The CEO

21 years prior to current plot...

Alone across the leaves filled park in the sandbox kneels down an oblivious, blissful beauty.

Inattentive of her surroundings she simply gathers up sand silently to build whatever she can from it.

Halfway through her masterpiece what seems like a large rock clashes against her work sending it down into nothing but the sand it used to be.

She stares at the mess before her for a minute, then the rock that caused the damage. Gently picking it up she outstretches her arm and opens up her hand, the rock sitting upon her open palm.

"You dropped this," she whispers in a meek manner, her eyes trained on the ground she waits patiently for the owner to take their belonging and leave her be.

The rock is roughly grabbed out of her soft hand, she looks up at the person through her thick lashes waiting for her 'thank you'.

Instead she meets ten harsh eyes glaring at her, the leader of the four standing in the middle glaring at the innocent girl.

"Get out you weirdo." Commands the leader, her bright brown doe eyes go a shade lighter and her plump bottom lip plucks out into a pout.

"B-b-" she stutters, the leader laughs causing the gang to do the same.

"'B-b-' there's nothing more to it, get out!" She yells harshly kicking at the sand in her direction.

The beauty roughly shuts her eyes as grains of sand fly into her eyes, a forced tear strolls down her cheek.

"Bianca leave her alone," a male voice speaks up, ridding her eyes of sand the girl looks up at the owner of her voice.

She recognises the boy as Xander Grey, the smartest, cutest and kindest boy in her kindergarten class.

Unlike Bianca he's much nicer to her than anyone else for that matter.

"No, Xany!" Bianca whines, "Why should this freak play anywhere near you or I?!" She stomps her foot stubbornly like the rich brat she is.

Xander shakes his head his ash blonde locks flying everywhere, "That's not-"

"No, no. It's okay, I'll go." The beauty softly speaks, she gets off her knees and dusts off the remaining sand from her white dress.

Through her lashes she catches Xander's apologetic eyes and Bianca's cruel smirk along with her gangs.

Leaving her belongings, the girl walks away, head down to the brown bench a few feet away from her.

Laughter comes from behind her, she slightly turns her head back to see the gang giggling and laughing while shamelessly pointing at her.

Lifting herself into the bench she lets her legs hang off the edge and swings them back and forth watching the other kids play with her stuff.

A soft sigh comes from her, she looks to her far left where her father speaks continuously on the phone to busy to notice his daughter's change of mood.

The fact that Bianca picked on her once again doesn't shock her, they've never been on good terms.

Already as it is she's the shy and quiet one in class, the one who struggles with pronounciation and spelling in public.

She gets teased for sitting in the back corner, working quietly by herself. The teasing was bearable until last week where she was forced to read 'the mouse and the city' in front of the whole class, all nineteen of her classmates and the teacher.

Her poor mind was in such a frenzy that she stuttered so much you couldn't understand a word she said, she mispronounced words you were lucky to hear.

She skipped many words until her anxiety got the best for her and she had an... accident infront of everyone. One small page with four sentences sent her to the verge of tears.

She didn't cry when her pink tights soaked in her urine, she didn't cry when the class laughed at her for the whole day or when her nanny asked what happened.

She instead went to bed early and silently prayed that everyone forgets her incident, but Bianca wasn't going to let her go so easily.

She teased her every second she got, called her names, stuck notes on her little cubbyhole, gossiped about her in the bathroom when she was in one of the stalls.

By the end of the week nearly the whole of kindergarten knew of her accident and nothing she could do would make them forget.

Shutting her eyes the little girl lays her head on the armrest waiting for her father to finish his call and take her home.

A presence blocks her sunlight, she opens her eyes and stares at the little boy named Xander.

In his tiny arms are her belongings along with the bottle of water she used earlier, the boy is visibly shaking as if scared of something.

Sitting up straight the girl peers over the boys shoulders at the girls glaring at her.

"Do-don't mind them." Xander stutters.

Silently she reaches for her stuff and places them to her left on the empty seat, when it comes to the last object. Little Xander hands it to her, but when their fingers brush the boy loses his grip and the bottle falls on her lap, all the contents spilling over her lap.

The boy gasps while tears well up in the girls eyes, behind Xander, Bianca and her gang burst out into not so quiet laughs.

While some point at her still laughing, others place their hands around their mouths like a speaker and yell out, "Rosapee!"

Embarassed the poor girl pushes the boy away from her and runs in the direction of the forest, tears freely flowing down her face.

All the while running she thinks of how Xander was at fault of what just happened. That it was no accident. Literally and figuratively.

Once she thinks she's far enough the weeping girl sits below a weeping willow crying silently to herself. Since the accident, this is the first time she cried over it.

After a few minutes of crying, her cries turn into hiccups and a soft ache finds it's way to her head.

Leaves crunch under someone's footsteps, quickly wiping away her tears thinking it's her father the little girl stands up.

"I-I'm sorry." Her movements halt at the familiar voice, she sniffs and glares as hard as she can at the boy.

With no reply the beauty sits back down and plays with the orange leaves, pretending not to be listening but she can hear the insults and names coming from Bianca.

Xander's blue jeans come into her view as he sits down cross legged in front her, his dirty hand outstretches to her.

"I'm Xander, but you can call me Xan. What's your name?" He introduces.

Like he doesn't know already.

