Skybound (Aviary Issue #1)

Chapter Three

The next morning, Avery woke up with tears welled in the corners of her eyes. She reached up and touched the small droplets, staring at them on the pad of her finger.

Well, that was unexpected.

The dream that she had wasn’t even sad. It was a memory whenever her parents used to take her out for picnics in the field by the river just outside of town. Of course, that wasn’t something they could do for long.

Before her mother’s accident, the three of them could be there for the entire day, having whatever food her dad had made and she’d swim in the river as her parents sat together on a blanket, watching over her.

The three of them had even watched the ducks together whenever spring rolled around, and the new hatchlings had arrived.

Why was she even bothering to remember that? It wasn’t as if dwelling on the past was going to change anything.

She stayed in bed, her eyes glued at the ceiling above her until her alarm went off, causing her to flinch before she remembered what time she had set it for.

Shit! Avery was going to be late for work again. She grabbed some clothes from her desk chair that were clean enough and made a rush for the bathroom.

After what she would claim was the quickest shower of her life, she was in front of the mirror, trying to make herself presentable in the quickest way by doing two things at once. It wasn’t until she almost brushed her hair with her toothbrush that she realised that this strategy wasn’t working. Instead, she finished her teeth and grabbed her hairbrush.

“Keith is so going to give me hell for this,” she groaned as she brushed her hair flat. Thank goodness for her decision to cut her hair over the summer. There was no time to style anything.

She headed out of the bathroom and grabbed her phone as well as her charger before heading downstairs to the kitchen. She could have run down but the idea of falling freaked her out more than anything, powers or not, the idea was frightening.

When she got downstairs, Avery just grabbed her bag from the sofa and headed for the front door.

“Avery,” her dad called her, making her stop in her tracks reluctantly. Didn’t matter if she was late or not. There was no ignoring her father’s calls.

“Yes, papa? What is it?”

Michele Cantero walked out of the kitchen with a brown bag and held it out to her. “I figured you overslept with the amount of noise you were making overhead. Doesn’t mean you can’t eat on your way to work.”

Best father ever. She took the bag from her father’s hands with a grateful smile and gave him a quick hug. Her father just laughed and pushed her off. “Come on, you’re already late. Now, you know- “ 

“Yes, yes, I know the rules. See you after work, dad.” With that, she left through the front door, kind of wishing she had the courage to use another way to get to work. Running was the quickest way she had and run she did.
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“You’re late.”

Keith Gallagher definitely had the nicest boss Avery could have. He wasn’t an old man for one so there was definitely an understanding that he had with all of the junior employees, not to mention that he wasn’t as angry as she thought he would be when she practically crashed through the door of Hector’s a full fifteen minutes after her shift started.

When she was ready to cry during her apologies, he just told her to relax and get to the counter to deal with customers. She even managed to get the sandwich that her dad made for her down while she got her company t-shirt from her locker. She was definitely blessed from whatever she did in her previous life to get a boss like Keith as her manager.