Destiny- Byron Miller

~2~

(photo is of Maisie)

Now that Maisie is in kindergarten, life for me has become a little less challenging. She has made a very good friend named Gwen. Since I am still a senior in high school, Gwen's mom, Amanda, picks up Maisie for me every day.

The new routine is that I wake up at 5:00 and start getting ready. I shower and get dressed and brush my teeth and do my hair. You know, all the regular stuff people do when they're getting ready. Then at 6:00 I wake up Maisie so that she can start getting ready. i pick out her outfit, i do her hair, i feed her breakfast, i put her shoes on her, i have to do everything that an actual parent should do. At 7:00 I drop Maisie off at Gwen's house. High school starts at 7:30, but the elementary school doesn't start until 8:30. For the first month of school I had to just miss my first hour at school. Thankfully Amanda has helped me out since then.

Maisie also gets picked up after school by Amanda. My work hours have shifted to 1:15 to 8:15. At 6:00 Amanda drops Maisie off at our home, after feeding her a good dinner. At 8:15 I rush home so I can bathe Maisie and get her ready for bed. She is usually asleep at 9:00 now instead of 11:00. After 9, I have to catch up on homework.

Then the day repeats again. And again. And again.

Except for the weekends.

The weekends I spend as much time as possible with Maisie.

Sometimes we go to the beach, the arcade, the park. We go on walks and hiking through the woods. Anything to make Maisie feel like she has a normal childhood.

Today is Saturday and we decided to go on a hike. We live in Maine so it gets cold out pretty early in the school year. But, since it's the beginning of November, as long as we dress warm, we'll be alright.

I made sure that Maisie had plenty of layers so she wouldn't get cold while we were adventuring through the woods. I packed some snacks and water and even the first-aid kit, just in case.

When we got to the hiking paths, Maisie told me that she had to use the bathroom. It's a good thing that they have a facility here or else we would've had to go looking for a bathroom somewhere else.

I told Maisie that I would wait outside for her. After standing around for only about a minute, a loose dog comes running past me. I look around and spot a frantic guy running in the direction of the dog. And as soon as I saw that, I ran after the dog too.

It only took me a few seconds to catch up to the dog because he/she looked quite old.

The owner of this dog finally caught up to me. He was a tall man, probably around my age, and had dirty blonde hair and brown eyes.

"Thank you so much for catching my dog! I don't know if I would ever have caught up to her," the boy frantically said, out of breath.

"Oh no problem. What's her name?" I said with a curious tone in my voice.

"Daisy. She's a golden retriever." I've always loved golden retrievers. I think they're my favorite types of dog on this earth. How can you not love them? It's pretty much impossible.

Then it crossed my mind that I left Maisie at the bathrooms.

"Oh shoot! I left my sister at the bathrooms!"

Just as I said that I heard "Byron!!" and the small girl came running down the hill towards us.

"Who is this?" she said, curiosity laced through her voice.

"Oh I just helped him catch his dog." I said, answering the question honestly.

Then the boy spoke up and said, "How old are you? Because I have two little sisters and they look around your age."

"I'm 5" my young sister said bluntly.

"Yup! That's how old my sisters are! They're names are Sienna and Elowen." the stranger said.

"I'm Maisie," she said shyly.

I could tell that Maisie was starting to get uncomfortable so I decided to try and end the conversation.

"Well I think we should head on our way, Maisie"

"Wait! I never got your name!" the stranger said quickly.

"I'm Byron, and you are.." I responded.

"Daniel. Daniel Clark"

...