TOO YOUNG TO KNOW LOVE
A Boone/Shannon Story
Ever since Mr. Rutherford and Mrs. Carlyle had decided to get married, Boone Carlyle tried his hardest to appeal to Shannon, his soon-to-be sister. Shannon didn't like Boone, and he knew it. Every time he tried to talk to her, she shook him off.
At the wedding, Boone was left alone at the formal party's table while his mother danced with Mr. Rutherford and Shannon pranced around the dance floor trying to earn herself some attention. Boone didn't understand this action. Couldn't she just let her dad and his mum have the spot light for one minute? After the wedding dance when all three of them were seated back at the table with Boone, he tried to engage Shannon in conversation.
"Hi, do you want to go play next to the fountain?" Boone asked hopefully.
"Boone's a silly name," she replied.
"Um, so… do you want to go play?" he asked again.
"I'm bored. Dad, can we go home?" Shannon whined.
"Not yet sweet heart. We have to cut the cake and wait for our guests to leave," Mr. Rutherford replied, patting her on the shoulder.
"Do you-?"
"No! Stop talking to me."
Boone slouched back into his chair. He knew it wasn't going to happen.
You see, Boone really liked this girl. He felt like he really wanted to be friends, good friends, but the way things were going, that was not likely to happen. Boone knew he felt strongly for Shannon but he didn't know what this emotion was. At ten, he always thought of it as wanting to be best friends. Not until he hit his early teens' did he realise that his fast growing attraction for Shannon was blooming into one of the most powerful and complicated emotions ever: Love.
Boone didn't understand his attraction to this girl. She was never nice to him, never wanted to talk or play with him, and she didn't like his mother either. Even years after their parents had been married, while they were growing up, Shannon never acted friendly towards Boone. They each had their fair share of partners, but Boone never felt truly connected to any of them. Boone could remember her first boyfriend. He hadn't liked him at all. He was rude and arrogant and after Boone told her this, he immediately wondered if she would ever bother to notice his existence again.
"So who is this guy anyway?" Boone asked one night while Shannon was putting her truckload of make-up on.
"He's my boyfriend. And like it matters to you," she snarled in return.
"Why do you like him? He's such an arrogant prat!" Boone uttered in disbelief.
"Well aren't you lucky he's my boyfriend and not yours. Guess that means you won't have to worry about him." She smiled as she walked past him with a look of utter disgust.
"But you can do so much better!" he shouted after her.
"What? Like you?" She looked him up and down and left the room leaving a shell-shocked and heart-broken Boone standing in the doorway. Yep, it had been a close call that night.
He knew of course, that they would never be together being step -brother and –sister, no matter how much the fact that there was no relation between them clung desperately to his heart. Soon enough mid-teens came and Shannon was off every other night with some guy she had met, leaving Boone at home to wonder if this was the guy that would take her away from him forever.
Nobody knew the pain it caused him, and nobody would. Ashamed of his love for Shannon, Boone hid his feelings from everyone for years, even after they both moved out and got their own lives. Shannon of course disappeared and was rarely heard from, except when Boone had to go help her with her relationships and pay the guys to leave. Of course, Boone moved on, though his feelings for his sister were never shattered or forgotten but lay dormant at the bottom of his heart.
Until that night.
After being sent for the third time to rescue his sister from a bad relationship and discovering that every time he had done so, he had been tricked into giving Shannon and her partner money, were his feelings for Shannon released as she came onto him into his overnight hotel.
He never thought that this was his only chance to show her how much she meant to him. The moment she said that she had always known that he had loved her and started moving closer to him he had started to panic, not knowing what to do. In the end he let his feelings take over, and though that night might be a distant memory to Shannon, it was one of the best nights of Boone's life.