I perk up a little bit. The thought of her actually talking some sense into Randy seems like the perfect thing to do. Sophia, behind Sonia, is absolutely amazing at giving advice and talking to people. It's just one of her specialties.

"Do you think you could do that, belle?" I ask. I can practically feel her smile over the phone. "I definitely can, Ray. I'll be over in 10 minutes. Also, I can bring the food for you. I have too many leftovers, and Anthony is watching Furious 7 in the living room. So I'll be there," she says. I smile widely.

"That sounds great, belle. See you soon," I say. "See you, Ray," she says, and I hang up the phone. As soon as I hang up the phone, my mom comes into the living room and sits at the dining table. She hangs her head and has guilt painted all over her face, like she robbed a bank and it's eating her alive inside. I get up and go over to where my mom is.

"Mom? Are you ok?" I ask. She shakes her head. "Of course not, Ray. I feel like a horrible mother. I feel like I didn't raise Randy right. Where did I go wrong?" she asks. I shake my head. "Oh, Mom. Don't say that. It's no one's fault. Randy is just a little frustrated. I think he'll cool off," I say, and I sit down next to her.

"I hope so, Ray. He's not opening the door at all, and he's telling me to go away. I don't know what to do," she says. I sigh. "Does it help to tell you that I invited Sophia over to talk to him?" I ask. My mom looks up. "She's coming to talk to him?" she asks. I nod.

"Yep. She said she'd be glad to do it, and she's coming soon," I say. My mom smiles. "That girl is a keeper. You're really lucky to have found someone like her. Don't ever lose her again, Ray," my mom says. I nod. "Believe me. I'll hold on," I say.

Not long after that, someone rings the doorbell. I go and open the door, and surely enough, Sophia's standing at the door. I can see the food in her hands. The smell of it wafts into our room, and it's delicious. "Hey, belle. Come in," I say, and she walks into the house. My mom looks up and sees Sophia.

A big smile forms on her face. "Sophia! Hello dear!" she says. Sophia smiles too. "Hey, Mrs. Richards! I brought some dinner if you guys are hungry," she says. My mom stands up. "I'm starving. I didn't even want to cook tonight, so thank you! What did you bring?" she asks.

Sophia sets the food down onto the table. "Pastitsio, souvlaki with tzatziki, spanakopita, and galaktoboureko for dessert. Sound good?" Sophia asks. My mom opens the container, and inside, there are hot, fresh spanakopitas, with steam escaping from them. The smell that's escaping causes all of our stomachs to growl.

"It sounds amazing, Sophia. Ray, can you get plates, please?" my mom asks. I nod and go to the kitchen to get plates and forks. "Thanks, Mrs. Richards. I heard that Randy was a little upset, and I wanted to talk to him and see what was wrong," I hear Sophia say. I smile. She's the absolute best when it comes to these things.

"Thank you, Sophia. That means a lot to me," she says. I walk back into the dining room with plates and forks. "It's no problem at all. Where's Randy?" Sophia asks. My mom points to the end of the hallway. "Down the hall, and the first door to your left. Ray, do you want to lead her?" my mom asks. Inside, I know she just wants us to talk and have a little alone time before she goes in.

I nod. "Sure. Let's go, belle," I say, and walk towards Randy's room. Sophia follows me with a worried look on her face the whole time. "I don't know if Randy is going to even open the door for you, Sophia. He's a stubborn dude," I say outside of Randy's room. I open the door to my room in the meantime so I can sit and listen to what is happening.

"I'll try my best, Ray. I just want to talk to him and see what's wrong," she says. I smile. "You're the best, belle. Good luck," I say, and I walk closer to her. She wraps an arm around me in a warm hug, and I do the same. Eventually, we let go. "Ok. I'm going in," she says. I smile, nod, and go into my room and I lean against the door frame.

Sophia gently knocks on the door. "Randy, it's me," Sophia says gently. She tries to wiggle the doorknob a little bit, but it's locked. "Go away, Sophia," I can hear Randy say. Sophia gently knocks on the door again, in an effort to ease him.

"Come on Randy. I just want to talk to you. I'm not mad at you or anything," Sophia says. Come on, Sophia. I know you can do it. "That's what everyone says. I'm sure when you walk in you're going to start yelling at me for everything that I've done wrong," Randy says.

I kind of feel bad now. That's what I would've done if I was going to talk to Randy. "You know I won't do that. Don't you trust me?" she asks. Dead silence follows afterwards. It's like a life or death situation in this question. Your life's on the line with this question. "I trust you, Sophia," Randy says. I can see Sophia smile slightly.

"Randy, if you trust me, then you'll know that I'm not going to yell at you for anything. I want to hear what you have to say. All you have to do is let me in," Sophia says. She lets go of the doorknob to Randy's room and just stands there. She looks at me, and I smile at her.

She smiles back, and then we hear the lock click on the door. I see Sophia go inside Randy's room. Randy closes the door, and I hear the lock click once more. Once I see that Randy has gone inside, I go out of my room, and I press my ear against Randy's door. The voices are muffled, but I can still decipher what Randy and Sophia are saying.

"Ok, Randy, tell me exactly what happened," Sophia says. I hear Randy sigh. "He was going to go to your house for dinner, and I wanted to go to Daniel's house. Mom didn't let me go because of work, and I was mad that Ray got to go. He always gets everything, Sophia. He got the perfect friends, reputation, and he has you. The perfect girlfriend. It's not fair," Randy says.

