They say that early childhood traumas and memories stay deep within the heart and may exhibit themselves later.  Erik knew he had been awful lonely at school; he could never figure out why having a room full of friends in theater did not necessarily fulfill the emptiness of his heart.  When he said he "liked" Samantha - he meant it with all his heart.  He couldn't identify the exact feeling, so he assumed it must be something romantic as that would be a new experience to him as well.  The kiss on the cheek felt completely natural.  If his feelings of fondness were not of the romantic sort, then he would have no clue what it was.  He only felt this way one other time, and he had chosen to bury much of those memories in his heart so he wouldn't have to deal with it.<br/><br/>"Maybe that is what I like about you; you say you are a shell of a person, but I say there is a lot of goodness in you I hope to see one day.  And I guess you can say before I realized I liked you, I'd observe your hair a lot.  I tried to draw you from memory, but I could never get your hair quite right.  Every day at biology class, I had a clear view of it, so I would draw them.  But then something weird happened; some days I saw colors in them I didn't see other days.  That's when I realized you were dying your hair black, but I wanted to know what you would look like with blonde hair."<br/><br/>Then, Erik gave the grand tour of the two story building; it probably had the same layout as the one she lived in since it was the same developer that did the entire street.  He showed off the entire house to her.  He knew she lived across the street, but he had always been afraid to walk her to school.  Now that she was in his house, she wanted to show her around.  His head still hurt a little; his cell phone went off.  It was his Dad.<br/><br/>"Hey, Dad.  Nah, come on.  Would I bring girls over the house when you two were gone?  Okay, so I have one.  No, no - it's not like that!"  And then he recounted the whole story as to why Samantha was with him.  He motioned to Sam to come in and see his room ... he led her ... as he entered, he suddenly realized he never prepared the room to receive her.  Right there in all her luscious thong bikini glory was Ms. October from the Sports Illustrated Swim Suit magazine.  "Uh, gotta go Dad.  No, wait!  Uh, I think Sam wants to say hi to you; I promise, we're cool.  You know, cool man.  I promise Dad, I won't do anything you wouldn't do."<br/><br/>Erik quickly stuck his head out the door, closing it mostly and ensuring Samantha hadn't walked in yet.  "Uh, yeah.  My dad wanted to say hi to you ... don't worry, he's cool."  He quickly handed the phone off.  With Sam busy with Dad, he immediately went back in his room and tore down Ms. October.  "Sorry, I gotta grow up now.  You gotta go."  He wasn't quite sure exactly where he was going to put her so for the time being, he shoved Ms. October underneath his bed along with the picture album books of his past family life he hadn't looked at in ages.<br/><br/>Going back out the door, he sheepishly said, "Sorry bout that; it was a little messy, needed to tidy up a bit."  But he was self conscious; she seemed to be looking at one particular area of his body.  He looked down and noticed ... Ms. October' s foot had somehow clung to his shirt.  "What the heck man" he said as he quickly crumpled it up and threw it away.  "I sware, I didn't realize how bad that National Geographic magazine ... uh ... had fallen apart ... uh ... yeah."  Not sure how else to handle this seemingly bad situation, he faked feeling sick and fell on his bed.  "Ohh, the headache is so bad."