 The next day, a Sunday, Kaleah woke up feeling better than ever. She felt happy, energized, and at ease. After the events of the prior day, she was excited to be awake and ready to face the day. Sam had made her feel so much better and now, knowing that she has such a tighter bond with her roommate, she feels like she finally belongs somewhere in this town. She got up, got ready for the day, and instantly went outside on the balcony to paint. Her new-found enlightenment gave her inspiration to hopefully paint her biggest masterpiece yet. |  She painted for over an hour when all of a sudden, the tip of her favourite paintbrush snapped off. “Ugh! You got to be kidding me!” Kaleah whined. She dug through her box of paintbrushes to look for one that was the same size as the one she had just broke. She couldn’t find one. She inspected the tip and realized that if she could find duct tape, she could just tape the tip back on until she goes out to buy a new brush. She went inside to search for tape.
|
 The first place she thought to look was the kitchen. When
she walked down the stairs, the smell of eggs and oranges filled the entire
floor. She could hear the stove going and dishes clanging. She slowly
approached the kitchen. |  Kaleah had never been in Sam’s room yet…in fact, she’d never even seen it through the door or anything. She cautiously walked inside, expecting a messy, smelly guy room. When she took a step in, it was nothing like she expected. His room was clean, organized, and appeared to have not a single speck of dust. His furniture was modern, unlike the condition the house was in when she moved in. What she found most intriguing about the entire room was a massive painting hanging on the wall. ‘Wow…’ She thought. ‘He’s got a good taste in art!’ Surprised at this discovery, she walked over to the night stand. |
 She approached the nightstand, where two framed photos stood. In one photo, the smaller one, there was a man—bald, white, and very sick looking. Kaleah assumed it was Sam’s father. In the other photo, the bigger one, there was a scene—it appeared to be a living room or a lounge. There was a beautiful fireplace, a nicely decorated bookshelf, and a simple, yet elegant, throw rug. Standing in the center of the rug was that same bald man and a little boy…Kaleah assumed that the boy was Sam. They were hugging, and the boy looked very sad. The last thing Kaleah noticed was that there was a very different couch sticking out like a sore thumb in the room. Kaleah gasped. The couch that was in the photograph was the ugly, tattered up, red and white striped couch that Kaleah had sent away to the dump on her first day here. ‘Oh my god! He did say that it was his favourite piece…oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! What have I done?!’ Kaleah panicked to herself. |  Kaleah didn’t even both looking in the drawer for the tape.
She snatched the photo out of the frame and quickly ran upstairs. She didn’t
even stop running to explain to Sam where she was going. |
 Sam grew very confused. ‘How can someone need tape so badly?’ He asked himself. He looked up at the clock. It was 11 in the morning and Sam had been cooking since 9:30, trying to perfect his mother’s old special waffle recipe unsuccessfully. He felt kind of hurt that Kaleah would just run out like that, knowing Sam was cooking breakfast for her. He sighed to himself. ‘I could always save some for her…’ He thought, getting back to his cooking. |  Sam sat down to eat his waffles. He made a plate for Kaleah, and set it down at the seat next to his. He waited for 10 minutes before he dug into his breakfast, thinking it would be best to wait to see if she came home. He couldn’t hold off any longer, so he dug in, looking up out the window every few seconds to see if Kaleah was pulling up in the driveway. |
He got up to clear his plate. He loaded it in the dishwasher and wrapped up the rest of the waffles he made. ‘Man, I made enough for a small family…’ He laughed to himself. He sat back down at his seat, staring out the window to watch for Kaleah. After about 20 minutes of waiting, he eventually got up and cleared the plate he left out for her. |  He paced around in the kitchen for a few minutes before retiring into the den. He turned on his computer and tried to distract himself with videos on SimTube. Normally, he would be laughing hysterically at the videos people made, as this was his favourite past time activity. Unfortunately, he couldn’t bring himself to laugh at anything with the pain of Kaleah leaving when he made her breakfast clogging his mind. He closed the internet and decided to check his chat. |
 From the past 24 hours, Sam’s chat was clogged with messages from Tyler. Saturday, 1:00PM Saturday, 1:05PM Saturday, 1:16PM TerribleTyTy: I guess you’ll forgive me when you’re ready… Saturday, 2:01PM Saturday, 2:05PM TerribleTyTy: Sam? Saturday, 3:59PM TerribleTyTy: If I call you, will you answer? Saturday, 4:01PM TerribleTyTy: I’m going to call you… Saturday, 6:30PM TerribleTyTy: Wow…you won’t even pick up my calls. This is
bogus! I just want to explain! There were about fifteen more of these annoying messages. Sam scrolled to the bottom and clicked on the message box. He looked down at his keyboard. |  Samson_Hero909: Look… He started typing, but froze when he tried to type anymore. He stared at his fingers which were hovering over the keys. He didn’t know what to say. He looked at his contacts list and noticed that Tyler was online. TerribleTyTy: I can see that you’re typing something… He sent, reading the bottom of the chatbox that said ‘Samson_Hero909 is typing…’. Sam quickly erased the beginning of his message, deleted Tyler off of his contacts list and signed off.