I start to feel a little bad for Randy again. "Randy, did you ever talk about this with your mom?" Sophia asks. "Not really. I just said that there was a lot of pressure for me to be like Ray, and she said that I don't have to be like him," Randy says. I can hear Sophia sigh.

"Randy, don't get mad at me. I'm taking your mom's side on this one. Just because she talks about Ray's accomplishments doesn't mean you have to be Ray. Be your own person, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise," she says. "Well, all his teachers expect me to be like him. What about that?" Randy asks. Sophia sighs.

"Again, you don't have to be exactly like him. If there's one thing people really don't like, then it's when people copy off of others. You don't have to copy Ray's style or mannerisms. If you want to be a nice guy, like Ray, then go for it! Not saying you aren't already, but that's one thing you can copy without anyone shaming you. You don't have to be Ray's replica. Just be your own person and be proud of who you are. Just don't be a drug addict or an alcoholic. That's the extent," Sophia says, and Randy laughs.

"I guess you're right. Thanks Sophia," he says, and I hear them get up. "No problem, Randy," she says, and I can hear them hug. I step back into my room and sit down on my bed so that I don't get caught eavesdropping. "Now go back outside and apologize to your mom. She deserves it," Sophia says.

"I do feel bad now," Randy says, and steps out of the room. Sophia walks into my room. I smile. "Thanks, belle. I appreciate it," I say. She smiles and sits down on my bed.

"It's no problem. This was pretty easy, to be honest. It wasn't like when Anthony and I were fighting over who would get to help my Nonna cook a huge holiday dinner. Probably because the person who helped would end up getting a bigger portion of food because she was grateful. I still slap myself over how stupid that was," Sophia says, and we both laugh. I put my arm around her.

"Well, you did good. Randy is so stubborn usually," I say. Sophia scoots in closer. "Eh, it wasn't hard. Anthony's worse," she says. I raise an eyebrow. "How can he be any worse?" I ask. She looks up at me.

"We once had a 30 minute argument on why he should've left the master bedroom for me to watch YouTube. He still won after the 30 minutes," she says, as serious as Judge Judy. "Are you serious right now?" I say. She nods. "Dead serious," she says, and we both laugh.

Suddenly, my stomach grumbles like an angry dog. Gosh, I didn't even get to eat Sophia's food, and my stomach is punishing me for it. Sophia looks at me. "Hungry?" she asks. I nod. "Come on. That food isn't going to eat itself," she says, and we get up and go to the dining room.

When we get to the dining room, we see my mom and Randy hugging. Considering it's a rarity, that brings some happiness to our faces. Sophia smiles, and I smile. "Mission accomplished," she says under her breath.

"I assume you guys made up," I say. Randy and my mom let go of each other. "How could you tell, Ray?" my mom asks. "Oh, just a hunch, I guess," Sophia says, and we all laugh. Suddenly, we hear the garage door being unlocked, and my dad walks in. His arms are filled with bags and he looks like they're about to give out.

"I got the groceries like you asked, Ramona," my dad says. She smiles. "Thank you, Ross," she says, and she takes the bags and carries them to the kitchen. "Sophia! Nice to see you! Mm, what smells so good?" my dad asks, and I think I can see him drool a touch. Sophia smiles.

"You too, Mr. Richards. And Greek food. My grandmother's recipe. I made a lot. Because in my family, you aren't truly a family member until you have lots of leftovers," she says, and everyone chuckles.

"Speaking of which, I'm eating. I'm hungry, and I'm going to eat someone if I don't get some food," I say and get a plate. "Me too," my dad says, and we all fill our plates with food. For the rest of the night, we just talk and enjoy dinner.

After sleeping off the food coma that I had, I get up peacefully the next morning, at around 9:00. There are no alarms, and Randy is jumping around everywhere. So my morning is peaceful that way. I get up, brush my teeth, eat, shower, and start to read a book. Soon after, I get a call. I look at my phone, and Sophia's calling. I pick up my phone and answer the call.

"Hey, Sophia. What's up?" I ask. My hopes are up, and I'm expecting good news. However, my expectations are defied.

I never imagined that one sentence would cause so much excitement and fear. "Ray. They got something on the case," was enough for me to bolt out of the house and drive down to the police station as fast as I could.

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I know this seems like kind of a filler chapter, but we haven't seen too much of Ray's family. We'll see more a little bit later. Plus, this is a great way to tie the next event in. What did you think about Randy's explosion? Let me know in the comments.

Hey everyone! How are you all? I feel a little bit evil, but at the same time, I realized that I was considering not splitting the chapter at all. I was considering making you guys wait a whole week for the next chapter. Yeah, I feel better, but at the same time, not really.

Also, new cover! (I kept on forgetting to tell you guys). Yeah, made a new cover, since I got a Pinterest account and decided to use it. I love it, honestly. Played with some filters, and I got this cover. What do you guys think? Let me know. Also, I rewrote the first chapter of the book, and I edited the following four. After this book is done, I'll be going through it and editing/rewriting the necessary parts.

Also (this is the last one) if you didn't see my announcement, you'll know that I Never Imagined won 2nd place in the Discover Your Talent's People's Choice Awards, with 21 votes. I just want to thank everyone who took some time and voted for my book, and a thank you to those who have supported me throughout this journey. Without you guys, I don't know what I would be. You all motivated me to achieve this, and you helped me achieve this goal. So thank you thank you. I'm sending all the love and hugs I can.

That's everything I wanted to cover. Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!

Please vote/comment/share/follow/message if you like my work! See you all on Sunday with a new chapter of I Never Imagined! Have a great rest of the week!

Love you guys,

S.V.T.S.