She looks up at him but refuses to shake the germ habitat, "Leave me alone." She mumbles.

He gives her a toothy grin, "What's the fun in that?" He jokes winking at her.

"Xany why are you sitting with her?" Bianca's voice comes.

The beauty faces down to avoid looking at the girl, Xander turns around me glares at Bianca.

"Leave us alone. I don't want to see your face right now." Shocked at his words both girls stare at the boy sitting between them.

Bianca's eyes soften and glitter with unshed tears, "B-b-" she stutters.

"'B-b-'" Xander mocks, "there's nothing more to it, leave!" He repeats her similar statement earlier.

She huffs and glares at the quiet girl, at that she quickly looks down. "You'll regret this." She threatens.

Even though the statement was supposed to be directed towards Xander, it was instead directed to the beauty.

Xander waves dismissively as Bianca walks away, her gang following close behind.

When the beauty feels Bianca's presence no longer she looks up at the boy sitting across her.

"Why are you friends with her out of all people?" She asks.

Xander's eyes widen, this is the first time she's spoken so much words in less than a minute, let alone without stuttering.

"My father, I don't like her as much as you would think." He focuses his attention on her, watching her every move and memorising every detail of her face.

"She called you 'Xany'" she points out, he rolls his brown eyes. "A stupid pet name I absolutely hate."

The girl smiles a bit at this, they fall into a comfortable silence. The only sounds coming from the howling wind, quiet murmurs of animals and crunching of leaves.

"You till haven't told me your name." Xander decides to speak up, the girl stares at him dumbstruck.

Everyone knows her name, there's no way he didn't.

"Like you don't know already." She mumbles, Xander laughs at this.

"I've heard multiple names for you, but I want to hear it from your mouth." He explains, she shakes her head still. "Nobody cares..." She trails off thinking of her family.

"Okay then Jane Doe, I'm going to teach you how to have fun!" Xander laughs grabbing ahold of her hand pulling her up.

She snatches her hand away from him making a mental note to get it washed later on.

"A, don't touch me. B, you watch too many crime shows and C, I don't want to have fun."

The boy stares at her for minute wondering why she couldn't be this talkative I'm class, maybe people won't bully her as much. Like that would make a difference though.

"Great you know your a,b,c's now to test your knowledge about fun."

She stares at him, "F.U.N, one, activities that are enjoyable or amusing. Two, violent and excited activity. Three-"

His hand clamps over her mouth, "firstly, reading the dictionary isn't fun. It's boring. B.O.R.I.N.G, so lacking in interest to cause mental weariness. In short, opposite of fun." He rambles.

The girl raises an eyebrow as if to say, 'looks like I'm not the only one that reads the dictionary'. He frowns at her clear assumption, clearing his throat he removes his hand from her mouth and latches onto her hand.

While dragging her deeper into the forest, the girl can't help but worry about how far she'll be going, if her father would notice that she's missing, that what if he's taking her somewhere where he can butcher her up into pieces where no one can hear her screams of help.

Okay maybe she's the one that's been watching too many crime shows, in less than five minutes they arrive to what seems dangerous to the girl.

"This is a mudslide." Xander explains, the girl stares fearfully at the dangerous area.

"A landslide of mud." She mutters under her breath, the boy enthusiastically claps his hands.

"Good girl, now the lesson of this. Let loose, don't worry. Just slide down." He explains.

The girl starts slowly backing away, "no way, there's poison ivy down there!" She defends based on what she saw earlier.

Xander grins up at her, "which makes it more fun!" He tugs her forward the downwards then pushes her down the mudslide.

Her screams never stop, he soon joins her next, his screams being out of joy not fear. The journey ends in no less than thirty seconds.

Xander bumps into the girl sending her flying into the puddle of mud, she shrieks and stands up abruptly. Her once white innocent dress now brown with mud and dirtier than the language her father uses on his phone.

When Xander stands up looking like her, laughter erupts from her, surprising the both of them. To Xander, her laughter was beautiful, her brown eyes brighter than the shade of my she's covered in.

The girl even finds herself begging to go down again, together they slid down the mudslide so many times like a rollercoaster they never want to get off.

This was the most fun the girl had had in all her five years of life, sadly the fun had to come to an end.

When the sun starts setting, she faintly hears her father calling her name. Somehow hand in hand they walk back to the park.

When her father come into view the girl turns to Xander, a smile on her face. "My name is Rosaleigh, but you can call me Rosie." She introduces.

Xander thinks for a minute, "I'll call you Salie." He concludes.

"Why?" She asks curiously as her father starts to near them, he simply shrugs his shoulders. "Why not?" He grins.

She grins back, "okay, then I'm going to call you Xay." She grins, Xander sticks his muddy hand out.

"My name is Xay," she takes his hand in hers this time. "And I'm Salie."

They shake hands, silently agreeing that this would be considered a friendship.

Xander disappears as Rosaleigh's father finally reaches. Shock and happiness swirls in her father's eyes as he sees her dirty and smiling for the first time since forever.

He picks her up and twirls her in the air, being sure to keep his distance. "Looks like you had a good time. But you have some explaining to do to Mommy." He warns and she kicks her legs around in the air.

That night Rosaleigh, or Salie, scratched herself to sleep as a result of her first fun adventure. And Xander who did the same, this time slept with a huge smile on his face.

From that day forth, the two's friendship bloomed into something beautiful.