“Participants please gather here!”

Paul grinned. “Yo Boston, hurry up!”

AH, to hell with shoelaces. I haphazardly tied them and caught up to Paul Cartwright.

It was a bright cool morning and a fair amount of the citizens of New York City had gathered at Central Park to join the Good Health Now charity run, hosted by one of the city’s most noted philanthropist, Robert Carlyle. Amidst the big crowd, Paul and I managed to find our other friends, Ashley Bell and Miller Carlyle. They had found a nice spot to sit by the trees. Paul took my hand and pulled me towards their direction.

“Where’s your granduncle, Miller?” Ashley questioned impatiently. “I’m so bored of waiting like this.”

Miller smiled and shrugged. “Ah, he always liked making an entrance.”

Paul laid his head on the grass. “If you hadn’t realized, Miller, we’re all here as good friends supporting you in another one of your various family events you claim you’d die from if not for some decent company.”

“Save it, Cartwright. You’re just here to see the bouncing sports bras.”

“EW!” Ashley and I squealed in disgust.

Paul jumped at Miller. “Man, that was my secret!”

I laughed. It was only 5 months ago that I landed myself in the big apple straight from Boston, Massachusetts to attend the very prestigious Leyton School of Art. I was the quiet bright eyed girl silently moving from class to class until one day Paul introduced himself to me in the cafeteria, which was cut off halfway by Miller who informed me he was only doing it to get under my shirt. This quickly turned into a fight- a playful and rather fake one at that- before Ashley, Miller’s distant cousin had come to apologize for the overgrown children and we proceeded chatting about the new collection of MAC cosmetics while Paul and Miller continued their unconvincing fist fight.

Fast forward to now; Miller had pulled all 3 of us into another of his family’s long list of society events. It was a great Saturday morning though it would have been better had he not called and pestered all of us simultaneously -with the help of his butler- in a 4 way phone call at 7am in the morning.

Miller pushed Paul off rather abruptly. “Hey, hey, granduncle’s here.”

The emcee had offered a helping hand to Robert Carlyle who waved him off like an insignificant fly. 75 years old he might be, but Granduncle Carlyle still had a particularly sound mind and body. Without a moment’s hesitation, he started speaking through the microphone at the podium.

“Welcome everyone to the Carlyle Foundation charity run!”

Everyone clapped. Some wooed.

“As you all know, this charity run is entitled ‘Good Health Now’. In today’s society, many of us forget the importance of a well balanced diet and regular exercise. So as a starter, I’ve decided to have this run to encourage New Yorkers to start taking care of themselves amidst the everyday rat race all of us face. All your kind donations will be wired to various international organisations to supply medicine to the less fortunate people of the world apart from the 2 million from last week’s charity auction to build more public sport centres around the country. ”

Right on cue, everyone clapped.

Robert Carlyle went on. “Thank you everyone. Well, I’ve held you back for much too long. Enjoy the run!”

And with that, the head of the very large Carlyle Corporation backed down from the stage. By then, everyone had taken their places by the starting line and were already doing their warm ups. Somehow the boys managed to pull Ashley and me right up to the front. Then, Paul tapped my shoulder.

“Don’t look now but Granduncle Carlyle is having some long discussion with the emcee.”

Miller overheard him and turned towards the stage. “Man, I bet he’s going to give this run some kind of weird twist.”

Sure enough, the participants were called over towards the stage again by the emcee. As it turned out, Granduncle Carlyle had the great idea to match up everyone in random pairs, to ‘promote friendship’. Since there happened to be 300 participants, no.1 will be paired off with no. 151 and so on. Miller and Ashley already took off to find their respective partners and left Paul and me together right in the middle of the turmoil.

“Hey. You’re number 23 right?”

A tall blond with the number 173 plastered on the front of her filled up sports bra approached Paul.

He shrugged at me- “Uh... sorry Boston, my partner awaits.” –and ran off like the wind. Some friend.

I walked around finding for number 174 for almost 10 minutes and ended fruitless. By then most people were already matched up and taking their places at the starting line. Ugh, why do I always have to be the odd one out?

Just then a finger tapped my shoulder and I turned, right towards my partner’s chest. Her very large chest.

“Oh golly, I was banking on a hot stud to be my number 24.” The Dolly Parton lookalike eyed me up and down. “I suppose I could’ve ended up worst.”

Sometimes I wonder where I get all this wretched luck from.

I let out a sigh. “Well, let’s just get this over with.” So I never have to face your bust head-on again.