|
 He looked at his watch, which read 12:13PM. Sam decided that, while he waited, he was going to outside and lay by the pool. He went downstairs to change and headed outside, straight for the hammock. With one yawn, Sam decided that he was tired enough to take a nap, thinking that the sound of Kaleah’s car pulling up beside him on the driveway will wake him up. |  Sam woke up three hours later. He glared at his watch and figured that Kaleah had to be home by now. He quickly got out of the hammock, almost falling over as he did, and ran straight to look over the hedges. To his disappointment, Kaleah’s Audi was still missing from the driveway. He sighed, shook his head, and made his way inside. |
 He tried to distract himself for hours. He watched a couple fishing shows, attempted to play his guitar, and indulged himself in a one-man game of foosball. ‘She’s been gone way too long…’ He thought to himself, remembering the last time this happened when she first met Hank. |  He felt his pocket vibrate as a call started to come through, instantly, he thought it was Kaleah and reached for his phone quickly. To his dismay, it was just Tyler again. He watched the screen flash as it kept ringing, and ringing, and ringing and finally let Tyler go to voicemail. After a few seconds, his voicemail alert came on. Sam checked it. “Hey Sam, it’s me…Tyler, in case you forgot. I saw you trying to say something earlier on the chat, but then you suddenly signed off. I’m assuming your internet connection gave out or something, so if you just want to call me back and let me know what you tried to say, that’d be great. Thanks.” Sam deleted the voicemail before scrolling through his contacts list. He scrolled down to Tyler and went into options. From there, he blocked Tyler’s number and deleted his contact ID from his phone. Smiling, he put his phone back in his pocket and headed upstairs.
|
 Sam went back upstairs to see if Kaleah had come home without him noticing. No such luck. He looked out the window and noticed it was starting to get dark. ‘It’s already 7:30!’ Sam thought to himself. ‘Something’s going on….’ Sam turned around and fished out his cell phone again to call Kaleah. Right when he was about to send the call, the doorbell rang. |  Sam looked through the stained glass and saw a large, dark
haired silhouette of a woman standing on the other side of the door. It was his
landlord…Jacosta. Sam cautiously opened the door. |
 “You…are trying to tell me…that you’re rent is…LATE!?” She
snapped. “Samson Fairchild, you know that I very much dislike tardiness and
tardiness is NOT tolerated in my world.” Jocasta hollered. |  He watched his landlord walk away, with the words conveniently disappeared for the entire day stuck in his head. He looked down both ends of the street, and nobody was in sight. Finally, he decided to go looking for her. |
 Sam ran all around the neighbourhood, calling her name and asking random passerby’s if they had seen her. He was having terrible luck, but had no intentions of giving up. He was genuinely worried about her, by this point. Not at who she was meeting/befriending, but at her safety. |  “Good, he’s not home!” Kaleah said when she finally returned
to the house. “You go get everything and I will make room for it!” |
 “We did a fabulous job!” The man said, looking around the
room when they were finished with the spontaneous redecorating. |  “KALEAH!?” Sam yelled as soon as he walked in the house.
“KALEAH, I KNOW YOU’RE HOME! YOUR CAR IS OUTSIDE!” |
 He stared at it in awe. He grazed his finger along the wood, he traced the outline of the engraved fish…he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. |  “So…” Kaleah spoke softly, standing up from the couch. “What do you think?” Sam stood in silence, unable to put words into sentences. He would’ve cried right then and there if he could’ve. He turned and walked towards Kaleah. |
 He grabbed her waist and pulled her towards him, embracing
her into the most heated hug they’ve ever given each other. He whispered in her
ear, |  “I love it. Seriously…” Sam said as he pulled away. “I couldn’t have asked for anything better in my entire life.” |
 “How did you even manage to get it?” Sam asked. He heard
Mortimer grumble from his seat. | 
“No, I did not say anything to you…” He said, getting closer to Sam. “I was saying it to myself,
and when I have a conversation with myself, it is nobody else's business.”
Kaleah held back from laughing. Sam sarcastically grazed his chin. When he responded,
he mocked Mortimer’s speech. |
 “I’ll have you know…” He began, “…that I was, in fact,
referring to that god-awful photograph that caused you to fall so madly in love
with the woman that I am on a date
with at this time.” |  Mortimer was shaking his head in disbelief. |
 “Oh, but I don’t leave a date without a goodnight kiss.”
Mortimer said, directed at Kaleah. Sam had heard enough and grabbed the man by
his collar. |  “Please, please, pa-lease
don’t tell me he’s your next victim.” Sam joked. “First Hank, then Tyler...and now him? You really suck at this whole
dating thing!” |
 When he sat down, he automatically put his arm around
Kaleah. Kaleah, unsure why it felt so comfortable, nestled her body close to
Sam’s. |  “Alright, have a good sleep!” Sam said. “Oh! Before I
forget, I need your rent check tomorrow for two month’s worth of rent. The landlord
came by and was about to evict us for not having the rent in on time…” |
 He stared up at the picture of his young father, and ran his hand over the freshly-tailored fabric of the couch. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, taking in the feeling of having his dad with him once again. |  Tyler
had given up for the night on trying to get a hold of Sam, deciding it was
pretty much a lost cause. The next morning, Tyler woke up to his doorbell ringing over
and over again. Assuming it was Sam, he quickly got out of bed and ran down the
stairs. |
 When he got to the bottom of the stairs, it wasn’t Sam he
saw through the glass of his French doors. It was a red headed woman, with a
smoking-hot body. |  “Hey. Can I help you?” Tyler
asked, joining the ginger beauty out on his balcony. |
 Tyler
took a step back and looked the woman up and down. Finally, after studying her
face a little longer, he gasped. |
