Like so many other teenage girls, my heart felt broken the moment he got on his airplane. But let me back up a little bit.

My best friend, Casey, and I are hanging out and having the best summer of our lives. We have it all planned out. Or should I say she does. She loves to plan things out, and then watch them happen; it's kind of strange actuality. However, that fact only partially matters to this story, because this story isn't about that. It's about Him. Derek Venturi.

Well, Kind of.

Flashback:

"Casey, could you pass the chips?" I asked after taking a sip from my soda.

She sat up and passed them over. I grabbed a couple and gave the bag back. It was the beginning of summer and I was super excited to have fun. Casey had already planned out everything that we were going to do. This week the plan was to lay out in the sun as much as possible, and hey I wasn't opposed to the idea at all.

After a couple minutes of silence Casey spoke up.

"Hey did I tell you about the foreign exchange student my parents are going to take care of for a year?"

"What?" I questioned not sure if I fully heard her correctly.

"My parents signed up to be a host family for a foreign exchange student." she said and you could tell she was getting just as excited as I was.

"Are you serious? That is so cool!" I squealed.

"Yeah, I super excited. We can teach her things about America and she can teach us things about Germany."

"Cool so she will be from Germany?" I asked.

"Yep I'm so excited about it, I can't believe I hadn't told you about this before now." she added a little embarrassed.

"Yeah me either!" I said as I playfully slapped her with my magazine.

END FLASH BACK

And that was how it began, it seemed meaningless, and for a while it was meaningless.

For a month, Casey and I got a room all fixed up for the new foreign exchange student. We painted the walls a light green and put a beautiful green and pink cover on the bed with big fluffy pillows to go with it. And a big poster of a famous hockey team?

"Casey, Why is this up here? I don't think it really matches with the theme." I began, but she cut me off.

"F.E.S. is here on a hockey scholarship and I thought it would be nice for us to support that even if it is a horrible and cruel sport."

"F.E.S.?" I asked.

"Yes, foreign exchange student." she said rolling her eyes. "Anyway I think it looks good." Casey said stepping back to take a look at her work.

"Yep," I added. "Good job team!" we exchanged high fives and then left the room shutting the door of the F.E.S. room.

_____________________________________________________________________

Weeks later and a day before the F.E.S. would arrive I get a urgent voicemail from Casey. And from the sound of it someone has died, or she was going to kill someone, either way.

I rushed over to her house to see for myself what the problem was. Casey was in the F.E.S. room looking frantically around like she didn't know what had happened to the room. I looked around too, but it seems perfectly normal looking to me.

"Casey, what's wrong?" I asked in my calm down voice.

"EMILY!" she screamed.

"Yes, honey its okay." I replied as she sat down on the bed. "What's wrong?"

"It's a boy!" she whispered.

"What? What is a boy?" I questioned.

"Her. The foreign exchange student, she is a boy."

"I don't understand." I stated blankly.

"My parents asked to get a girl, we thought we where getting a girl. But today when we got the papers... And now… it's a boy!" she mumbled the last part as she began crying again.

"Okay, what's so wrong with that? It should be fine." I hugged on my best friend as she lay in my lap and cried. The poor girl hates change and this is the biggest change she has had in a while.

I had not realized how big of a change it was until we meet him.

The next day the McDonald's woke up early to go pick up the boy from the airport. I had not planned on going with them, until early that morning when Mrs. McDonald called me to tell me that Casey would not go to the airport unless I came along with her. I really didn't want to go, but Mrs. McDonald forced me into it. And I wondered where Casey got it from.

The ride over to the airport was quite, Casey mostly looked out the window, Mr. and Mrs. McDonalds spoke quietly, and Lizzie, Casey's younger sister, sat in the back reading up on the history of hockey.

When we stood outside the gate that we were supposed to be picking up Derek Venturi, I think that's what they called him, Lizzie and I held up a big sign that said "Welcome!"

It was a very feminine looking sign, Casey and I had made it a week ago, but of course we didn't know. So now the little flowers that we drew in the corners we colored in to make them look like hockey pucks, but instead they looked like coal. Casey would not even look at the sign now.

Many people walked up to us, and then around us. And after awhile I was starting to get worried that there wasn't anyone at all to 'Welcome'. One guy kind of hung around us, looking at us one minute and then down at his papers the next. For a while I thought it was him, and he just couldn't read it, but after a while he got up and walked away.

As I watched the strange boy leave, I felt a shadow begging cast over me. It was an odd feeling, one I didn't get often; I turned to see what it was that was giving me this feeling.

I looked up to see a huge boy standing over me with a nervous, but confident looking smirk on his face.

"Hey, I'm Derek Venturi. This must be the McDonald family?" He said in clear English, with only a slight accent. Derek was very tall, with short, brown hair and deep brown eyes, with a very strong chin structure. His body was nicely toned; however the poor boy was very pale. I couldn't really see him as a hockey player, maybe more of a basketball player.

"Hello Derek!" Mrs. McDonald yelled and she rushed to give him a big huge but quickly stopped when she realized how tall he was. "Yes, Hi I'm Nora." she pointed to herself "This is George." she said as she motioned to her husband. "My daughter Lizzie." she continued "My other daughter, Casey. And Emily, Casey's friend"

Derek examined each of us closely. Then after a minute he just smiled.

Lizzie busted out "How tall are you!?" she half asked, half screamed.

"Six foot five." he said with a silent chuckle to his voice.

"Holy Cow!" Lizzie whispered. Derek got a funny look on his face.

"Yeah, holy cow." he agreed. I wasn't quite sure if he knew what that meant, but if he didn't he played it off well.