“Ditto that.”

********************************

There was something to be said about being partnered up to a Dolly Parton lookalike. For one, the participants consisted of 70% male to which 90% of them were too busy staring at her number sheet jump up and down to notice that she and I were steadily moving up the crowd.

I wonder how many males took up this jog for the same reasons as Paul cause if Dolly was any indication, none of them were remotely interested in the whole health is wealth point of the event.

Dolly delicately wiped the sweat off her forehead. “Phew, we’re really getting it on, aren’t we partner?”

I smiled. “Oh yes we are.” I can only imagine the smug looks on Paul and Miller’s faces when I jog past them with my partner.

It wasn’t long before we passed the halfway point and saw the refreshments stand around the corner. Despite Dolly’s big chest, she had a great stamina and reached first. My knees were shaking pretty badly but I decided not to stop since I was already so close. It was then that my shoelace decided to untangle itself and I tripped and fell right on my knees onto the rough gravel. Well, it was more like I flew and hit the walkway knees first.

God, the pain!

I wasn’t one of those screamers but I wailed so loud that I was sure I saw the people at the refreshments stand jump out of their skin.

With the last remaining part of my brain still working through the pain, I pulled myself up to the grassed area and sat there observing my knees. The pain was unimaginable. It felt like my skin was burning off by itself. There was quite alot of blood too, so much that it made my knees look like I mistook the ketchup as moisturizer.

And was that white thing.... my kneecap?

Dolly gasped. “Oh my God, partner! What happened??”

Well, what do you think happened, Einstein?

I didn’t bother gratifying her question with an answer. Instead, I proceeded to remind myself to not stop breathing even when the pain is excruciating. It was reverberating through my body so badly, I might have invited death more than once during those long seconds.

The other joggers got to me and were talking to one of the event representatives to get me to a hospital as soon as possible.

Before I could tell them to shut up and do something now, someone swept me up in his arms.

“Come on, move! This girl is bleeding like crazy and by the time you guys are done, she would probably be dead.”

Thank God for some brai-

“Trey, you’re not thinking of carrying her all the way to the General Hospital, are you?”

Dolly knew my saviour?

“There’s Mt Sinai which is nearer. Less roads to cross.”

He held me close to his chest- at least that’s what I think it was. It was hard to tell when I was slowly slipping into unconsciousness. I just knew it was something really hard.

“Kelly, are you coming or not?”

“I suppose I am.”

I tried to look up to catch the face of this Trey but as soon as I did, everything started to blur..........

.

.

.

.

.

.

The first thing I remember about waking up was being welcomed by that hospital smell; the one of sanitizer and a very strong floor detergent. It took me several seconds to remember what had actually happened until I opened my eyes and saw a clean white ceiling instead of my dorm’s light yellow one.

Oh right. The fall.

I slowly moved each part of my body, each joint silently giving me the sensation like I haven’t moved any of them in years. I refrained from looking at my legs. For now. I started moving my hands and fingers to which I found something warm was laying on top of each of them.

Hay coloured hair?

Paul.

He rested his head on my bed with my hand wrapped up in his own. On the other side of me lay Ashley in almost the same stance. Her hair covered her face in a blob of liquid copper. Miller was sleeping on a chair by the only window located in the room.

“You’re awake.” Ashley smoothed out her long copper locks away and smiled and at me.

“What happened, Ashley? How long was I out of it?” I asked squeakily. Wow, even my voice sounded rusty.

“It’s already 6 o’clock, Lee,” Ashley whispered, so as to not disturb the 2 boys. “They did this minor surgery on your knees- they had to give you stitches and everything but it didn’t take very long. Miller waved his Carlyle name to get all of us to stay with you, it was pretty amusing actually.”

I giggled at the thought of him doing the very thing he hated the rest of his family for but immediately regretted it when a shot of pain burst through my body.

“Ow!”

Ashley frowned at me, like a mother who caught her daughter doing something silly.

“Temperley, don’t make sudden movements! Your legs are all bandaged up, you know.”

She lifted the blanket off my body and i saw both my legs enveloped in white. “As I said, you got stitches for the fall. Best not to be moving around too much.”

Ashley got up and went to the table beside Miller to get some water. As she handed a cup to me, Paul stirred. He looked up frantically, like he couldn’t believe I was awake. Alive even.

“God, Boston. You sure scared the shit out of us when Granduncle Carlyle called Miller up to tell him one of his friends ended up at the damned hospital!” Paul said scathingly, his blond hair poking in all directions like a mad scientist.

