Sloane smiled down to her phone, biting her lip before sending him another witty text.
Now, Sloane was a girl who could never be categorised.
She wasn't unpopular, but she didn't have many friends. That was completely up to her.
Though she way have tend to joke about love, Sloane herself was extravagantly cynical.
She didn't believe in love, to be exact.
She believed she could meet someone and feel as if she were in love, but only for a while before the truth would come crashing down on her and her heart would be broken into shards that would never match again.
Why?
That she didn't know.
Her father and his wife were in love, and her father and her mother had been until her mother's death when she was six.
A couple of her friends believed they were in love.
People at her work were in love.
Hell, her dog was in love with the neighbour's.
She had love all around her.
But, she still didn't believe in it.
That's what she'd tell herself, when in reality, all she believed was that love wasn't for her.
She wasn't meant to be in love, she wasn't meant to be loved.
It didn't make her sad.
It didn't change anything about her.
It just meant that she didn't trust her own feelings.
That, however, affected the people around her.
The ones who wanted to love her, or at least for a night.
Sloane had the capability of turning every head as soon as she entered a room.
Her golden-brown hair cascaded down her shoulders to the end of her ribs in loose waves, much like a waterfall.
Her eyes were hazel, given to her from by mother.
She was a girl many people wanted to be able to call their own, or at least be able to talk to as often as she talked to Parker.
Sloane was the kind of girl who's smile was really worth something. She rarely faked smiles, so she always seemed so genuine.
Almost nothing about Sloane was fake.
She said what she wanted to say, she wore what she wanted to wear, and she was who she wanted to be.
Even if she claimed to have a horrible personality, that was in no way true.
She was kind, gentle, funny, sweet and beautiful.
She could be sarcastic, persistent and baffling, but whoever she would be speaking to would end up finding all of these traits admirable.
And Sloane was admirable.
She never acted up after her mother's death, even if she was sad because of it so often.
She worked as hard as she could at school, getting the best grades she could.
She was an amazing employee at work, and was always reliable.
Her passion for art never stood in the way of who she was, but only developed on her as a character.
She was the most loyal and caring friend a person could have.
Though she may have seemed perfect, and most definitely was, Sloane never saw herself as so.
She found herself clumsy, stupid, annoying, narcissistic and bitchy.
Sloane had no idea how wrong she was.
Mid- way through her text, there was a knock at her bedroom door.
She spun around in her chair "Yup?"
"Dinner's ready" Her step mother Amanda told her with a warm smile.
Sloane returned the smile "Thanks, I'll be there in a second"
"Let's not make this second twenty minutes like last time, okay?"
Sloane felt her cheeks turn a different shade of pink, the shade of embarrassed, remembering when she had completely forgotten about having dinner because of Parker.
"Promise I won't"
Amanda smiled to her once again, leaving the room and closing the door behind her like the non-sadistic woman she was.
Sloane continued her text to Parker, sending it without a second thought, as she did with most of her texts to the mysterious boy.
She thought of him quite regularly.
His calming and warm voice would infiltrate her reveries every once in a while.
Who was he?
What did he look like?
She imagined him many different ways, depending on the tone of his texts that day.
She imagined him as some kind of Hollywood hunk a few times, when he'd seem to be flirting with her.
Mostly, though, she imagined him as the perfect boy - her definition of perfect being slightly askew.
He would have hair that was messy, but the kind of messy that would feel like waves between your fingertips as you ran your hands through it.
He would have eyes that could show every emotion if he tried, but bare none if he wanted.
Oh, those mysterious eyes she imagined.
He would be tall, to look down at her with a smile whenever she was being odd, and his chin would be able to rest against her head as he hugged her.
He would have a tattoo, or a few.
Ones that really meant something, and would mean something for a long time.
God, and when she texted him, she would just imagine this perfect boy texting her back with a lopsided grin at how strange she was.
The kind of boy who could understand her jokes.
The kind of boy who would be there for her.
Of course, he would be caring to her, but also still who he was.
She had always been accepting of people, and found it easy to understand that she didn't know someone and couldnt judge them until she did.
She never judged Parker's angry side, but instead found it quite amusing.
At the vibration in her hand, she checked the text back.
'delete my number'
she laughed at the common text, writing down her reply.
'but babe, you love it when I tell you that you're an angry little gremlin'
'i don't'Â he replied almost instantly, making her believe he already knew what she was going to say before she wrote it.
