It was the day of her college graduation and Lux Cassidy was alone. This really isn't as tragic as it sounds. Lux was used to being alone, used to being bounced around from one foster family to another, used to people seeing her as a paycheck, an object. Until her sophomore year of high school the only person who had ever really seen her was Tasha, her best friend since the age of seven. Lux held her breath as her thoughts started to drift back to her sophomore year.
*.*
That was a new beginning for her, and now she didn't need to think about finding Cate and Baze, her birth parents, or how once they got back together she seemed to take a backseat to their budding romance and careers. She didn't need to think about how hard she tried to fit in. She didn't need to think about meeting Jones, or how her relationship with Tasha became strained because of Jones. She didn't need to think about how all of these people, people who claimed to care about her, even love her, had proven all of her insecurities right and abandoned her again. She couldn't even count on Math and Jamie once they started dating Allison and Fern. Most of all, she didn't need to think about Him.
*.*
Truth be told, she could handle Baze and Cate never having time for her because they had been traveling around the country doing financial talk shows for the last four years. Who would have thought that Baze would not only clean up his act, but that people, famous people, would come to him for advice on how to spend their money? They were currently meeting with the President of the United States to discuss how to get the country's debt under control. Surely Lux understood how that was more important than them seeing their only child graduate college.
She could even handle the fact that Tasha had repeatedly lied to her about her relationship with Jones. She didn't really like him anyways, why would she want to be with a guy who didn't even have the guts to ask her out in the first place?
Who was she kidding, she couldn't handle those facts, that's why she left. After she caught Jones and Tasha together six months after their high school graduation, and only a week after she and Tasha had moved into their University of Oregon dorm together. Lux went back to her parent's house to talk to Cate about how hurt she was by Tasha's actions. She really shouldn't have been surprised though to find no one home. By the looks of it, they hadn't been home at all in the six months she was away at school. She wasn't even sure why she went home, she knew that even if they were there, they wouldn't have had time to hear about her problems.
It was almost laughable how much things had changed, when she first started to get to know Cate and Baze, they had all the time in the world for her. Most of the time it was them who demanded that she talk to them about her day or her grades.
Things started to change once Ryan left Cate for Julia. Cate was devastated that Ryan had lied to her about Julia being pregnant and had turned to Baze for comfort. Things were somewhat civil with Cate and Ryan for a while, he was even at Lux's high school graduation.
Once she had graduated, things changed however, Ryan stopped coming around, stopped calling to check on her. It was as if he had replaced her with his new son Jack. Once Ryan left she had nothing and no one, so she did what she always did, she ran. She ran to the one place where she had always felt loved. The one place she had never been, Minnesota.
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She now stood under her favorite Willow Tree near the football field on the University of Minnesota's campus. She went to this tree whenever she needed to think, which was often. She would sit under the tree and just let her thoughts flow. More times than not her thoughts went back to him. Honestly, she didn't know why she came to Minnesota, it's not like she was expected find him, or expected him to still miss her, still want her. She fell into a routine there though, she would go to her classes, she surprised herself her junior year of high school to learn that she actually liked school.
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Sometimes she would skip class and come sit under the willow tree and stare into the big windows of the library. She was fascinated how the scene never changed. No matter what time of day she was out there, he would always be there. He was there now. She didn't know his name, didn't know his story, all she knew was that she felt a strange connection to him. She was slowly drawn out of her thoughts as she heard the beginning of the graduation march coming from the football field and the commotion of her fellow classmates getting ready to receive their diplomas. She stood up, took one last look at the mysterious man in the window, and was shocked to see him looking back at her.