Chapter 1: Not the Job I Wanted

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Author's note: Avery is in the photo provided (:

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With a soft sigh, I threw my book bag over my shoulder and headed towards the door to my house. At the age of seventeen, I still lived with my parents. With parents too focused on their careers, I was the only child they had time for. Don't get me wrong, they gave me all the time a child could possibly need and more. It would've been too much for an extra hyper child running around while one parent took turns doing work with the other watching the child.

Once I walked inside, I looked to my right to see my father sitting at his desk with papers askew, his glasses barely hanging on at the edge of his nose. I shook my head at the scene and went to step towards the stairs that led up to my room.
"Hey! You're mom had to leave for work, so it's just you and me tonight. How does Chinese sound?" My father's voice carried through the house. Turning back towards him, I noticed his glasses had been pushed back up to an acceptable height with the corners of his lips now stretching out across his face.

"Sounds good," I answered with a matching smile.

Finally, I headed upstairs, skipping a step or two at a time. Once the door was closed behind me, I dropped my book bag to the floor and kicked off my shoes. Instead of going straight to my bed and pulling out my phone, I sat at my desk in front of one of the two windows in my room. With a grunt, I emptied my bag of its contents and moved it all to my desk instead. Only a few inches of chipped midnight paint showed with all the various objects covering the top. Leaning over, I turned on some music and went to work on the calculus I'd been given that day. Some would say I was a loser if they saw me getting straight to my homework, but they wouldn't know how much of a procrastinator I was. If I didn't start now, I'd definitely be flunking this far into the semester.

After an hour and a half, I heard my dad calling me downstairs to get dinner. Relieved to be pulled away from my literature homework I'd started, I shuffled out of the room and went down to the kitchen. Sitting at the island, I brought the noodles in front of me and began to devour the sweet chicken and noodles. Mid bite, my father chuckled and wiped his mouth. "Avery, there's something I needed to talk about with you," he admitted. After I swallowed the mouthful of food, he cleared his throat and leaned on his elbows, burping into the hand that held the napkin.

"You know how mom hasn't been getting so many sells with the homes since the market is down?" He questioned. After I nodded hesitantly with furrowed eyebrows, wondering what direction this conversation was going in, he continued slowly, "Well, my boss let me join in a lunch with him and a few work buddies. One of them was the CEO. We were talking and the guy has a son, around five or so, and he's been looking for a babysitter that could spend the night weekdays at his house to watch the little guy since he's always gone and his wife takes care of business across country..." I must have given off some sort of look because he sighed and fixed his position in the stool he'd been sitting in. "I said that you'd do it since you've been looking for a job. He'll pay well and he will help you with colleges. Ave, you'd be guaranteed great schools if you do this," he reasoned.

Puckering my lips, I sucked on my cheeks to hold back from saying something that might hurt him. After taking a deep breath, I cast my gaze down to the half eaten noodles in the white box and questioned, "Do I even have a say in this?"

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Eyes closed, I dipped my head back and sighed as the water ran through my hair. Turning my body, I let the water wash over my face, taking away the day with the water. I looked down at my feet to think about my new job. I, a seventeen year old boy in his junior year of school, would be spending my days now watching some six year old that would most likely be bratty and sleep in some stranger's house. Wasn't babysitting a girl's job?

Hitting the knob to control the shower, the water suddenly stopped. Left to the cold air, I wrapped a towel around my waist and walked into my room.

This shall be a great time in my life.

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