Nick and Riley arrived at a small casual steakhouse and found a seat near the back overlooking the magnificent view of the ocean nearby. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Nick asked in concern in lieu of what had happened at the first restaurant they went to.

“Yeah, I’m used to it actually,” Riley let out a breathy chuckle, with a somewhat sad tone.

“Used of what? The teasing?” Nick bellowed as his eyebrows curled in concern and curiosity.

Riley nodded her head as she continued to gaze out of the view.

“You shouldn’t be used to horrible things like that, nobody does”

“Yeah but you can’t really help things like that happen. You just have to let it slide off you and take no notice of it,” Riley said trying to sound optimistic, despite how the pain of the hurtful words she has gotten thus far dug deep into her heart.

“Would you mind if I ask you a personal question?” Nick softly said, with a slight tone of regret for having that sentence escape his mouth the way it did.

“You can ask me anything,” Riley comforted in response.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how did you get that scar?”

Riley looked down while placing both her hands on the table, grabbing the paper towel she had in front of her and began to fidget with it. “When I was 5 years old, I was in a car with both my parents, and we were stopped at a stoplight and I remember the remember it was raining so hard that you could hardly see anything on the road other than the lights from the cars that passed by us or we passed by. When my dad began to drive, a car going in another direction failed to see us and our car and the other car just collided into one another. It was a really bad crash, our car tipped over and rolled a few times, I believe it was, I remember feeling like I was inside a ball that was rolling down a downhill street”

“Did uhm…” Nick tried to utter out questions as he found himself feeling aimlessly sorry for the girl that sat in front of him

“Yeah,” Riley said

“Yeah what?”

“Yes, both my parents died. Isn’t that what you wanted to ask?” she let out a small chuckle sensing Nick’s discomfort and sudden shyness

“I…I guess,” he mumbled. “So uhm…wow, I’m just…it must have been hard?”

“Life is hard. You want to know the last thing I remember my mom telling me?” she asked

“What’s that?” Nick leaned over in anticipation

“I remember lying on a hospital bed and the nurse that was taking care of me knew I wanted to see my mom, my dad had died right on the scene, so she took me to where she was resting while I was in my bed, and I remember my mom looking over to me, then slowly reaching her hand out to hold mine and she called me by the nickname she would always call me,” Riley blinked trying to hold back her tears. “She said, ‘Sweetie-bunch, I’m going to see daddy in a bit, and I won’t be seeing you in a very long time but I want you to remember this: your dad and I love you very, very much and we will always be looking out for you. And when the day comes, you will be brought to us by God and we will all be together again but in the meantime, I know God will send a very special angel to look out for my baby, for my Riley, my sweetie-bunch,’ and I remember asking her why she was leaving me and she smiled at me and said, ‘Things like this happen, but only to very special people and you’re an extra special person’ then I remember her mouthing of ‘I love you’ then squeezing my hand as she took her breath one last time, then closed her eyes. I waited for her to open her eyes again. I waited and waited, but she never did open them up,” Riley suddenly found tears finding its way out of her eyes as she continued to fidget with the napkin she had.

“You’re mom’s right, you are a very special person,” Nick smiled at her in sympathy while reaching over to hold her hand to console her. He couldn’t help but feel Riley’s words hit him right in the heart. He felt the tears needing to escape from his eyes but he knew he needed to hold them back. He believed that a real man never sheds a tear because it shows weakness and he needed to be strong. He needed to be strong for him, and now, he needed to be strong for Riley. “You’re life has been pretty hard, huh?”

Riley chuckled as she sniffled while wiping away her tears, “I’m just living…waiting for the angel that had supposedly been sent down to take care of me”

“I’m sure you’re angel has already been sent down and I’m sure he’s already taking good care of you the second your mom closed her eyes, because if he wasn’t, you wouldn’t be where you are in your life right now”

“Oh right, because my life is just so well taken care of,” she rolled her eyes. “My entire life I’ve had people come in to my life, not to love me but to hate me. They looked at me and they all disgust me. Nobody had ever had anything to want to do with me, nobody! I have no one to trust because everyone that has been a part of my life has all tried to hurt me at point or another. The whole world is at my shoulder and they’re all rooting to see me fail, to see me fall, and to see me perish. My entire life!”

“Well you’re with me now, and I’m going to take care of you, I promise!” he smiled at her genuinely one more time, and he didn’t know why but he got a strange feeling deep inside that somehow, him helping Riley will help the two of them find the kind of happiness they have both been searching for. He also felt a genuine feeling of care towards Riley. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t care, all he cared about is never letting one bad thing happen to her again. He wanted to make her dreams come true, he wanted to take care of her. He wanted to be her angel.