think she's cute?"

I could already feel a blush lighting my cheeks. "You-You're my girlfriend, of course not!" I bit my lip after I said it though. She was beautiful, in a strange American way. Or was it just my feelings for my old crush coming back? I didn't really know.

"Oh Arthur, it's fine, as long as you like me more. I won't be mad, I promise." When I hesitated, she exclaimed, "For pete's sake Arthur, I still think other guys are hot!"

I frowned, not really sure how I should take that. " No," I lied, my stomach twisting on itself. Paris would be furious if she knew it was more than looks that we shared, "Too American for me."

The blonde laughed on the other end of the line as the toaster began popped. I screwed my face as smoke poured out of the gadget, the toast completely black. If it was even still toast. I sighed, tossing both pieces in the trash before grabbing a granola bar. I chewed on it slowly, wishing desperately that I had some good homemade bread.

"Okay, I'll talk to you later." She finished, "Love you!" The phone beeped off, and I collapsed on the couch, exhausted from my own thoughts. However, I was only alone for a few seconds before a knock sounded at the front door.

I frowned, wondering who it was. My father's colleagues only came on Sundays, mostly for drinking parties. All of my friends were either still asleep or out travelling. So who was it?

I creeped up to the front door, crouching until my knees nearly touched the ground. How they did this in movies escaped me. I expected to see a face at the door, or at least someone. So when I opened the door and stared across an empty street, I began to feel on edge. I was about to shut the door and deadbolt it when a white flash caught my eye. A piece of paper flapped from under the mat.

I snatched it before I could take the time to regret it. It whipped wildly in the chilling spring breeze as I attempted to flatten it to make out the writing scribbled on it. It had obviously been written in a rush and had been torn aggressively out of a notebook, tears evident on the sides.

I walked inside, slamming the door and locking it. The note finally calmed down to the point where I could read it. In pen, it said;

Open the back door, please

I looked out the window in the door for the writer, no figures popping out of the bushes. My mind wondered how much force you would need to break the glass. I shuddered, my feet warily taking me through the kitchen, which still was smoky, and to the back door. It was not just a screen like most houses, but instead an exact replica of the one at the front. Polished red wood with a glass panel in the middle.

I peered through the window, feeling deja vu as my eyes searched the yard. My gaze finally fell onto a figure in the middle of the grassy lawn. The glass was dirty, being it only was cleaned when my mother was here, which meant about once a year. The smudges concealed the identity of the figure, besides the fact that they had a bag and an animal with them. I slipped into the kitchen, grabbing the biggest knife in case I needed it, but knowing that I couldn't use it worth crap.

I stepped out the door to the scene in front of me. A dirty blonde girl dressed in ragged clothes was laughing quietly as a dirty white kitten bounced around her, rolling and pouncing on a stick. The kitten tripped over its own feet quite often, but the girl just giggled and helped it back up, a smile tugging on her lips. I felt my own curving up as well as I watched the adorable scene in front of me.

The girl noticed me, our eyes meeting. I immediately knew who it was. Clare. I dropped the knife I had been holding, the metal clattering on the cement stairs leading to the yard. The kitten spooked, darting off into the bushes faster than I could blink.

"Clare!" I shouted, "What the bloody-"

My words were cut off as she tackled me in a hug that took me down. My rear hit the wooden floor inside the still open door as her arms wrapped around me until I could barely breathe. Her hair scattered around me, smelling of the grass outside, her smile bigger than I could ever remember.

"Arthur!" She grinned, covering her mouth with a laugh when she realized how loud her voice was, before continuing, "You called me Clare!" I struggled out of her grasp, my face on fire before dusting myself off. She stood up before holding a slim hand out, her long nails chipped with green polish that appeared as if it was supposed to match her eyes. In my opinion, it didn't do her justice.

I cringed as her nails dug into my hand. Once I was up, I noticed a sticky red flow coming from my hand. Blood. I glanced at the knife, mentally cursing it as red drops splattered the ground.

Clare noticed with a gasp. "Oh {Insert word of choice}! Here, let me fix you up!" She stooped down grabbing a black duffle bag off the floor that I hadn't noticed before. I frowned. It looked like she planned to stay. She pulled a pack of brand name band-aids out of its depths, breaking it open and pulling one out. I sighed in relief that it wasn't decorated with Peppa Pig or Scooby-doo. I would have bled to death before letting that touch my skin.

"Here, let's go in the kitchen so I can fix you up with a snack too." She said, nodding towards the indicated room while shutting the door with her foot. I cringed as it slammed shut before following the blonde into the kitchen, a trail of blood following.

She stopped at the doorway, smoke filling the air, and she stepped in with a laugh. "Still haven't mastered the concept of the toaster, Arthur?"

