Kingdom of isolation - you can't hide

Fifteen ~ Aurora

Aurora

Age 18

Okay, so, I have a little problem. As punishment for not backing away like I always do, as the self proclaimed pessimistic human being that I claim to be, I am now being watched by Mia like a hawk. This girl is relentless! She's following me everywhere. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, she's not following me but she's everywhere I go. I mean this in the nicest way possible. I've never had anyone pay this much attention to me. I don't exactly give friendly vibes. But this girl is everywhere. In a lot of my classes, my dorm—since we're living on campus pursuing the same degree and even at my workplace that's one town over.

Uncle Noah doesn't know about me working when I shouldn't since my previous gigs haven't exactly gone so smoothly. My first job was at a local corner shop run by a family in a small town. I was the newspaper girl for a mindblowing total of 5 households that happened to be on my street. It didn't pay, but I still considered it work. Now that I think about it, that might have been considered child labour if Aunt Clara hadn't been supervising me slash taking me to school. Talk about exploitation in the nonexistent workplace.

Then I suddenly upgraded to working in a local bar at age 14 for a night because I was a stupid and gullible little girl who didn't want to say no to her new and older friends. I didn't even make it inside the bar, I was told the alley behind it was much cooler and that I should stay here for a while with a suspicious looking backpack. Needless to say, I couldn't hide that fact from anyone because I was personally escorted home by a police officer and was given the talk after being found with a backpack full of drugs with names I couldn't even pronounce. It might have been just one night, but it felt like an eternity, sitting there on the sofa with my feet still dangling, weeping like a little child while the adults did the talking. Aunt Clara tried to calm me down and ask me who the older teens were and whether I knew them. The officer was nice enough to let me off with a warning mostly because I did look way too young to have masterminded the whole thing. But the rage I saw in my Uncle's eyes made me afraid of him for the first time, and it wasn't even directed at me. It made me seem even more vulnerable and something that he needed to protect ferociously. He grounded me for a month, had me read thick books pertaining to the evils of using recreational drugs and proceeded to test me with actual exams, so that was great. It didn't matter that I was unaware of what I'd landed myself into, he wanted to make a point. Aunt Clara used to sneak in my gaming console when he wasn't around so it wasn't all bad.

It cemented one fact for me, people were always going to be assholes and I was forever doomed to hate mankind. My disdain for people had already begun but something about that incident made me open my eyes to reality, to what my Uncle was punishing me for. I was expendable. I was the fall guy without even realising. I was the new kid on the block in need of saving and they used that against me every time. Giving me the sense of security and then using me for their personal gain. God, I was a stupid little kid. It's a miracle that I've survived this long. After that, I kind of stopped doing stupid stuff and instead focused on my strengths. I soon realised that I was good at one thing and that was using my brain—though, given my poor judgement in the past, that is still up for debate. But it began my journey of trading homework and notes for money, no strings attached. Rich people had nothing but money to give and I wasn't complaining. It was my own version of payback. It wasn't illegal as long as I wasn't writing their work for them, some schools were sticklers for completing homework or having notes.

Here at HRU, I don't have to worry about that anymore. It's a little cafe outside of the university and I only work on alternate weekends, the farthest thing to a bar and miles away from doing someone's homework. Uncle Noah hasn't exactly deprived me of money and I have more than enough for my own basic necessities. I've just come to realise that I can't afford to get lost in my own thoughts too much. I try to occupy most of my waking moments doing something to keep me distracted and donate whatever I earn to honourable charities so I can feel less like a waste of space.