By the time Gerald had finished with his shower, he smelled scrumdelicious food coming from downstairs. It didn’t take him more than half a minute to get down 3 flights of stairs.

     “Good morning,” he greeted her as he came into the kitchen. She was wearing her black shirt and skinny jeans again.

     “And good morning to you, too,” Kim said, placing the plates on the table. “Hungry?”

     “Starving,” he replied.

     What Kim did next shocked him. Her brows furrowed and the beautiful smile on her face was replaced by her usual frown. She removed the plates from the table and went outside to get the garbage can. “Here,” she the tub at him. “Enjoy your breakfast,” she said sarcastically.

     Gerald was confused. He watched her make her way to the deck and set the plates down on the coffee table. She then made herself comfortable of the black couch and started eating her breakfast.

     He walked over to the door, opened it and stepped out onto the deck. “What did I do?” he asked, holding the trash out in front of him.

     “You can be very insulting sometimes, you know?” she said to him, wearing that frown again.

     “Why?” he asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

     “If you were really starving, then you wouldn’t mind eating those leftovers,” she said, rolling her eyes.

     “What?” Gerald asked, still confused.

     “You know there are people out there who actually starve. They eat that almost every day. You’d be happy to if you were actually starving.”

     Now, Gerald saw her point of view. “That’s right,” he said. “I'm sorry. I should’ve thought about what I was gonna say first.”

     Kim tried giving him the silent treatment, but Gerald stood his ground. She finally spared him a glance after her second bite of food and said, “Come sit down,” tapping the seat beside her.

     “Ouch!” she said.

     “What’s wrong?” Gerald asked, concerned.

     “Nail,” she murmured. There was a deep puncture at the corner of her palm. Gerald surveyed her face, looking for any sign of pain.

     Kim saw him looking at her. “What?”

     “Doesn’t it hurt?”

     “Aha!” she guffawed. “I thought I knew that look. That ‘Why-isn’t-she-crying look.’”

     “Well?”

     “’Well….’ What?”

     “Why aren’t you crying? Doesn’t it hurt?”

     “Of course it hurts you ding-dong.”

     “Then?”

     “I just don’t cry.”

     “What?”

     “I don’t cry.”

     “Why not?”

     “I guess I just got tired of crying. And feeling sorry for myself doesn’t really help the situation,” she explained, getting up to get a band-aid.

     Gerald was thankful that she let him eat. He really found out a lot about her today. From then on, Gerald watched what he was saying. He knew that Kim could easily go back to her old self. The rebel, the one who hates the world even if she had everything anyone could ever ask for. But did she really have everything? Because to Gerald, it looked as if she just couldn’t have the happiness that she wants. But why?

     Since he was still sleepy when he got up from bed that morning, Gerald took a short nap upstairs after breakfast. He woke up at around noon and searched the villa for Kim. It was then that he realized that she was at the beach. He got on his swim trunks, a book and a blanket just in case, and headed to where he thought she was.

     By the time he was down on the beach, he found her the same way he found her the day before: sleeping in the same position under the same coconut tree. When he checked her iPod, it even had the same amount of battery and the same song was on. It was a good thing that he brought the blanket along with him, because he was able to fix her into a more comfortable position and cover her up with a blanket once again.

     Like the day before, Kim woke up with a heavy feeling. The same handsome face greeted her as she opened her eyes. “Are you going to be doing this every day?” she asked when she saw that she had a blanket on and her iPod was once again rolled up and on the sand by her hand.

     “Well, it depends. The real question is: are you going to be doing this every day?”

     “Yup!” she said, sitting up. “I do this every time I come here.”

     “Why?”

     “Well, I grew up to the same routine so I just can’t spend a day in my villa without sitting by my tree.”

     “Your tree?”

      “Uh-huh. Whenever I felt alone as a kid, I would come here and spend some time by this tree. I even carved some things here when I got too upset.”

     Gerald then looked closer at the bark of the tree and saw words from over the years:

“Life is too hard,

At this very young age.

They say I have everything,

But I feel stuck in a cage.

I try to please my father,

But the harder I try;

It looks like I fall harder,

The higher I fly.”

     “You wrote this?” Gerald asked.

     “Yeah,” she said, looking at the vast ocean.

     “How old were you when you wrote this?” he asked again.

     “When I was about 13,” she said nonchalantly.

     “13?” Gerald asked, astonished. “That’s deep. You would have to be either really good at poetry to write something like that at that age, or just really have that feeling.”

     “Well, lucky for me, I had both,” she said looking at him. When she did, Gerald saw a frown. But when he looked deeper, he saw that it was just a mask. He saw in her eyes a mixture of pain, hopefulness, understanding, anger, and a lot of things he couldn’t even determine.

     “Is that why you were so mad at me?” he asked, looking in her eyes.

     “Yeah,” she said after a moment’s hesitation.

     “I’m sorry,” Gerald said. “I didn’t know you had a hard time pleasing your parents.”

     Should she open up to him? These past few days, most of her walls came tumbling down because of this man. Should she fully let her guard down?

     “Growing up my main goals in life was to make my parents proud of me,” she started with a sigh. “But every time I try, I just end up embarrassing my family. Then about 4 years ago, you came into the picture. Daddy was just crazy about you. You were all he talked about, all he minded. That got me to try even harder. But it just didn’t work. So I just gave up on everything. That’s when the resentment grew in me. That’s when I started to hate the world. That’s when I started to hate myself. That’s when I started to blame myself—for everything.”

     He placed a hand on her cheek and said, “Kim, don’t ever blame yourself for anything. From what I’m hearing right now, and from what I see, you are a wonderful daughter, and your parents are very proud of you.”

     Kim looked up and met his gaze. Slowly, Gerald lowered his face to hers, and before either one of them could think, his lips were on hers. Kim, realizing what was happening had eyes wide as saucers which slowly closed as his lips started to move against hers. Kim parted her lips and Gerald took hold of the opportunity and plunged his tongue deep into and a small moan escaped the back of . Minutes later, maybe hours—they weren’t keeping track of time—they finally found the strength to pull apart.

     She gave him a meaningful smile and he smiled back. His lips met hers once again and they spent the rest of the day sitting by Kim’s tree, enjoying each other’s company.