I grimaced, waving foul smelling air away from my nose, thanking the lord the smoke alarms hadn't gone off. Although the fact they hadn't gone off concerned me as well. I mean, you could literally see the dark smoke collecting on the ceiling, as if it might rain in the kitchen. My feet carried me to the breakfast table where my father would normally be drinking his spiked tea with the morning paper. I shook the image out of my head and sat in the chair, the wooden thing creaking against my weight, despite the fact I was only about 160.

Clare/America sat down across from me, carelessly yanking the paper from the skin toned band-aid. "Put out your hand." She simply instructed me, and I obeyed, laying my bloody hand out in front of her, turning the polished wood a sickening crimson.

The blonde suddenly jumped up, grabbing a kitchen towel and cleaning up my blood with it. I'll give her credit for that.

Unfortunately though, the white towel was much less white once she was done with me. She turned around in her chair towards the kitchen appliances and threw it to the granite counters. It plopped down in the middle of the tile floor and crumpled up into a saggy ball. I bit my lip in frustration. While I didn't have OCD or anything like that, I did prefer things neat. And Clare never really seemed to grasp that concept, as shown by the bloody towel. Stupid Americans.

Despite myself, I politely stayed in my seat, no matter how much I needed to fix it. Clare quickly went to work with her trusty bain-aid, She stuck it on my hand, mostly covering the cut. "Good enough for now." She said, smiling. I held in a sigh. She just didn't get it sometimes.

"So, why are you here?" I asked curiously, feeling a bit guilty when I realized how harsh my words had come out. However, Clare didn't seem to notice, or at least didn't care. So I stayed quiet as she began to speak. Another odd thing about America: While they speak english, it's almost a different language entirely. Their words are slow and annunciated, while our tongue tends to be quicker.

"It's complicated." The blonde said, hesitating. But she just shook her head and continued, her voice slightly shaking. " I'm staying at the foster home, and it's awful! All the hopeless kids waiting for people who don't exist to come take them away, I just..." She trailed off, her eyes glancing up at me.

I wasn't sure what to say back. I felt like someone had ripped out the first chapter of a story, leaving me without a clue. " No, I mean why are you here? In England? And what about your brother, Alex?" Questions poured out of me faster than a waterfall, I stopped only when I looked back to her. Her face was slightly red, and a few tears were trailing down her cheeks.

"Alex?" She said his name tenderly, as if his name might summon a demon. I sat there eagerly, waiting for her to continue, but she just stared listlessly at the floor like it was suddenly the most important thing in the room. I frowned, confused why she was so upset about this.

She hated Alex. He was technically her half-brother, but we skipped that to make talking about him easier. He was the child from her father's first marriage, making him the outsider to start with. And after he took on the responsibility of Clare and Canada, his job became even harder. Canada was only a few months old at the time, and Clare. She had her ups and downs. And when she had a down, it was never good. How Alex had dealt with it all was still beyond me.

"Alex is dead. Murdered, and the case closed. They never found who it was." Tears were falling from her eyes by the end, leaving me speechless. Alex? Dead? I had never known it well, but it still came as a complete shock. He had always, well, been there. Like a shadow that you didn't always notice, but was a constant. And murdered? He had always seemed like the quiet, polite type. If anyone in the whole family would tick off a killer, it would probably be Clare. I winced, instantly regretting the thought.

"Sorry," She muttered, wiping the tears from her fuscia cheeks. "I shouldn't drop bombs like that." She shuffled in her seat, composing herself until she looked like her normal self again. I wondered how many times she had done this to me, and hid it with a smile.

I wanted to nod and agree with her. Just dropping in on my house and telling me her brother was dead was a rather surprising event. In fact, it might be good that I get my heart rate checked up, because my heart was beating at about seventy miles an hour.

"But I'm not ready to stop looking." Clare said, drawing my attention. Her voice had changed from insecure to determined faster than my beating heart. She stared straight into my eyes, as if daring me to disagree. "And Arthur, I want you to help me."

**************************************************************

An hour later, Clare was gone, and I was left alone, wondering what the bloody heck I had gotten myself into. In an attempt to distract myself, I had relocated to the plush white couch in the living room and flicked on the television that sat on the wall.

The news was flashing images of just about whatever horrible thing they could find in front of me. A murder in upstate London. A mass shooting at a resturaunt. The industrial market plummeting like a dead duck. All broken up by a pretty faced reporter girl sporting way too much makeup to make all these horrible things okay.

I sighed and turned off the screen. This wasn't helping. I flopped down on the couch and just let my thoughts take over. Clare had told me to pick her up outside the coffee shop at noon. Why, she hadn't told me. So I sat back and allowed myself to fall into a blissful sleep.