Chapter I - New Beginnings
My vision blurs as I rub my eyes, erasing the tiredness. "Gas pump 2 please, oh and these" I say smiling while sliding a bag of chips over the counter, handing the cashier a $30 bill, he nods handing me back my change. I grab my chips, walk out and get inside the car with my mother. "Thanks kiddo" she says smiling "No problem" I smile back turning in my seat to hand my brother the chips "thanks" he mumbles immediently focusing his eyes back onto his phone.
Heading back on the road I ask "So, where are we staying?" my mum looks towards me for a second before focusing back on the road "It's only a small house, but it'll do for us and its a 10-minute ride to the school." Right school. "So are we actually staying this time?" for the last 8 years we have been constantly moving from town to town, the longest we've stayed in one place is 8 months, and my mother won't even tell me why. She says it's because of work or some other excuse, but that's what they are, excuses. "Yeah I think so." "mhm" I mumble paying more attention to the city around me than her reply, it was the same every time, her words never mean anything anymore, not when it comes to moving around at least. She always says we'll stay for good this time but it never happens.
"We're here" my mother says breaking the silence as we pull up to a small red bricked house with a white picket fence and dark brown door. "Here take these and both of you go check it out" she tells me handing me a set of keys and pointing at one "It's the red one" "thanks" I replied grabbing ahold of the red key before exiting the car with Louis in tow, and moving towards the house, as we walk up the steps I look around noticing a fluffy haired boy that looked to be my age entering the house across the street. He turns around noticing me and smiles and waves, I wave back as he closes the door. He seems nice, maybe I can make a friend here. My mind wonders to Gwen, I wonder if she still lives here, maybe she knows him? "Stop checking out our neighbours, Lala" my brother says cutting off my thoughts "I was not!" I fire back as my cheeks tinge with red.
I shake my head to clear it of thoughts and put the key into the lock, twisting the knob when I hear a click. I step into the house and release a sigh, I walk through the living room that connects to the kitchen, leaving my brother to explore at his own pace. The kitchen has an island in the middle with black marble countertops and a couple cabinets. I look around upstairs, there were 4 rooms, a master bedroom, 1 smaller bedroom, a bathroom and an extra room. I go back downstairs and notice a door, I open it to realise it's a basement, venturing down I notice it's only one room besides a large area, I go towards the window—the house has a small decent behind it hence the ability to have windows—noticing more houses.
I decide to go back outside to help my mum with our bags, the moving company will be arriving tomorrow but we made sure to bring the essentials. "The basements all yours, your bedroom is the only one down there and the rest of space is an open area, go nuts." I smile at this before replying "really?!" "Yeah Kayla, you're getting older you need your own space" she explains handing me a box labelled 'KAYLA'S ROOM' "Go put this in your room, then come get the other box." I nod, doing as she says and coming back for the last box, I pick it up before getting cut off by a voice "That one's fragile be extra careful it's not sealed and put it in the spare room upstairs" she warns turning towards my brother who decided to join us "Yes ma'am".
I start up the stairs making it to the second last one before I stumble and miss the step causing me to fall face first, dropping the box, hearing something shatter and hitting my head on the box causing me to fall backwards, the box following landing on my face. "Ow!" I yell, ripping the box from my face, instinctively lifting my hand, feeling glass shards that imbedded themselves into my cheek, and something wet? "What the" I mutter moving my hand in front of my eyes to see the green liquid clearer. I regain more of my senses realising there was something in my mouth and throat. I spit hoping to get what I assume is the same liquid out of my mouth but to no avail, so I quickly get up hurrying to the kitchen and run my mouth under the water.
The front door opens and I hear my mother's concerned voice "Kayla, what happened! Are you okay honey? Why's there broken glass down here?" Oh shit! she's going to kill me "Yeah! I'm fine I fell down the stairs and dropped your box, sorry!" I yell back, hoping for the best. She follows the sound of my voice walking into the kitchen, my brother behind her, taking one look at me before her hardened face morphs into one of shock "Oh honey! Your face there's glass!" She walks up to me moving her hand and touched the glass causing me to hiss in pain "Oh I'm sorry, Louis get the first aid kit!"
