"Darya? Hun, are you home?" She heard her mother"s voice from the kitchen. She would be banned from swimming if her mother found out, she decided to keep it to herself. She itched at the rash that had spread to the sides of her throat and walked out of her room.

"Yeah, mom I"m home. Sorry I had to put my stuff up from diving, what"s going on?" She asked, trying to mask her annoyance and slight fear at what just happened to her.

"I need to speak to you about something. Do you remember when I rented out the attic so we could afford that little car you drive everywhere?" Denise asked her as they took their seats on the couch.

"Yeah, we had some weird people over the few months you did that. Why bring it up now?" Darya asked.

"Well, I went into town while you were diving and met the guy that didn"t have a place to stay while he was in town and offered the attic. I didn"t want you to be surprised there was a man here when you woke up in the morning." Denise said matter of factly.

"Oh, that"s fine mom. In fact, I think I"m going to hit the hay a little early. Night mom." She said her goodbyes and headed to her room. Denise was almost relieved when she left early. She knew something was going on with her but she would have to wait for the moment. She had a long-lost lover to deal with upstairs.

Waiting for a few minutes before she went back upstairs to check on Dane, she quietly walked by Darya"s room and saw that she was curled up on her bed and that was good enough for Denise.

She made very little noise as she climbed the small staircase to the attic room to see if their guest had woken up yet. She knew it wouldn"t be a great idea to just sit there and wait for him to wake up but she didn"t have much of a choice. Taking a chair and setting it by the wall, she waited for some sort of sign of life.

It was taking so long for anything to happen that Denise began to drift off to sleep in the chair. It wasn"t the most comfortable position but it would do for the moment.

Three hours had pa.s.sed and Denise was fast asleep. Dane, on the other hand, began to stir in the bed he had been laying in for nearly ten hours.

"Where the h.e.l.l-" His words were cut off when he looked around the room and saw Denise in the chair fast asleep. His eyes went wide when he saw the face of a girl he never thought he would again. He sat up gently, the pain in his head and limbs was still apparent. He had no idea what really happened to him and how he ended up in this room with her.

He couldn"t help but replay the images of the last time he saw her. It was so long ago, longer than he realized, if things back home hadn"t blown up the way they did maybe he would still be with her. He looked around the room and noted the soft wallpaper and seash.e.l.l images that dotted it. There was a dresser in the corner and a small closet behind where Denise was still sleeping in the chair. He moved to swing his sore legs to hang off the bed.

Stretching his limbs he winced when his muscled contracted painfully. Noticing he wasn"t wearing any pants he quickly looked around the room. There was a pair of gray sweatpants laying on the truck that was at the end of the bed he didn"t see earlier. Pulling them on real quick he stood up to look for a shirt. The pants were men"s for sure, which made him wonder if she had a husband. He tried not to think about it and instead looked for a shirt in the dresser.

He opened the top drawer as softly as possible, he didn"t want to wake her up. The top shirt looked to be like a men"s white plain shirt. He pulled it on and quietly walked to the door of the room. He walked the hall until he found the staircase that would lead downstairs. He stood at the top of them and wondered if he should go wake her up or wait for her downstairs? Then the thought of leaving the house completely before she woke up crossed his mind.

"I can"t just leave. Not again." He made his mind up, he would let her sleep and wait for her downstairs.

Arriving at the bottom of the stairs he looked to the left and right and found that the right would lead him to the kitchen. He found the dining room table and took a seat. He didn"t know if anyone else lived in the house with her so he just sat and looked around to bide the time.

He saw dozens of photos framed on the walls around him, so many that he didn"t know how he could have missed them when he came down the stairs.

He stood up and started at the ones in the hall and looked at each of them. Ones from when Denise was a small girl playing at the beach all the way up to her teen years but it stops there and then he goes to one with the teenage Denise and a young boy about the same age. He had dark skin and was laughing hard with her in the photo. They both had scuba goggles on and seem to be having a good time.

"Hang on..." He said to himself and walked back to the first few photos. They weren"t of Denise as a child, it was someone that looked just like her. When he went past the ones of the teenage years he saw the older Denise that was sleeping upstairs and she was standing with a young girl that he saw from the other photos. Then he found some that seemed like family photos of the two of them, and even some of Denise around the age that he met her with a tiny baby in her arms.

"Wait a second..." He began to put the pieces together when he heard a sound behind him.

"Oh! Sorry, didn"t think anyone else was up yet. I was just gonna grab something to eat. You must be the guest renting the room upstairs." Darya said when she walked into the kitchen and saw the strange man looking at the framed photos on the wall. He was tall with medium length light brown hair that had a slight wave to it. He was about the same height as Ramon and Michael, Darya thought to herself.

When he turned at looked at her she saw his eyes go wide for a second but what caught her up was the deep moss green eyes that looked back at her.

"It"s not a problem...Sorry if I made any noise to wake you," Dane told her as he shirked away and took a seat at the table once again. He watched her intently go to the fridge and look through it for something to eat.

"Oh, you didn"t make a sound. I was up most of the night tossing and turning anyway. You haven"t seen my mother have you?" She asked only confirming what he had been piecing together. Now that he was here he wasn"t going anywhere, he needed answers and they start with the sleeping beauty upstairs.