SOLACE

thirty-three

A MONTH AFTER THEIR GRADUATION. ADELINE'S BDAY

       Hello. Yeah, It's me, Adeline Roberts. I now wake up to a new day as a nineteen-year-old woman. Finally, I have graduated from High School. I have been accepted to a college in our state while I decided to work early part-time at a coffee shop as a barista which, helped with our daily needs especially since we've been living on our own for months now.

We've bought furnitures for ourselves and filled the apartment with the help of Cali, Franco, and Henry. They gave us some new sofa, kitchenware, and desk for my room. It really was a lot of help for us because we couldn't really afford it if we buy it all ourselves even though I know Kai had his savings, it's still his own money and I didn't want him to spend it all in the apartment. 

He was already paying for my education and I didn't want to burden him more. Everything was going okay since we left our home. We only returned there to get some of our stuff when our mother was out and we would leave immediately to avoid seeing her.

To say the least, with the new things that changed in our lives. Kai and I had a better relationship with each other. We understood our differences more and he decided to take down the walls he built around him. He wasn't afraid to show that he cared for us and I admire that from him. 

Since we were going our separate ways in college, Cali and Franco decided to spend some spontaneous trips in the remaining months before college starts because Cali got an acceptance letter in her dream school and she's going to be studying in Europe. 

While, Franco is going to a different state because even though he's such a flirt, he was serious with his dream to be a lawyer. Maybe that's why he always hated the fact that I let my Mom abuse me. He hates seeing the injustice around him. 

Henry got a full scholarship to a school in a different state. Of course, I convinced him to go and pursue his dream because I want nothing more than to see him achieve it. He's been starting to also grow his hobby in painting and I still persuade him to sell his art someday if he wanted to. 

This is more like a catch-up thing because you would probably need it since it been months since we've put everything behind us and start a new one. It really took me a lot of courage to just let go of what we had in our home but I realized, nothing was more important to me than to take care of ourselves. 

We have received countless phone calls from our mother and threats through texts but we chose to ignore all of them and we decided to change our phone numbers so that she wouldn't be able to contact us anymore. We were now liberated from her and everything that we sacrificed was worth it. 

I took the day off from my work today and the same with Kai, who had a position in a start-up company because apparently he works well with coding and all that. I didn't know he knew it was my birthday today when he knocked on my door while I was rubbing my eyes, preparing to start my day.

"Come in," I shouted through the door.

"So, you're nineteen today, right?" He arches his brow while I see he had a small package on his hand.

"Uh, yeah. Is that how you say happy birthday now?" I joked as I stood up to stretch my body.

"I got you something," He mutters as he gives me the package wrapped in brown paper. 

"Really?" I asked as my eyes lit up and I giddily took it from him and inspected it. 

"What's this?" I asked.

"Why don't you open it?" He retorted as he rolled his eyes on me.

I stuck my tongue out to him before I unwrapped the package and a book presents itself to me. My mouth gaped as I trace my fingers to the spine of the book.

"Is this really the first edition of Jane Eyre? This is impossible!" I exclaimed.

He probably saw me reading it from a free e-book that I just took on a website and now, I'm holding a first edition copy of it? This can't be real.

"So, how did you get this?" I asked with a wide grin on my face.

"I have my ways," He shrugs before he leaves my door but I call him back.

"Thanks for this. I really love it," I sincerely say to him. 

He really knows what I always wanted. I didn't even know he notices the little things about me.

"No problem," He dismisses before going back to his room.

Meanwhile, I took a quick shower and wore a red velvet maxi dress. I invited my friends to be here at our house to celebrate my birthday and now, I'm going to cook food for my guests.

I only prepared two kinds of pasta, a cheesecake, baked ziti, varieties of seafood, and maybe I attempted to make a pizza on bread. I admit, I was just starting to learn all this cooking because I finally had food to cook and not just cereals and noodles all month. We actually ate real food now.

I was surprised when a knock on a door came and Kai goes outside of his room wearing a gray shirt and sweatpants on. Of course, he's always lazy with his clothes while I'm out here wearing a dress. Kai opens the door and I ask who it is since I was still busy preparing for our food.

"Hey, happy birthday, Adeline!" A woman greeted when she steps in the kitchen. My eyes widen as I look at her and Kai.

"Alina?" I stuttered while holding a spatula in my hand.