How to Write a Romance Book

"A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking because it's trust is not on the branch but on its wings." -Unknown

PROLOGUE

I have always been an indecisive person.

I am indecisive in a way where I refuse to choose to which of what I'm supposed to be doing at the moment. I prefer doing something productive, productive in a sense of benefiting not just me, but if possible, everyone. My motto in life would be, “It’s better to be selfless than to be selfish”.

It is never easy even when I am weighing all of my options because really, all of us have an option. Whether it be to practice the non-existing cooking skills, or to watch a movie, or even to slit my own throat and drop dead.

Whoa, too dark. Let me back paddle on my own thoughts.

Deciding on the variety of choices given as an option is a pain in the ass. Even back when I was a 9-year-old child, I have always fancied the concept in chaos theory where small changes can and will affect the initial outcome significantly, the butterfly effect.

This brings to my current dilemma. Should I talk to my brother to entertain him or should I continue reading the book I read last night in Kindle where I get to entertain myself? I don’t know.

If I do talk to my younger brother, Rem, then I will be opening a can of chitchats that will take the entire time of this road trip. As much as I love talking and my 8-year-old brother, I would hate to talk about Roblox and Minecraft for nine hours. Plus, this goes against my motto.

If I do read, then there is a possibility in the future where Rem would hate me because, after all those years, he was holding a grudge against me for not daring to start a conversation with him during the time he will soon be calling ‘the turning point’ of his life.

As I’ve said, I don’t know.

One thing I do know is that I’m exaggerating. Why would he probably call this road trip the ‘turning point’ of his life, right?

Wrong.

He will call this road trip the turning point of his life because this is not an ordinary road trip. It is a car ride that is officially added to our autobiographies. A week before Thanksgiving, my mom got a call from her sister living in a town somewhere in NorCal and told her to visit the place with the whole family.

I did everything in my book of lies to make sure that I will not be coming because really, who wants to be stuck in a car ride for nine hours? Okay, some would probably like that, but I am not one of them. Besides, if you have my mom… oof.

Anyways, my mom drove there a few days before Thanksgiving, leaving me to take care of Rem because my mom being my mom, she refused to do her role as a mother and take care of her own son because I’m not going to accompany her. That was a month ago.

She got back a week after and dropped the bomb. She said that we’re moving to live with my aunt. We mean me and my brother. What about my mom? She said that she can’t leave her job in Los Angeles, so it’s just me and my brother. Why? She said, “The trees would be a breath of fresh air.” That is all.

Although, I know that it’s just because she missed her life where she didn’t have to go home in a house with children that remind her of the biggest mistake of her life -which was settling down to my father who left us first.

I mean, looking at it, at least my mom had the decency to drive us to wherever we were going rather than shipping us through USPS, right?

Suddenly feeling bad for my brother, I made my decision.

I hid my phone underneath my left leg and scooted closer to him to take a peek at what he was doing on his iPad. I smiled when I saw that he was doing what he always does every time I look at what he was doing: He was building something in Minecraft. The usual. I whispered to Rem, “What is it this time?”

Immediately, his dull green eyes like mine sparkled, He gave me a beaming smile and whispered back excitedly, “I’m building a castle!”

“Again?”

He nods enthusiastically and scoots closer to me to give me a better view of his new masterpiece, “It’s a castle based in England, and it is called Leeds Castle.”

“Did you choose that castle because it has a river near it?”

He laughs at me as if I was the one replicating a probably 19th Century castle virtually, “Most castles are surrounded with rivers, Larry.”

I chuckled, “So why did you choose it?”

“Whatever the answer is, I don’t want to know.” My mother, as expected, glared at us through the rear-view mirror. My brother and I fell silent as the awkward tension replaced our murmurs earlier.

This is why we whisper when we communicate in front of my mom, or in this case, behind her. She doesn’t like the noise. Well, she doesn’t like anything that has anything to do with us, her own children.

My mom isn’t the worst, considering the fact that there are mothers who kill off their own children… so really, she’s not the worst. But is she the best though? I wouldn’t know. As far as I know, she’s my biological mother who produced the eggs for my brother and me to be living in this world. Some people might find that hard to believe though. Not the eggs part, but the fact that she’s our mom.

My brother and I are brunettes, which is a complete opposite of my mother’s own golden locks. And while she has really dark brown pair of eyes, we have a set of green like my father’s. So really, I can’t blame her if she wanted us out of her nails because we’re the replica of the person who broke her heart two years ago by running off to Canada with his secretary who was just a few years older than me.

Do I hate my mom? I don’t want to hate any human beings. Do I hate my dad? Well, he’s not a simple human being, he’s a monster. How dare he leave us like that? How dare he ruin our family? Growing up, I always knew that there were problems between them, but can they not think about themselves and think about what’s going to happen to my younger brother?

They're the reason why the word love in my dictionary doesn't exist. Well, romantic love. I love my brother and I will do everything and anything for him. My parents simply gave a wake-up call to my reality that romance is dead.

Both of them are the best role models for me not to become. My parents are the reason why I made the motto of being selfless than to be selfish because I know what it’s like to be in the collateral damage’s shoes.

So, going back to the question, no, I don’t hate my dad. Although he’s a piece of work himself, he is still a human being, nonetheless. But that doesn’t mean I love him too.

I looked at my brother and saw him looking at me too. I gave him a reassuring smile, to which he returns too. He then buries his complete attention to what he was playing, I am sorry, to what he was building.

I let go of a silent sigh and looked at the sky-high buildings of downtown L.A. I grew up here in the city, I couldn’t imagine what life would be in the rural area of California. No more late-night Korean snacks, or the weekend Japanese ramen in Oxford Canter Plaza. I bet wherever we're going would be just trees, trees, and have I mentioned trees?

It's still eleven in the morning, but I spent the whole day yesterday to pack all of the things that belong to me and Ren. At this rate, we are going to arrive in Denovan around eight or nine in the evening. And that depends if there's traffic and if we are going to have a stopover. But, looking at the seven venti cups comfortably sitting at the passenger's seat beside my mother, I don't think a stopover is in the plan. Of course, my mom would want us out of her hair as soon as possible.

I leaned on the window and watch different cars pass us by and vice versa when we entered the freeway. I felt my eyes drooping slowly, and I embraced the comfortable darkness that consumes me. Whatever happens, everything is going to be okay. As long as I have my brother and my brother has me, we are going to be just fine.