22nd February 2021

I looked at my watch and hurried to the house. If I was late, Hazel would undoubtedly curse me until she was blue in the face. Tori would of course shrug as if he didn't care whilst pouring hot chilli sauce all over my pizza without telling me.

As soon as I stepped through the door, Teddy came bounding up to me, tongue dangling from between his teeth.

"Bout time." Tori marched from the living room towards the kitchen, a frilly apron tied around his waist and his raven hair spilling down his back.

"Am I late?"

I hung up my coat and followed him, my stomach growling as the smell of freshly cooked pizzas flooded my senses.

"Actually, you're just in time," Hazel said, placing the first of the pizzas on the serving trays.

"Looks delicious, sis." Jaxon went to dive into the first piece, but Tori hit his hand with the back of a spoon. "Oww."

"Get some cutlery before you pig out," Tori said, his gravelly voice disapproving.

"Hazel, you going to let him talk to me like that?" Jaxon whined.

She looked between them, laughing. "Kotori, are you beating up my little brother?"

Her eyes twinkled as Tori picked her up and tickled her sides. "What if he deserved it?"

"Then obviously you're forgiven."

"Hey." Jaxon was disgruntled, but Hazel and Tori ignored him. "Can't believe you sold me out. And I thought we were family."

Hazel kissed Tori's cheek before smirking up at her brother. Her blue eyes - exactly the same shade as his - were filled with mirth.

"It's because I'm family that I know just what a pain you can be."

Jaxon pouted before spying me pulling out my chair at the table.

"Sam will stick up for me, won't you, buddy?"

I couldn't help it. I laughed right in his face and plonked myself down.

"You won't catch me going up against those two. You know how dirty they play."

Hazel and Tori chuckled in agreement whilst Jaxon pursed his lips.

"Nobody appreciates me when Tye's away." He slumped down on a chair and tossed the cutlery onto the table.

Hazel, perhaps sensing that at least some of her brother's pretended sulkiness was genuine, placed a plate in front of him loaded with all his favourite toppings.

"He'll be back in a few days, besides he calls you at least four times a day to check you're alright." She ruffled his blond hair, and he leaned into her hand for just a few seconds.

"True, but then again I am the most awesomest boyfriend in the world."

"Second most awesomest boyfriend in the world," Tori countered, sitting himself beside Jaxon and passing a plate to me across the table.

"Blah blah blah." Jaxon rolled his eyes and dug into his pizza.

For a couple of minutes, the only sound was knives and forks hitting plates.

The pizza was good but that night I couldn't really enjoy it. My conversation with Jaxon was weighing on me, making it difficult to think of anything else.

"Hey Sam, you okay?"

Hazel's tentative voice broke through my brooding, and I plastered a smile on my face before I looked at her.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I said, hoping my voice sounded more believable to her than it did to me.

"You've barely touched your pizza."

I looked down and noticed she was right. I'd cut it up and moved it around the plate, but had only eaten a few small bites. There was no wonder why I wasn't really enjoying it. I hadn't really been eating it at all.

The smile slipped from my face as the other three scrutinized me. Apparently, my silent brooding hadn't gone unnoticed by anyone, except for me.

"Jaxon told us about your conversation. You're thinking about Evie, aren't you?" Hazel said, a look of pity - which I did not want to see - covered her face.

"What if I am?"

Tori sighed, "Maybe, it is time to let her go, and move on with your life."

I bit my tongue to stop myself from shouting the first words that popped into my head. They would not have been kind and I would have felt guilty for them afterwards.

"You all know why I can't just get over her," I growled out, taking my plate and uneaten pizza with me.

"We know." I looked at Tori over my shoulder, sensing he had more to say. "But we also want you to be happy and right now you're just chasing a ghost."

"We're just worried about you," Hazel finished.

I took a deep breath. "I know you are. Hell, I wonder if I'm going mad sometimes, but letting her go is something I can't do."

I didn't wait for their responses; I took my plate and headed upstairs, not stopping until I reached the attic room.

Our house was so different to the four bed mobile home we'd been renting two years ago. For a start, we owned this place. It was our names on the deed, and it felt like something else to have a place that was entirely our own.

