Chapter 1 - Her Background

She had a few friends from school days who she did truly value and knew would always help her.

There was Jenny de Swart, the sweet 4'8" girl who may have been a bit younger and smaller than her, but had the biggest heart of gold. She loved the outdoors as much as Mel did, knew some of the best hiking trails, the ones off the map. This little Afrikaans brunette had always had spunk. Jen always stuck by her friends, and Mel knew she could always count on her. Jen was sick a lot nowadays, they often texted. They didn’t see each other often anymore, when Jen got sick, her parents took the ultimate sacrifice, quit their jobs and moved her up the coast, away from the big city so they could look after their ailing daughter. It was sad to see such a lively young person getting sick. And scary, scary that although Jen was younger than Mel, they were both still under 30, sickness could pull one of them down like this.

Then there was always Colleen O’Neil, the red headed Irish friend. Colleen's family moved in right next door to Mel when the girls were ten, they were similar enough to become instant lifelong friends, but different enough to enjoy their space and not annoy each other. After they had graduated Colleen got a job and moved to Cape Town.

And there was always Anele. This was new South Africa, and there was nothing wrong with growing up with friends of all colors, in fact Mel was probably closer to Anele than anyone else. But after graduating Anele had gone up to live in Jozi, she had an aging mother and Jozi had the best jobs so she could support her mom. Life had been tough on Anele, she had had to grow up too fast. But she was sweet, and caring.

The girls had spent a ton of time together growing up, but you couldn’t say they were inseparable. There was an age gap of a few years, and when they were kids it had mattered; now obviously that seemed so petty. But it was still there, slightly.

Mel was still a loner. She could never really call anyone her best friend, because truth be told, those she viewed as her best friends always actually had another best friend. So she remained a loner, social, friendly, but never too close to anyone.

In the teen years she was always closer to the boys anyway. Not flirting or dating them, but being one of the guys. Some thought she was lesbian, but that was not it. She was attracted to the guys, very, dangerously attracted to them. But they were less messy than teenage girls with their make-up & gossip, pms and hairspray. Guys were straight forward, no drama. Ok, they spoke about boring stuff like cars & sports, but they liked her collection of pocket knives, she could beat any of them at arm wrestling, and they were willing to take her on at a tree climbing duel. The girls, well not so much.

But as adolescents became teens & teens became adults, the guys began to notice her, not for the knife collection anymore, but as a woman. And most of the friendships there fell to pieces because she would never risk their friendship for a possible 6 months of dating.

The only guy friends she had left, she was pretty sure were just short of being gay, the way they acted, even into their 20s, and the way they dressed always hinted at it. But maybe that was just because of this being the age of geeky guys.

There was Andre Swart, a tall skinny guy with a mop of brown hair. He was always a bit of a momma's boy, but had never been anything but kind and sweet to Mel. Even when he knew she needed something from him. She had to be careful though, there had been more than a couple of times they had been chatting when she was almost ready to grab him and kiss him. Problem being she didn’t want to ruin their friendship. So she always put those feelings down to stupidity and hormonal imbalances. Thankfully that had not happened any time recently. They both had jobs that took much time and energy out of their lives and meant they didn’t get to hang out much, except the occasional movie when the rest of the gang was visiting.

Lastly there was Chris Moore. He was not even that close to Mel, more a friend of Colleen's, he was quite similar to  Colleen, a bit geeky with a quirky side. Sarcastic, but a good sense of humor. Fun to hang out with, but not for too long. He too had moved out of Durbs, all the way up to Pretoria. When his parents got divorced and things were rough in his home, he moved to live with his married sister to do his final year of schooling. Turned out that he enjoyed it so much up there that he stayed.

And those were the 5 people in the world that she was closest to. The only ones she knew she could always trust.

She had her parents, but her relationship with them was such that she knew she could always take the good things to them and they would be happy. But she never could take the bad things to them, last time she tried that was 7 years ago, and they stopped talking to her for over 3 weeks.

This is the story of Mel Cooper, her friends and her escape from the city called a paradise!