Mia Cara (Sample)

| Ch. 1 |

"Rossi?!" Ethan's shocked voice called from the living room as I rinsed my hands off in the kitchen sink, my brows immediately furrowing as I watched his face morph into complete shock.

"Yeah, Rossi." I confirmed, slightly confused as to why he reacted so bewildered. From my understanding and knowledge, there wasn't anything special about this man. I had yet to meet him. Heck, I haven't even spoken to the man yet. I was interviewed by some secretary of sorts, I assume.

"You're going to be working for Lucian Rossi?" Ethan echoed as he stood from the couch, nearing the pale brown kitchen island that separated the dingy kitchen from the living room. If it wasn't for this island, the only sign that there were two different rooms would be the tiled floor in comparison to the stained living room carpet.

"Why is that so surprising?" I pondered as I dried my hands off on my blue hand towel that was in more than serious need of replacement, eyeing him curiously.

"Oh, nothing," Ethan shrugged it off, "just that Rossi Enterprise is a pretty known company." He tried to play it off as if he wasn't just totally fangirling over this Rossi man, but I could totally see the glint in his brown eyes. I had always loved the way his brown eyes shined when he got excited over something, they always gave him away when he tried to play coy.

"Oh." Was all I said as I started drying off the dishes, nothing else to do since my ancient block of a television was deciding to not work in this very moment, something that it did quite often. "All I know is it's a job, and a great paying one at that."

"Of course," He waved me off, "that's all that really matters, right? Terra will be elated." He mentioned my nine year old little sister who I had custody of. Well, not quite. I hadn't gone to the courts or whatever to legally put her under my custody since my mother decided to flee a year ago. Though he was right, she'll be ecstatic at the news.

"She will be." I smiled faintly, thinking about how I'd be able to put away a college fund for her. That was something I'd been trying to do for a year and a half now, since our mother bailed. It was always difficult though, it was hard to find house maid jobs that paid enough that you could make a decent living for two people off of it.

Ethan's phone buzzed, bringing me out of my daze. I looked up to find him checking his the device before shaking his head slightly. "That's Bryant, I should get going." He sent a small apologetic smile in my direction.

"Of course, go deal with your writer-stuff." I smirked at him as he rounded the island that separated us, a pointed playful look taking over his handsome features.

Ethan was a writer so he basically worked from home, which was really cool, but unfortunately it also meant that whenever his editor wanted to meet, he had to be there at his beck and call.

"Writer-stuff." He echoed my words playfully with a grin, placing a light kiss on my cheek, "I'll keep you updated on the release date of the book." He said before turning away and heading towards the door. I watched his retreating figure with a small tug at my heart, as I always did when he left.

"Good luck!" I called after him as he reached the door. He sent a smile in my direction before swinging the door open and leaving me by myself with my abundance of dishes that I needed to put away.

Ethan was hands down the only person I could rely on around here, or in life in general, honestly. He lived only a few doors down, and I met him the day that Terra and I moved in. We had lived in a different apartment a few towns over, but when our mom decided to leave to go do whatever it is that she was doing, I decided that it was time for us to move out.

By that, I mean that I didn't have the money to pay for the rent so we lived in a homeless shelter for two weeks as I worked and saved up enough to pay for a month of rent in a different complex.

By the time that we moved in, I already had two jobs secured and everything looked great for us. We met Ethan, who was willing to watch Terra whenever needed since he worked at home. He then started to watch Terra everyday after she got out of school so I could work enough shifts to pay our rent and different bills of the sort.

Ethan was a blessing in disguise. Right when I was in the second roughest patch of my life, there he was; in all his Levi-jean glory. He was my saving grace in that very moment.

That whole week, I had exactly four mental breakdowns trying to think about how I was going to have Terra supervised after school but also work enough hours to support us. Sure, I could've hired a babysitter but in that moment all I had was fourteen dollars and three cents in my bank account after paying our first month of rent in advance.

"Rosalie?" A meek voice broke me out of my trip down memory lane. I turned to see a sleepy Terra standing at the end of the hall, rubbing her eyes lazily.

"Yeah?" I asked, placing the dishtowel down on the counter that I'd been using to dry off dishes with.

"Why are you still up?" She asked groggily, squinting her blue eyes to adjust to the bright kitchen light.

"I was just drying some dishes, but I think I'm gonna head to bed." I informed her, flicking off the light before grabbing my ancient blackberry phone.

"Okay." She nodded, padding back to my bedroom.

She did have her own bedroom but for the past three weeks she'd been having bad nightmares. She told me one night, blubbering through tears, the gruesome details of the nightmares. I, being consciously awake and being told the stories by a nine year old, was pretty shaken up when she'd told me.

It was a plethora of different things. One night it was about a group of clowns, another it was about being kidnapped. The next it was about our mother being murdered by a person who she couldn't make out the features of. Then there were simple things like being locked in a room all by herself.

I felt bad, and let her sleep in my room for a night. She told me that they'd gone away since so she'd been staying in my room for a few weeks, and I didn't have it in my heart to make her go back to her room.

"Goodnight, Rose." Terra's weak voice said from beside me as I got under the covers.

"Goodnight, Terra." I responded, closing my eyes slowly and attempting to get a good nights sleep before I had to get up at seven and start my new job.

• • •

First chapter! Thank you so much for reading :-)

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