This sudden outburst woke up Miller, who might have been half asleep but was awake enough to realize exactly what was happening and joined in on Paul’s hate brigade.

“Temperley, only you could’ve ended up with 5 stitches on each knee from one goddamned fall.” Miller shook his head.

“Didnt even tie her shoelaces righ-”

“Oh my God, both of you middle aged wives, shut up!” Ashley rolled her eyes. “She needs to rest!”

Both Miller and Paul kept their mouths shut; Miller staring into space in his chair and Paul pacing up and down the room. It was funny; they really did act like middle aged wives.

“Hey,” I started slowly. “I’m really sorry about giving you guys the fright but seeing as this wasn’t life threatening or anything, I hope you didn’t ring up my parents.”

Paul didn’t stop pacing. “We had to; on account of how long you were out of it.”

“Sorry Lee. They’re at the dorm taking some of your stuff now.” Ashley smiled sympathetically.

Ashley’s words hit me. Taking my stuff? Why would I-

“How long am I stuck here exactly?” I looked at all 3 of them.

“About a week. They want to monitor you.”

“A week?!”

“Why Boston, are you planning on joining another run?” Paul took his seat next to my bed and eyed me sarcastically. “Over my dead body.”

I was about to reply when Miller’s handphone rang.

“Hello, Miller here- ah, yes hi Mrs. Liam,” Miller sweetly greeted my mother. He left the room, phone in hand.

Great, my parents are here, probably with a very long and detailed I-told-you-so lecture about leaving Boston right after graduation and I can’t even run away.

Maybe I shouldn’t have woken up.

Then I remembered about Dolly who was actually named Kelly, and the guy named Trey....

“Hey, what happened to the guy that brought me in here?” I asked.

Ashley perked up. “Oh, him. He said he’ll poke in one of these days to see how you are.” Ashley came in closer so that Paul couldn’t hear her. “He’s really gorgeous though.” Her eyes grew big to reinstate her point.

Too bad he was sitting right beside my bed.

“Excuse me, Ashley but how can you be talking to Temperley here about guys when she’s in this state?”

“Give it up, Paul. You’re not Lee’s mother or anything.”

Paul rolled his eyes.

“Speaking of which, Mr. and Mrs. Liam are on their way here.” Miller had silently re-entered the room. “I think we can all leave now.”

I was frantic. Somehow I didn’t really want to be left alone to face my parents. Luckily enough, Paul decided to stay a little while longer, allowing Ashley and Miller to leave for their weekly family dinner. I was grateful that he stayed back. I smiled at him and he smiled back, his pale blue eyes lingering on me for a second longer.

“I figured that if I don’t stay back, you’d end up with more stitches,” he joked.

“I’m not that helpless, Paul. But... thank you anyway,” I said.

He shrugged.

After dinner was given to me by the nurse (really bland stuff) and Paul slipping me some chocolate from the cafeteria downstairs, my parents had come through the door. Dad was clad in his usual working attire while mom had on a blue wraparound dress.

“Hey, my bright eyed girl,” greeted dad with a smile. “Are you feeling better?”

“I’m fine, thanks.” I smiled back.

Mom gave me a sceptical look. “Please don’t ‘fine’ our concern young lady, you look as if you just got shipped back from a warzone.”

“Oh, hello Mr. and Mrs. Liam,” greeted Paul sheepishly, hand ruffling his golden hair.

Mom went up to him instantly embraced him in a hug. “Thank you so much for helping Temperley! We owe you so much.”

Paul blushed. “Er, it wasn’t me who rushed her to the hospital Mrs. Liam. I’m just her friend, Paul Cartwright.”

This time mom blushed. She instantly let go of Paul. “Oh, I’m so sorry Paul. Yes, Temperley has said something about you when she called back home the other day.” She smiled. “Thank you for taking care of her.”

“It’s no problem,” Paul smiled. “I’ll leave you guys then. Later, Boston.”

As soon as he left the room, my mother jumped in on me.

“Is he your boyfriend, Temperley?”

I shot her an incredulous look. Dad is trying to look preoccupied but actually he’s intently listening in to my answer.

“No, mom. He really is just a friend. He goes to Columbia University.”

My mother’s eyes reached mine.

“Pity. He seems rather fetching, don’t you think?”

Author's note: Hey guys ! i know this chp is not much to talk about but i didnt want to introduce everyone right away and everything... i promise the following ones to be more interesting and lovey!

Please review, i'd like to hear what you thought about it and improve :) thanks!