Chapter One

A note to the reader: Most of this was typed on my iPad, so prepare yourself for bad typos. Thanks for understanding!

It's been thirteen years since my dad and my brother died. I was on the train, sitting in my usual seat, on my way. To my job in London. I had to work becAuse my mum couldn't afford to send me to the college I got accepted into. The fire that engulfed out house cost so much money that it sent my mum into a spiraling debt. It didn't help that we had to pay for two funerals.
The train ride to London was always incredibly boring. There's nothing wrong with my job or having to work to pay for college. I'm fairly happy with my life. It's just so redundant. Working as waitress in a restaurant barely anyone goes to was rarely an exciting adventure. I was still making money, though, and that's more than enough for now.
There were always really weird people on the train. They'd always look really funny. There was this one gang that would go up to London a lot, and they looked like they were going to some freaky halloween party every single day.
But as much as I see weird people, there's always that one guy who seemed to look perfectly normal. Perfectly normal and kind of extremely hot. His blond hair was always messy, like he had just woken up from bed. He almost always wore light blue jeans with a perfectly white t-shirt accompanied with an unbuttoned suit jacket. The only thing distracting from his lanky yet oddly attractive body was his astonishingly turquoise eyes.
He seemed to comes on the train at random times, but still fairly often. The only awkward thing was the fact that he seemed to come on the train with someone new every single time. Like last week, for example, he came in with a slutty blonde girl. And then yesterday he came in with his brunette with way too much eye make up.
I went to work that day, practically fell asleep as I helped a whole of two people, and thenn caught the train back home at around ten o'clock. I was only slightly disappointed when I didn't see that one fairly normal-looking guy with the slutty brunette.
"all right, love?" my mum said. "Tired? Want something to eat?"
"No, I'm okay. Thanks, mum."
"Caitlin!" my step sister shouted. She's only a year younger than me. "How was work?"
"The same," I answered. “If they weren't paying me, I don't think I'd ever go back."
"We're all saving up to send you and Olivia to college, Caitlin," mum said, putting down some food on the table. "You must be starving. I swear, if you work in a restaurant, they should give you some food."
"They don't have enough money to feed me," I explained. "They barely get any business. They can barely afford to pay me. I am their only waitress."
Mum patted my back consolingly, and brought mess to the table where she gave me some chicken and mashed potatoes, and some green beans for my health.
Orion got home soon after that. He's Olivia's dad. Mum insists that I should call him 'dad', but for as long as I can remember, I've always called him Orion. He wasn't even too bad. I suppose I rather like the name 'Orion', but mum is convinced it's because I haven't accepted him as my father yet. I knew this wasn't the case, though. I knew for a fact that I would never get my father back.
And Olivia was great, too, but I don't think she'll ever be nearly as awesome and amazing as Cedric was. Cedric was my other half. He would entertain me, take care of me, laugh and joke with me. I loved Olivia with all of my heart, though. And I knew I was never going to get my brother back, either.
I was so tired. It wasn't even the fact that work was oh so tiring. My head hurt. I was probably just mentally exhausted. I figured a nice, long sleep ought to do the trick. With my belly full of my mum's cooking, I decided sleep would be the best thing for me now. As I buried myself in my blanket, I hoped I wouldn't get bad dreams.
I was with Cedric. He was eighteen years old, his hair as red as mine, and our eyes the identical shade of brown. Even though he died at the age of five and it was impossible to determine what he would look like as a young adult, if he were alive today, this would be exactly what he would look like--exactly the same height as me (which isn’t very much, mind you), skinny yet toned, and a mischievous smile on his face. He was telling me the story of Jennifer's adventures in outer space.
Jennifer traveled farther in this version of the story than in any other version of the story I have ever heard. Traveling the depths of outer space was not even the most exciting part of Jennifer's story wasn't even her exciting adventures in outer space. This time, Jennifer had a unicorn mate: Jake. Jake and Jennifer loved traveling the complex complexities of outer space was each other. In fact, Jake and Jennifer loved each other so much, after a few years, the unicorns had a son named Gary. All the unicorns stuck on Earth were jealous of Gary because he was born in outer space, and raised while traveling through the stars. Gary was always a happy little unicorn. But unfortunately Gary got stranded on a remote planet only occupied by wild penguins. Gary was raised by these wild penguins. Meanwhile, Jake and Jennifer's adventure turned into a rescue mission. They looked for Gary day and night, desperately wanting their son back. Meanwhile, on the planet of wild penguins, Gary was taught to swim his family of penguins. He then proceeded to look for his parents by setting off into outer space, and he continued to surf the stars on his own, searching desperately to finds his loving parents, Jake and Jennifer. Meanwhile, Jake and Jennifer had rented a rocket ship from Draco's Rocket Ship Rentals. They searched for him for years, their rent for the rocket ship growing exponentially higher, sending them into a spiraling debt. They didn't care, however, because their only concern was finding their son. After several years of star surfing and rocket ship riding, Jake and Jennifer looked outside of the little round window on the wall of their rocket ship, only to be incredibly shocked to see their son, Gary, surfing the stars right outside.
The story went on, but I stopped paying attention to the actual story, and began to concentrate on the other things around me. Like Cedric's voice: soft, kind. When he tells his stories, though, he gets very into it. Raising his pitch for the baby unicorns, using an airy tone while describing the vastness of outer space. The train began go slow down as Cedric's story slowly came to an end. The doors opened, and that guy who usually comes on the train entered, with yet another slutty girl. I peered over the seat in front of me to catch a glimpse of their faces, but I couldn't see them. I decided it would be best to ignore them. It was a good idea to pay more attention to Cedric: I didn't know how much longer he was going to stay. I turned back to him, and he was gone. I was thoroughly disappointed.
The sunlight was warm on my face. I pulled the covers over my head. I did not want to go to work today. My bed was so soft and I was so sleepy, it almost felt like I was breaking the law by forcing myself to get up.
I went to the station that day after forcing myself to get dressed, and shoving a couple of pancakes down my throat. I was even more disappointed once I was on the train. Of course, the feeling of going to work was always full of dread, but for some reason, even though I knew it was impossible, I was almost expecting to see Cedric and to hear the story of the space traveling unicorn family. And the worst part of it was that the un-strange blond guy was not on the train, either.
When I finally arrived at work, I began thinking about Cedric and about how it was so unfair that he was the one who died instead of me. Cedric probably would become a famous story teller or a novelist or something great like that. What am I doing? Working at a restaurant, trying to scrape enough money for college, going to get an education in I don’t even know what yet, and doing the same thing over and over again, without even getting enough courage to talk to the attractive guy on the train.
The problem wasn’t so much that I thought badly of myself (although that was a big part of it), but it was just that Cedric was so much better than me. So much more clever, so much more funny. Sometimes I even think (and I always have to remind myself how horrible it would be if this was true) that mum had grieved over his death not only because he was her son and she lost him along with her husband, but because she got the worse twin while the better one burned away.
I groaned as I swept the floor of the empty, hallow restaurant for what seemed to be like the millionth time. Sweeping wasn’t fun. Working at this restaurant wasn’t fun. But what else was I supposed to do? Rent a rocket ship and travel into outer space like the unicorns in my dead brother’s story? Not a bad idea, but not entirely plausible, either.
I was even more tired than the night before. Which was stupid, really, when you consider how little I actually do. On the way to the station, I began to day dream about the unicorn family consisting of Jake, Jennifer and Gary as they traveled through outer space. How cool would it be to be a space traveling unicorn? I laughed to myself as I got onto the train.
My mood was quickly brought down, however, because the normal and attractive guy was not on the train back, either.