I got up in the morning and quickly prepared breakfast for my family. My dad and my younger sisters were still asleep and my stepmom had already left for work which left the house silent in the dim light of dawn. Once I was finished I went in the living room and started stretching while I quickly skim read the text of my presentation for English that was due today, although I got bored rather fast so I went upstairs again to wake my little sisters Gracie and Luna.
"Sweethearts, it's time to get up- you have to get out of the house in half an hour!" I shouted as I opened the door to the room they shared. Gracie shot up alarmed and looked confused, while Luna started shrieking "Damn, Felicity, you wake us earlier every day just because you are such an early bird not everyone has to stand up at such an inhuman hour!"
I started laughing and opened the curtain to let some light in. As I looked down on the street I saw my best friend, um sorry boyfriend, opening the gate to the little garden in front of our house.
"Come on girls, Zac's already here – get started!"
I went down to open the door and greet the boy that I had known my whole life.
"Mornin', Feli! How did ya sleep? Good? Me too, but I have to tell ya- my mom had a mood today... made me wanna run away- so here I am! Got any breakfast? It smells good- Croissants?"
I just laughed because Zac needed no second person to have a conversation and led him into the kitchen, where my sisters already pinched into the Croissants. We all sat around the table and while they ate I sipped my coffee and watched them.
Luna and Gracie were 13 and 15 years old. Technically, they were my half sisters, but I didn't care. My parents got a divorce when I was two years old and I stayed with my father. He got married to Catherine and we moved into our house. When I was 3 Gracie was born and two years after Luna followed. We were a normal family. Well nearly normal. I wasn't.
The reason my parents broke up, was because my mom is a savant and she found her Soulfinder.
I am a savant too, that technically means that I have a special power, a gift so to say, which in my case is more a burden, because I can read other people's minds and can take control over their feelings and thoughts. Over the years I have learned to control it, but when I'm nervous, my gift slips and all the thoughts of the people around me crash down on me or they say what I want them to say and not what they really wanted to say. It's complicated.
The other thing in my life that is complicated is my relationship to Zac. He was my best friend since kindergarten, but that's everything. I don't love him, well I do, but as a sister loves a brother not as a girl loves a boy. However, when he confessed that he had feelings for me he had looked at me so hopefully with puppy eyes and I just didn't have it in me to break his heart and because I was afraid I might lose him.
I couldn't help but wonder. Would I end up like my mom and dad? Marrying a man, getting a child and then finding my Soulfinder and abandoning my family to be with him? Sometimes I wished that Soulfinders wouldn't exist. It is rather unfair. Some Savant don't even find Him or Her, but they would wait all their lives searching for their counterpart and never getting into a relationship properly, because there is always the dangerous mixture of hope and fear that you could find the person that would make you complete.
"Hello?! Are you there? Feli! " Gracie interrupted my deep thoughts.
"Yeah, sorry, I think I'm just a little tired or something..."I answered a little bit startled.
Zac offered to take us to school with his car and so my sisters and I got our stuff and left the house.
The morning classes passed fast and soon I sat in the Cafeteria with my friend Toni, Zac, some other girls and Zac's mates Dave and Chris. We joked around a bit, but it didn't take long 'til the conversation changed and the boys started to rate the other girls and toni and i decided to leave.
"Felicity, you seem a bit confused today. What's up?" she seemed concerned.
"No! Everything's just fine! It's just really easy to shut everyone out today – that's all..." Toni knew about my gift since she and I were almost as close as Zac and I. It was true. My head hurt like hell because I had to concentrate so much, not to influence someone's thoughts and by now all I wanted was to go home and lie down in my bed.
The remaining classes passed so slowly and I had to force myself not to manipulate the headmaster to let us go home earlier, but eventually also our last class ended and I went home as fast as possible.