Unknown Passions: Fan Fiction
Artificial Flowers Chapter 2
'Fox' Crane sat at the desk he seemed to live at 6 out of 7 days of the week.
A repulsive mahogany smell seemed to overtake his senses each time he walked inside of the room he loathed.
It represented everything he was once, and some of what he was still against. Work ethic. Responsibility. But it was all he could ever do to get his mind off the one that mattered for the first few months. Years.
Sure, he was a guy. He went to clubs. He fucked and left girls he never knew the names of stranded at seedy motels. It made the pain go away, even if it was for a few brief minutes.
He was his Father's son, minus the wife he was still constantly pressured to marry.
Her name was Lola. To most she would be considered perfect in every way. Beautiful, funny, intelligent, well mannered and respected, and most important to his family, very rich. Yet, he refused to marry, which was actually fine with her considering the fact that she was in love with another. A common bond that brought them to friendship and friendship alone.
"What ties us together?" she once asked him while in a drunken state.
They each knew the answer. It didn't have to be announced.
They were each in love with another, that wasn't of their class. The only difference being he had no idea where his love was.
Another reason he retreated to the desk, to find her.
There wasn't a sign of a Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald anywhere in Maine. The continental United States.
He once resorted to questioning his brother on her whereabouts.
"How did that go over?" Lola asked the moment after hearing this.
"Hello Ethan."
"May I ask who's speaking?"
"Fox."
"Nicholas." he retorted, obvisouly agitated to hear his voice.
"Whichever."
"Do you have a reason for calling." he could tell his half brother was ready to hang up.
"Do you know where Theresa went?" Fox finally got out after a sigh.
"Theresa!" his voice boomed in anger or jealousy. Either or.
"Yes, Theresa. Do you know where she went?" Fox went on, somewhat afraid of the consequences of this phone call would eventually be.
"I can tell you she's not in France with me and Gwen, and since when were with you Theresa? I ordered you to stay away from her!" the venom was clearly evident.
'God I hate my stepbrother!'
"Well I didn't listen to you, so do you know where she is?"
"As hard as it probably was for you to call me here, I still won't tell you where I would think she is." Ethan then disconnected the line without a final word.
Lola laughed. Fox didn't.
That's when he searched the world.
There were a few...hundred. None of them were her.
Then another question of Lola's then popped in to his mind, "What drove her away in the first place?"
His response, "I don't want to talk about it."
14 Years Ago:
Winthrop Hotchkiss Wedding Reception
"Theresa Crane, I presume?"
She looked up from the last resort she called Jack Daniels, only to meet a pair of piercing blue eyes.
"May I ask why you're talking to the most...unwanted person here?"
"I believe that is me actually, if a select few people knew I was in this place."
"Why would that be?" she asked, while staring at the bottle that had given her so much comfort for the last hour.
"Because I'm the one person these people probably don't want to see." he smirked. Not smiled, smirked.
"You already know my name, would you do the pleasure of telling my yours."
"I go by so many names." he took the seat opposite of her, pushing the bottle aside. No objection was made just a simple sigh. Of relief? Neither of them knew.
"What's the most common one?"
"People call me Fox." his smirk intact, as he tried to see if the name rung some sort of bell.
But there was no flash of recognition, nor remembrance. 'Perfect.' his mind thrived at the opportunity.
She noticed the period of silence take over the conversation, failing to realize his mind was planning something. Instead she went on blabbering in a drunken state.
"Is that name supposed to mean something to me?"
"It depends how you look at it." he responded.
"So how's Julian doing?" he started another topic attempting to get off information about himself.
"You mean who is he doing." she noticed the slight chuckle he gave due to her comment.
"I assume you found out the true nature of Julian Crane."
"I knew well before, but it was never him I wanted. Actually I never wanted any of this, accept my son." the drunken side started to reveal itself as she revealed more information about her life.
"Your son?"
"Over there." she pointed to where the groom was holding the tiny baby in his arms marveling over the child as the extremely blonde bride just said how cute he was on cue each time.
"Shouldn't you be holding him?"
"Not today." she paused briefly, "It's not a good day."
"Do you want to get out of here? Get a drink or something?" he questioned, his persuasive blue eyes boring into her glazed brown ones.