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The next day is filled with unpacking, well as much as you can do without furniture. The moving company was meant to be here an hour ago but of course it was not. So far I have hung my LED lights around the rim of the roof accompanied with some fake leaves and posters along with my skateboard hanging on the back of my door. "The moving trucks here!" I hear my mother yell, finally, I run up the stairs careful to not trip this time, as I make my way outside I see both my brother and the boy from yesterday talking to my mum who was at the door of the truck. Walking towards them I hear the boy say "-ally it's no problem you look like you could do with some help." My mum smiles and agrees as I near them, she finally notices me and faces the boy and begins talking again "Peter, this is my daughter McKayla, Kayla this is Peter, he's our neighbour"
"Uh h-hi McKayla" he stutters, his hand moving to play with the hair at the nape of his neck, "Hi Peter" I reply "And Kayla's fine" I finish turning towards my mum waiting for her to continue. "He's helping us move our stuff into the house." I smile at this and turn to the boy now known as Peter "Perfect let me show you around so you know where to go" he nods and I lead him into the house.
"so you just moved here?" The fluffy haired boy asks. "Yeah, we move around a lot so I'm used to it, not entirely new though we used to like here when I was 8" I answer showing him the living room and kitchen.
"How old are you?" He replies "16, you?" I ask as we go downstairs "16" I smile at this "glad to know someone my age around here then" Leaning against the counter I watch as Peter replies with a nervous yeah, I push off the counter and notice his hands in his pockets and his awkward demeanor. "not used to talking to girls are you?" I ask looking at him with my eyebrows raised, crossing my arms "W-what" he mumbles his eyes widening. "First of all your stuttering, second, your hands are in your pockets, probably so you can fiddle with something to calm your nerves and lastly you and your awkward demeanour scream awkward nerd." he stares at me for a few seconds before his face drops letting out a small "oh" I stare for a moment before continuing "don't worry you're nerd hot" I watch his reaction carefully watching as I see his cheeks light up with blush, and he lets out a small chuckle. I smirk letting my arms fall beside me as I glide past Peter "come on we've got some moving to do" I walk up the timber stairs leaving a stunned Peter behind.
Later that day after all the moving was done I was sitting downstairs with Peter playing uno as a sort of 'thank you' for helping us.
"Uno!" I shout placing down a yellow 3, Peter places a draw 4 card and I groan "Didn't think I'd let you win that easy did you Ashforde?" "A girl could hope" I say drawing 4 cards. Peter looks down at his phone noticing the time "Oh shoot, sorry Mckayla I have to go my aunt and uncle will be waiting for me" standing up alongside him I say "don't worry about it, and thanks again for helping us, I'll walk you out" we get to the door as Peter begins "next time I promise to beat you in uno" "sure you will" I smile "Hey are you uh starting at midtown high by any chance?" Peter asks standing in the door frame "Yeah actually, tomorrow, will I see you there?" He nods answering "yeah yeah you will, see you tomorrow" "see you there" I reply shutting the door and an instant smile spreads across my face.
"He seems like a sweet boy" I jump at the voice swiftly turning around to see my mother "Oh my god mum I didn't even hear you come up" I pause "but yeah, he is." "He looks familiar but I just can't place it" she mumbles looking out of the window as he enters his house then darting her eyes back up at me "have you been feeling any different today hun?" She asks me almost examining my face "no? Why would I be?" I question back "oh no reason, anyway I'm about to start dinner make sure to unpack all of your stuff." "On it" I reply going back downstairs.
So far I've unpacked a lot of my things and by a lot I mean absolutely nothing. The only thing—besides what I did earlier—I've done was blow up a mattress for me to sleep on tonight and moved my desk to its rightful place. I open the box and start unpacking all of my clothes into my wardrobe, my only break being to eat dinner, then straight back to it. By 11pm I decide to call it a night, I switch off the light and crawl into my makeshift bed grabbing my phone which was at 18% to plug it into my wireless charger but when I go to plug it in the charger which was at 100% a few seconds ago it flashed off as I felt a slight tingle run up my arm, "what the hell" I mumble rubbing my eyes to make sure I'm not crazy, nope still dead. I groan and stand up using my phone flashlight to light up my room as I grab my charging block but as I turn to use the light to show me the power point it goes out. I check my phone, dead. I groan again as I feel another tingle run up my arm and see my veins glow a dim green "ok, now I'm going crazy" I mumble ignoring the strange event and eventually plugging the charger block into the power point and plug-in my phone, returning to bed.