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Chapter 4

"So…who's the guy you were hiding from tonight?" Rizy asked as she and Schala finished busing the last tables at the cantina.

Schala tried to keep her voice calm and said a simple, "What?" Of course, she knew exactly who Rizy was talking about. She quickly put the last of the dirty dishes on her tray and started heading back towards the kitchen so Rizy wouldn't see the small blush pricking her cheeks.

Rizy shot an unbelieving look at Schala's back as she followed. "Dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes – dangerous smile." A huge grin broke on Rizy's face as she moved in front of Schala and held open the kitchen door. "You hid from him in the kitchen all night and didn't come out until he left."

Schala smirked as she met the eyes of her Twi'lek friend, and she continued into the kitchen past Rizy. "I wasn't hiding from anyone," she said, trying to sound indignant.

Rizy chuckled as she and Schala dumped the last of the dirty dishes into the sanitizer. "It sure looked like hiding to me!"

Schala cleared her throat and tried to look neutral. "Well, it wasn't. If you're talking about that guy with the dark jacket that bought the hovercraft from Quilp…I've seen him out in the street maybe once before, but I don't know him know him. So I wasn't avoiding him – there's just no reason for me to talk to him," she said, keeping her tone light. "It's not worth Quilp getting on my case for talking on the job to say hi to someone who's practically a stranger." It was a pretty good explanation, and Schala almost believed it herself. Almost anyway.

She certainly didn't want Rizy to know that she had, in fact, spent the entire day rehearsing what she's say to him when he came in. Schala's initial plan was to play it cool and disinterested, to pretend to be too busy to give him her full attention. That way she could talk to him briefly, but not long enough to make herself look like a blushing, stammering fool. However, when Schala was practicing in the mirror, she thought she looked more confused than cool, so she went with "Plan B" and decided to hide from him instead.

Rizy raised an eyebrow. "If you've only ever seen him once, how come he waited around looking for you?"

Schala had wondered herself why he didn't leave immediately after buying the hovercraft, but she doubted it had anything to do with her. "He wasn't looking for me."

"Oh, yes he was! He was waiting for you, I know it!"

"Shh! Keep your voice down!" Schala looked around the kitchen to make sure they were alone. A droid working at the sanitizer was their only audience.

"Rizy," Schala met her friend's eyes again, "there's nothing going on. I've talked to him once, maybe twice, that's all. I don't even know his name. " Schala hoped she didn't sound as disappointed as she felt.

Rizy's lip curled into a suspicious smirk. "Maybe he's stalking you then! He seemed pretty interested for someone you've only talked to once, maybe twice."

Schala barked a quick laugh. "Stalking me? Are you being serious? Why would he stalk me?"

"Why would someone buy that piece of junk hovercraft from Quilp? I bet it was just an excuse to come in and see you! He went to all that trouble and you wound up hiding from the poor guy all night." Rizy was clearly very amused at her friend's expense. "If he comes back again tomorrow, we'll know for sure he's after you!" Rizy put her hands up like claws to illustrate her point.

Schala was afraid Rizy was getting closer to the truth, so she tried to end the conversation. "Thanks for the concern, but I think I'm safe for now. Honestly, I doubt I'll ever see him again." The words actually hurt her to say, and she really didn't want them to be true. Her brief encounters with the man, though a bit irregular, also brought a tiny bit of excitement into her life, and now it seemed she was back to her dull, monotonous routine.

Rizy took Schala's cue and changed the subject, "You want to grab something to eat real quick, Schala?"

Schala shook her head. "Nah, I'm actually pretty tired. I think I'm just going to head to bed."

"Okay, good night then."

"Good night, Rizy."

Schala headed up the narrow set of stairs at the back of the kitchen, which lead to the bedrooms for the live-in workers. Schala's room was at the end of the dark, grimy corridor and was the smallest room of them all.

She began untying her apron and had it off just as she entered her room, pushing the door closed with her foot. Schala folded her apron and laid it gently on the small chest in her room. She slipped off her shoes and sat at the edge of her bed, tired but her mind was still going too fast for sleep at the moment. She glanced around her sparse room. Aside from the shabby bed and worn chest, the only other furniture in the room was a tiny dressing table with an even tinier mirror and a wobbly chair with one leg shorter than the other three. It wasn't much, but it had been home to Schala for the past 8 years.

She got up and walked over to a creaky floorboard near her chest. She knelt down and carefully wiggled the loose board until it came out. She reached into the opening a brought out a little box – her keepsake box. It held a few small belongings from her childhood that she had managed to keep with her all these years. She opened the lid to the box and pulled out a hologram. It was a picture of her with her parents – all smiling, all happy. No idea what would soon be in store for them. She would sometimes talk to picture as if she were talking to her parents and they could somehow listen. She had nothing to report to them today though, because she doubted they wanted to hear about her hiding from an attractive man in the kitchen.

She gingerly placed the hologram down and pulled out her mother's bracelet. She had always admired it as a child, and she was grateful that she could count it as one of her own very few real possessions. Beautifully made, it was onyx black with symbols and engravings on it she didn't understand. Schala put the bracelet on her own wrist and again marveled at how cold it was. Whatever material it was made out of, it was always ice cold, as if nothing could ever warm it. She still wondered why her mother had chosen to wear a bracelet that would chill her arm, but her mother had loved it and so Schala loved it now too.

Her mother hadn't been wearing the bracelet on the day she died. The events of that day were still jumbled in Schala's mind, but she remembered running into her mother's room to grab the bracelet before fleeing with her father. There was only time to grab a few things, and she couldn't remember why it was suddenly so important to her at that time, but she wouldn't leave without her mother's bracelet.

She had a few other keepsakes in her box, reminders of the past, but she didn't have the heart to look at them all tonight. She took off her mother's bracelet and gingerly placed it and the hologram back into the box and then sealed the box beneath the floorboards again. If she dwelled too much in the past, the dark thoughts would likely disturb her dreams.

She quickly undressed and put on her sleepshirt before crawling into bed. She took a few deep, calming breaths to clear her mind, and thankfully sleep came quickly. However, she had fitful dreams that night. She was aware that she was tossing and turning, but she never fully broke from her sleep. When she finally shot awake in her bed in the early hours of the morning, her heart was pounding against her chest. She kept her head on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling not blinking. She couldn't remember a thing about her dreams, but her racing heart told her they weren't cheery.

Her shoulders were so tense she knew she wouldn't be able to relax into sleep again, and she decided it would be best to go ahead and start her day. There was certainly plenty to do. As she quickly dressed in the dark, she secretly hoped Quilp had an errand for her to run outside the cantina today. Even though she knew her chances of ever seeing the man again were slim, she couldn't help but smile at the possibility.

A/N: Thank you to all the reviewers and followers! I appreciate you all!