The Guardians (The Highest Order, Book One)

CHAPTER 6

Two weeks had passed since moving to this tiny town and most days of it were spent with Maia. Mom got her assistant job in some office i still didn't know the name of, so most days of the summer were spent mostly isolated in the house, flicking through channels on the TV or finishing moving stray boxes from the move. Maia came over almost every day, obsessing over the new colour scheme she helped pick out on my second day here.

Today's the 15th of August, Saturday, which meant two days from now was the first day of my junior year in a new school. Maia and I had already been on another shopping trip to buy everything we'd ended for the new year and I swear she bought enough to decorate a tiny room which she insisted was just enough to decorate her locker. I disagreed then, I disagree now.

As of now, I hadn't had anymore awkward 'run-ins, if you could even call them that, with Kaleb. He seemed to disappear off the face of the earth following that night. I couldn't say I was complaining but there was a small part of me tha felt almost sad at the lack of his presence. It was a weird feeling. I mean, I barely knew the guy. Hell, i didn't know the guy, not really but something about that night, the night i found him staring at me through the window almost made me feel like we were connected somehow.

Stupid, right?

I shake the thought out of my head as I finish scooping the last of the cookie batter onto the baking tray. Mom was at work, as usual, so I took it upon myself to do some baking with my free time. Thankfully, I don't share my mom's disastrous skills in the kitchen. That really wouldn't end well.

I don't make a hobby out of baking, hell, I hadn't done it in years. It was usually something I did with my dad, but it was so long ago, I could barely recall the memories. I like to think he was a good man once but I can't help the thoughts that linger in the back of my mind, claiming that he was a monster all along, he just simply got worse at hiding it.

Placing the tray into the open, I set the timer. Twenty minutes should be enough. Maia was out somewhere with her parents, some sort of road trip into the nearest big city, I guess, so today was well and truly a me day. I welcomed the peace and silence of the house with open arms, it felt like I hadn't stopped in all the two weeks I'd been here. Like I hadn't stopped to appreciate my surroundings even nearly as much as I should have.

I haven't gotten around to go running yet, maybe I should add that to today's agenda.

My plans were far and few inbetween and the only thing I really had to do was to mentally prepare for the daunting first day, also known as monday. Maybe it would be good to get myself out into the forest behind the house, maybe explore a little. It's not like there's much else to do in this little, to nothing town.

Scrolling through my Facebook feed, I didn't really have much to catch up on. Not many of my friends from back home kept in touch following the move. I scoff at the thought. 'They hadn't bothered with me since the divorce' I corrected myself. The moment the divorce papers were filed, I suddenly became the freak, the girl whose mommy and daddy hated each other now. Until then, I guess I didn't really understand the capitalist structure that my Miami private school was built on. It's a capitalist hierarchy. The more your mommy or daddy earns, the higher you sit.

My rich daddy walked out on us, leaving my mom, who didn't have much to brag about at the country club, and me to barely keep our own heads above water. The fact that my mother hated the looks of sympathy and pity more than the looks of disgust always confused me. Maybe it was different for her, maybe the people didn't look at her the way they did me, or treat her the same way they did me. We spent the nine months it took us to move up to north carolina rebuilding our broken relationship, building a foundation for a fatherless family and they hated that. The women hated that mom could survive without a man to carry the burden of the family and the kids hated that I could survive without the latest designer clothes.