The Kids In Gold

Deep Breath

A Few Days Later

My alarm on my phone starts to go off and I smack around reaching for it. I feel my hand hit it as it falls to the floor and the sound gets muffled. I struggle to sit up and bend down, reaching my phone to turn it off.

I walk into the bathroom and turn on the water in the sink, letting it warm up before splashing some on my face. After drying my face I stare into the mirror letting my green eyes reflect back on themselves. For some reason, I don't like what I see looking back at myself.

Disgust.

Anger.

Hatred.

But I don't know why so I ignore myself.  I walk back into the room and ruffle through my backpack. I pull out a pair of tight faded black jeans with rips on the thighs and a black t shirt.

I throw all my freshly washed clothes into my bag and walk out into the living room.

"You ready to go, beautiful?" Kay asks me, standing up from the couch.

"Ready as I will be" I reply walking to the door. Tee stands up and meets me there, wrapping her arms around my neck. I wrap one arm around her waist and squeeze her tight, lightly lifting her petite body off of the ground. "Thank you"

"Of course, love" she says smiling at me. "I'm going to miss having you around"

"I'll miss being around" I reply, smiling back.

"Okay lovebirds, we gotta get her home" Kay interrupts.

I laugh and walk out of the apartment door. Kay follows and we climb into her truck. "You nervous?" she asks, pulling out of the parking spot.

"Nah, I'm good" I reply, shifting in my seat.

Kay looks over at me and back at the road. "It's okay to be nervous. You don't have to be tough all the time"

"It's easier that way"

"Is that so?"

I nod my head yes and get on my phone as she drives through traffic. The ride is semi quiet as I can tell she didn't want me to leave quite yet and I honestly didn't want to. But I hate feeling as if I overstayed my welcome. I'll return with them here and there, but for now, I should get use to being home. My actual home.

She drives past an animal shelter and I scream for her to stop. Kay laughs and turns around, pulling into a parking space.

"What, you want a puppy?" she asks. I childishly nod my head yes and hop out of her truck.

Kay follows me inside and a worker greets is, showing us to the sheltered and rescued animals. We walk past the cats and most of them are sleep or just laying around before we get to the back where the dogs are. The worker unlocks the door and lets us look around at them.

"Look at him. He's so cute" Kay says reading the description on an all white german shepard. "Look, only 4 months. His name is Kylo" I stop and smile at the cute dog wagging it's tail all around.

"I'll come back to him" I say walking down the aisle. As I walk, there's endless whimpers, whines, and barks from dogs trying to catch my attention. But in the middle of them all is a puppy, sitting off in the corner of it's cage. I kneel down and gesture for the dog to come towards me. It doesn't come. I look at the dog and it turns it's head away.

Kay walks over to me and looks at the dog. "Aw she's shy" she says, folding her arms.

"Hand me some of those treats they have sitting out"