L'aire (BoyxBoy) (Watty's 2018)

Fourteen

'Single quote' = signing

"Double Quote"= speaking

Bold = writing/typing

Italics = native language

When Sky came downstairs for his Friday breakfast with Chris, his friend looked awful. Huge black bags hung below his red eyes and his hair was wild around his face. He looked like he hadn't slept in weeks, which couldn't be the case as Sky had just seen him on Monday and he looked fine. Sky wasn't particularly affectionate with anyone other than his partner, but he felt concerned enough in this moment to bring Chris into a hug.

'What happened?' he asked when he finally pulled away.

'A good friend of mine got into an accident last night and she,' his eyes began to well with tears and he furiously tried to wipe them away. 'She didn't make it.'

'I'm so sorry, I can't imagine what you're going through right now.'

'I really need a favor Sky," he nodded quickly.

'Of course, anything.'

'My friend, she wasn't really close to anyone in her family so I have to fly back home to deal with funeral arrangements and her will. I'm not sure how long it will take, so I was wondering if you would be willing to stay at my house and take care of Leah while I'm gone. I would take her with me, but she's too young to miss that much school. I'd give you money for groceries, and you can have free reign over all our movies and video games. You can even have Dominic stay with you some nights. I just, I really need to go do this for her Sky.'

'Go take care of everything with your friend, I'll stay and take care of Leah,' Chris began to sob and pulled Sky tightly against him once more. He could feel vibrations emanating from Chris, and Sky assumed he was thanking him.

That afternoon sky showed up at Praxton elementary to pick up Chris' nine-year-old sister. Chris had a pretty good feeling Sky was going to say yes, so he had explained the situation to Leah so she wouldn't be surprised to see Sky at her school. After going to breakfast Chris called the school to add Sky's name to the list of people approved to pick her up from school and left immediately for the airport to catch the next flight back to his hometown. Leah was a part of an accelerated group of students that met after classes had ended for the day to stretch their creativity and allow them to excel and flourish outside of the normal curriculum for their age group. Sky entered the classroom where it was being held and saw that there were about 10 children in the room, each of them wearing thick gloves and using tools to take apart electronics and put them back together in a different way to create something new. An older boy sat beside his friend and was building what looked to be a robot. A little girl sat at the table using the parts to fashion a city scape of some kind, and another was creating a family complete with a large pet dog. Leah sat in the corner away from the others, her small hands carefully shaping the wiring from several electronics into the shape of a rose. It looked like intricate work that would take a long time, but she must have had a lot of practice making the flowers because there were a dozen or so completed and laying on the floor beside her.

"Excuse me," someone called out to Sky. They weren't in his line of sight and he was focused on Leah as he walked towards her so he didn't even realize someone was trying to get his attention until his arm was roughly pulled back. Sky ripped his arm out of the man's grip, turning to look at him with a questioning and slightly annoyed gaze. One thing he didn't appreciate was being roughly handled, especially by someone he didn't know. The man behind him looked at him with a fire in his eyes. He seemed to be in his late 20's, and Sky assumed that he was probably the teacher responsible for the accelerated class.