It comprised three floors, plus an attic. The ground floor was the living space. The second floor contained Tori and Hazel's room, a spare bedroom, and a full size bathroom. Above them were mine and Jaxon's bedrooms, though usually Jaxon's boyfriend, Tye, stayed over as well. And then there was the attic.

It was my zen, my haven, my quiet place to come and sort out my thoughts.

When we'd moved in it had been nothing special, just a junk room, but we'd transformed it into our own little studio. Tori's drum set was there, with my piano and a range of guitars for me and Jaxon to enjoy. We set a small couch back for Hazel and Tye to listen to our jamming sessions, and the stairway in the corner led up onto a flat section of the roof.

The younger version of me would have said it was heaven. And though the room was good, I had tasted heaven, and this wasn't quite the same.

I still had an hour left before I had to call Genny, so I forced a few more pieces of pizza down and got everything ready.

My hands ran through the scales without really thinking about them. It was just something to do whilst I waited. A warm up to what would hopefully be a successful session.

The buzzing from my computer broke my thoughts, and I leaned forward and clicked it open.

"Hey Sam, can you hear me?"

Genny's avatar bounced around the screen, pulling whacky faces before quieting down. I smiled without realising it.

"I can hear you. Shall I play you what I have so far?"

"Go for it."

As I played, catching sight of Genny's avatar wondering around the screen, I marvelled at how odd everything was.

I had never seen the real Genny, just the avatar that she'd created. Even her voice (and mine) was modified so that nobody could copy the songs. And yet during these sessions I really had begun to think of her as a friend.

My hands played out the last notes, and the silence that followed was unnerving.

"What's bothering you?" Genny asked, making me jump.

"Nothing, why?" I lied.

"Because your head's not in it. I can tell. Plus, you just played the same song we threw out last week."

I blinked at the screen and looked back at my notes. She was right. In my haste to begin, I'd picked up the first sheets I'd found. A song we'd already decided wouldn't be right for the film.

I ran a hand through my hair and took a deep breath. It seemed I couldn't hide anything from anyone anymore.

"Just got a lot on my mind, I guess."

"I know you're stressed about the song but you've never seemed this scatterbrained before."

Her avatar titled its head and at me with its big cartoonish eyes, making me sigh.

"Have you ever met someone that you can't get out of your head? Just the memory of their laugh or smile just makes you feel a thousand times better?"

The words poured out of me before I realised who I was speaking to; a best-selling romance writer.

"Never mind-"

She cut me off. "No, I've never really felt like that about anyone."

I stared at the screen in shock. "But your books?"

A small chuckle came through the speakers.

"I'm a writer, Sam. I use my imagination and create what I want, whether it's something I've experienced or not."

I was still a little shocked. After all, we were working on the soundtrack to accompany the film adaptation of her next best-selling romance, Expiry Date. A story of lost love between the two lead characters and how they find themselves again. I had assumed, obviously incorrectly, that she had based it on personal experience.

"So what happened between you and this person?"

I fiddled with my fingers. "It was just a holiday romance," I mumbled.

"So? Find them. That's what the internet is for."

"I wish I could but I never got her full name."

Genny groaned. "You're hung up on a girl and you don't even know her full name?"

"It's stupid. Maybe I should just move on. I'm never going to find her again, anyway."

Genny was quiet for such a long time that I wondered whether we had lost our connection and was just about to speak when her altered voice came through over the speakers.

"If this girl means that much to you, then I think you should keep looking."

I stared at the screen blankly for a few seconds.

"You think so?" I couldn't help but ask. She was the only one that wasn't telling me to move on and she didn't even know the entire story.

"The type of love you're talking about, that connection to someone that goes deeper than anything else, that doesn't come around all that often. If you had that, then you should fight for it." Her voice became fierce at the end.

I should have been jumping around, ecstatic that someone finally believed in what I was doing, but I couldn't. An empty feeling of hopelessness engulfed me.

"How am I ever going to find her?" My voice bleak.

"Fate brought you together once, who's to say it won't do it again."