Billy's hand was now resting on the strand of dark red hair that had just seemed to fall into his hands when he had reached for it. At the moment Naomi wasn't looking at him, she was again concentrating on the picture that she had been working on so hard.

This didn't seem to last long because her head whipped around and the hair flew out of his grasp. His hand stood empty in the mid air, but she didn't seem to notice.

"What is it with you? Is it something that you want from me because if you've heard something about me-"

"No, that's the problem. I've never heard anything about you from almost anyone. That's the problem. I've never seen you before now and now I see you all the time. I asked people about you and they don't seem to want to me anything at all. And what they did say was something that I could't understand. I just want to get to know you is all." He looked down at the ground again. He didn't want her to see the bright blush that had fallen across his tan cheeks.

He heard something fall to the ground and saw that her notebook now lay abandoned on the ground next to her legs. His eyes slowly shifted up and he saw that her blue eyes were again focused on him again.

"You're really that persistant? You want to know things about me? Why is that? I mean, do you want to know why I was shamed into leaving this town and then I felt like I had to come back for the same reason? It's not something stupid like making the wrong choice of getting a job or something like that. It's a really deal." Her blue eyes shone more as they seemed to fill up with tears. It was like she wasn't even there, but somewhere far away in the past.

"Well, if you're that upset about it. You don't have to tell me. I mean really. I've had things happen in my life that people don't know about. I've had horrible things happen, but I don't tell people about them just because they asked. So if you don't want to-"

"Like I've said. You're the only person that seems to want to talk to me. The whole town seemes to think that they can just treat me like crap. Maybe you're a bit different. I'll see about that. If I tell you, I'm sure that you'll show your true colors and have nothing to do with me if you really have a brain. Maybe you'll give up that fantasy that I think you may have in your head."

"It's not just some little fantasy. I really think that I feel something for you," he almost yelled, as if to prove it. He then looked down again like a child that had gotten in trouble on the playground. He tried to catch a glance of her, expecting Naomi to have run off, but she hadn't. She remained rooted to the spot and there was a fresh blush on her face.

"Well, we'll see then won't we?" she asked the open air. She pushed her hair back and tried to find her conposure. "I lived in this city a number of years ago...

'It was a time when I was younger. I was still only a young girl and my hair was much lighter then it is now. I knew alot of the people here and may of them did like me. I had a part-time job in the church working for Carver.'

'He let me do things like pull weeds in the graveyard and clean up the church. Just the kind of things that you would do to make a little bit of extra money. He was really kind about it. He would even help me out with the work sometimes. It was quite funny really.'

'He became my best friend in a sense. He was at least one of the people that knew me as well as Popuri did. The rest of town liked me at that time, but Popuri and I both had free spirits and I worked with Carver so of course we clicked.'

'He liked to thank people for the work that they did. It didn't matter who the person was. He was just happy that they were willing to help him keep the church looking nice. It's too bad that he didn't keep his house as clean,' she laughed in the middle of the story before beginning again. 'I wasn't very good at cooking so he would invite me over and make me dinner. It was a very nice thing for him to do even though I only saw him when I was working.'

'We began to hand around outside of work. I even went to church a few times to see him preach even though I didn't care much for it.'

'I think that's where people began to think differently of me. It was when they began to wonder what it was that I wanted out of a relationship with the local preacher. He actually cared for me and I valued him as a friend and only Popuri and Carver seemed to believe that. They didn't understand how I could be be friends with a holy man. The longer I was with him, the more complex things became until one day at the end of summer after I had been there a few years.'

A/N:

Sorry I've been gone for so long! I've been having writer's block, but I hope that I can start working on this story again. I just had to think of the right time for Naomi to begin to tell her tale. That and I had to think of what will happen after Billy hears it. Still a slight work in progress, but I'm going to work on it. So please stay tuned!

Billy: Gosh Amy! I've been sitting here for months! I've grown a beard.

Amy: And you never brought my owie googey buttercake!

Billy: runs for the hills.