'you do so'
'we'll discuss it later'
Parker rolled his eyes at the text, a ghost of a smile tracing his lips.
He shook his head, the smile fading from his face, his stone expression returning.
It wasn't like him to actually enjoy talking to someone he didn't know.
It wasn't like him to be talking, even if it was via text.
He couldn't believe he was enjoying every conversation he had with the girl.
The mystery girl.
He lay back on his bed, his phone in his tight grip.
He ran his fingers through his dark, chocolate brown hair, tugging at the strands ever so slightly as he stared up at his plain white ceiling with stormy blue eyes.
God, who was this girl?
He never let himself imagine her.
He didn't want to think about her hypothetical smile, her hypothetical big eyes.
The memories of her laugh...
Okay.
He had thought about her.
A lot.
What was her name?
He wanted to know so badly.
He couldn't let her know just how much.
Parker wasn't one to share his feelings, never really had been.
It made him quite distant to almost everyone, and gave him reputation he couldn't help but to live up to.
It really didn't bother him.
So what if people saw him as someone he wasn't?
It just made it easier for him to be alone.
He found solace in being alone for a while.
He enjoyed that side of school.
There was no one he wanted to talk to in any of his classes, as most of his friends had dropped out of the 'smart people' (or as they called it) classes.
He wasn't aware that the girl we wanted to know so badly was only a few seats away.
He wouldn't know.
He didn't ever notice the people in his classes, and it was best that way.
No one needed to know him, or his circumstances.
They didn't need to know that Parker didn't live with his parents anymore. Not after their argument.
When he was seventeen, his parents sat him down, explaining that he needed to get his act together if he ever wanted to run his family's business.
He needed to think about networking, business degrees, time management schedules, getting a wife.
That wasn't for him.
As the brash teenager he was, and still is, he started an argument.
He shouted at them, they shouted back.
His parents had never been bad people, and neither had he. They always just had different views, and those different views caused conflict.
He told them he was leaving, and they told him that was good.
He ran up to his room, and packed everything he thought he would need.
His little sister didn't understand.
She asked him why.
He didn't tell her.
She asked him to stay.
He didn't.
He didn't even though he had asked the same of a girl a long time ago.
He said goodbye to Anya, holding onto the young girl as tight as he could.
He didn't want to leave her.
He didn't want to leave at all, really.
But he did.
He moved in with some of his friends, and hadn't spoken to them since.
He had no idea that they would be checking up on him through the school, or that they missed him every day.
He had told himself not to care.
He had convinced himself that he didn't care about his parents, but no matter what he did, his heart wouldn't let go of the young girl who had no clue of what was happening.
He thought of her more often than he'd like to admit.
Parker would always hide those feelings, though.
Caring wasn't a good look on him.
When he called Sloane and she was crying, he had no idea what to do. He tried his best, not knowing how amazing his best really was to her.
She found it hard to cry when he was speaking to her.
He was just so... Himself.
It was so rare these days.
Especially someone with the perfect looks he had.
A genuine guy with the added element of attractiveness?
Impossible.
Most who saw him found him attractive, even if they weren't willing to admit it.
He had a perfect body, always clad in t-shirts, hoodies and jackets. His long legs were always covered in jeans. His hair was so effortlessly pushed back, his eyes always so focussed.
He had one visible tattoo, two that weren't.
The first, the visible one, ran down the inside of his bicep, spelling out + & - = - .
The tattoo didn't look like much if you didn't know what it meant, but it had his whole life written out in black ink.
His other one was a cross over his heart, with the words 'and hope to die' written in small text underneath.
He had gotten this one after leaving his family, when he promised his sister they would see each other again.
He didn't think he would be lying.
His third was on one of his right ribs, just under his pecs.
It was a black and white rose, the black of the rose dripping like paint.
It was small, unnoticeable, but every time he saw it, he had to remind himself not to cry for her anymore.
He was trying for her now, as she had told him to do years ago.
It seemed so pointless to try at this stage, though.
He didn't want to anymore.
And he was reminded this every time he saw the ink.
His tattoos meant something.
They meant everything.
He wore his regrets.
He wore his pain.
And then, sometimes, it didn't hurt so much anymore.
You see, Sloane and Parker, they were the type people that don't really exist anymore.
They weren't fake.
They weren't liars.
They knew pain, and they pushed through it.
They didn't care about the opinion of someone who didn't know them.
And those two,
They were perfect for each other in a world that didn't care for anyone living on it.