"What have I got to loose," was the response that started it all. Who would have ever thought that picking up a purse, leaving a room, grabbing a beer, would have lead to so much.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I love you, I hate you, I can't live without you. I just can't take anymore..." she silently sang in the midst of the most preppy place on the face of the Earth.
"Can you say old!" Heather interjected in the middle of Mandie's singing.
"My Mom got me into some old rock stuff okay. Anyway it's not that bad." she defended.
"Your Mom's never home, how can she get you into some music from 2000 something?"
"It was in her collection, and I happened to be...browsing for some money to go down to Carpe Diem that night, around it." she didn't want to admit the fact that she actually wanted to listen to some unpopular 'classics.'
"Oh yea, browsing." Heather slightly chuckled, cautious of the fact this was a library, and there were annoying teachers around looking for something to do.
"Yea, you know like last month, when you were browsing for the keys to your Mom's Porsche to impress a certain, Andrew was his name right. Let's not forget you still don't even have a learners permit." Mandie grinned while getting up to search for a book, noticing how Heather followed.
"Hey it's not my fault there's a family law thing, and considering the fact I see my family a grand total of 50 hours a year, how do you expect them to let me drive them nowhere for about 100 or whatever." she paused before asking the one question Mandie knew she would eventually ask, "So really, what's going on for tonight?"
"What the studying or tennis?"
"Neither." Heather gave her a smug look, thinking she had already beaten her friend.
The clock silently ticked away the seconds, as neither girl moved from their spot. Letting out an exasperated sigh Mandie finally spoke, "I can't tell you."
"I knew it!" Heather squealed. "But now you have to tell me."
"It's personal." she browsed through, what seemed to be, thousands of books, piled in some sort of complicated order to motivate the students.
"So?"
"So I can't tell you."
"Everyone has their price." she red head commented.
"You won't be able to meet mine." she turned the corner, immediately bumping into another person. In a strange way she felt relieved at the fact that she didn't have to talk about this anymore.
"I'm sorry." the boy commented, "I wasn't looking where I was going."
"It's OK." Mandie lifted herself off the floor, and dusted her skirt off.
"So what's your price?" Heather decided to ignore the entire ordeal.
"Are you new?" Mandie asked, making eye-contact with the boy's brown eyes.
"Yeah...uh, nice place." he replied.
"Really we think it sucks." Mandie put Heather into the discussion, as a subtle effort to stop the questioning.
"Hey, I'm Heather and this is Mandie." she greeted in an actually not hostile voice, while giving him a once over for the first time.
"Nick." he responded in a laid back voice, that according to Mandie, affected Heather greatly.
"So where are you from?" Heather asked.
"Small town America, otherwise known as Harmony, Maine." he gave a slight grin.
"That would suck. Honestly how much is there to do there?" she asked.
"There's some stuff, but it's really not that bad."
"Still a complete city supporter."
"Well I got to go down to History, wherever that is." he immediately took off, before asking for directions.
After Nick was out of range Mandie finally spoke up, "You like him. You, of all people, like a poor kid from a small town. Congratulations, that's a step away from shallowness."
"Shut up, he's hot. Now what's your price?"
"Back to the shallow side again."
"Are you ever going to answer that question?" Heather asked.
"Look me and Kate aren't going out tonight on some late night double date thing or whatever, we actually are staying in." Mandie blurt out as loud as possible in a whisper.
"Then what are you doing?" Heather demanded to know.
"See ya at lunch." the blonde stormed out of the library to an unknown location.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Ms. Hunter?" the secretary interrupted Theresa from her thoughts.
"Yes." she looked up from what was supposed to be her work.
"A Mr. Dillan is on line 1."
"Put him through." she ordered.
"Alicia, it's so good to hear from you again."
"Same to you David, what do you want." she tried to sound polite.
"I have some new girls, perfect for a few positions."
"I'm not looking for models. I have enough." she sternly denied.
"I got you to where you are today, Alicia Hunter was nothing before me. I'm surprised you're being to hostile."
"You ripped me off. I was on the streets, with a child I might add, for 2 weeks because of you!"
"I motivated you to succeed." he enthusiastically responded.
"You screwed me over, just like you're about to do to those girls. Never call me again David or I'll sue." she slammed down the phone, hating the fact that he used the one name she despised most, Alicia Hunter.
