A/N: This whole chapter takes place in the past, sorry for the delay, I'll try harder to update more frequently from now on.
Kay woke up to the cold winter sunlight filling her room, she was ready to go
downstairs, sit around the table with her family and eat her mom's famous
pancakes and then it all came crashing down on her, she was in a strange house,
in a strange bed and her family wasn't just down the hall, she was alone. She
sat there on the bed, going over everything that had happened the day before.
She tried to push away all of the fear and sadness that she felt but it lingered
there like a cloud. She wanted to go home, to apologize, but she was stubborn
and she couldn't go crawling back there, her tail between her legs, she was
going to make this work because she had to, she had to survive and show them all
that she could do just fine by herself. With a slightly better outlook on the
future, she briskly got up and took a long hot shower in the gigantic bathroom
that was connected to her room. She got dressed and then decided to venture out,
it was the first day of her new life and she wasn't going to let anything get
her down.
Twenty minutes later she was miserable. She was sitting at the table with AJ and
his mother, looking through the classifieds and it seemed her chances of getting
a job were pretty dismal, there were few jobs that she was qualified for and the
few that she was required references, she didn't know what to do.
"Kay, dear, you look as if the world has just crashed at your feet, what's
wrong?" asked Susan, AJ's mother.
"Nothing," said Kay putting on a false smile, "I'm just job hunting."
"Well! You should have said something earlier, I have a position I've been
trying to fill for ages at my company."
"Really?" asked Kay trying not to get her hopes up, this could be the perfect
opportunity to get a job, she didn't care if it was cleaning toilettes.
"I'm looking for a personal assistant, are you interested?"
"What would I have to do?" she was all ready to accept but she didn't want to
seem pathetically desperate.
"Make sure I don't forget my appointments, or personal obligations, answer my
phone for me if I'm busy, run errands, just generally make sure I don't lose my
mind," she said with a laugh.
"I'm definitely interested."
"Good, you can start tomorrow. I leave at 8 o'clock in the morning so be ready,
we can work out pay and benefits tomorrow. The pool house is empty so you're
welcome to move in there until you find something more permanent or you can stay
in the guest room, which ever you prefer, well I'd better get going, Andrew will
show you around I'm sure. Bye!"
Kay had her mouth opened in shock, in a matter of seconds she'd been hired for a
job that sounded great, it felt like huge weight had been lifted from her
shoulders.
"She does that a lot, once she gets an idea in her head she goes full steam
ahead, I think you'll like working for her," said AJ from across the table where
he was observing her with an amused smile.
"I didn't even get a chance to thank her for hiring me."
"Don't worry about it. I can show you the pool house after breakfast if you
want."
"I'd like that, thanks," Kay finished her breakfast and decided that if she was
lucky everything might work out after all.
AJ showed her the pool house and she decided that she wanted to live there, it
was a little small but she knew she'd love it. AJ told her that he would have a
maid furnish it for her and Kay was surprised at how fast her new life was
going, but just behind the excitement and the happiness was the longing for
home, that she felt would never go away.
He took her to his mother's cosmetic company, Seduction, and gave her the grand
tour, it was pretty big and there were lots of people milling about but Kay
decided that it had a friendly atmosphere. From there they went to a small
coffee shop that reminded her painfully of the Book Café. They sat down across
from each other at a small table and began to talk.
"So why aren't you in school?" she asked him and she was reminded of her own
school, there were only a few months of school left and then she would have
graduated, she knew that she needed an education and would eventually have to
get her diploma but for now she blocked it out of her mind.
"I graduated a year early, I was home schooled so I was pretty much ahead of
regular high school."
"Wow, so are you going to college?"
"Not right now, but I want to someday, I was planning on becoming a doctor. What
about you?"
"I don't really know, I wanted to be a lawyer once but now I don't know, pretty
lame, huh? I should be making plans and deciding my future. My cousin has her
life all planned out but of course I don't, I'm the screw up," she hadn't meant
to bring Charity into the conversation but after years of constantly having to
match the perfect, angelic, Charity it was hard to separate herself from the
comparisons.
"Regardless of what other people say I think that it's not always good to have
your life planned out because if one thing goes wrong then everything else seems
to fall apart. Living life by the moment is much better."
"I wish everyone thought like that," she said taking a sip of her cappuccino. "I
want to thank you for taking me in like you have and letting me stay with you
and everything, it means a lot to me." He didn't know how much, if it wasn't for
him she might be living on the streets, she repressed a shudder.
"It was my pleasure."
She really liked Andrew and they got along well, and he even made her forget how
sad and lonely she was by making her laugh. They spent the rest of the afternoon
talking and then they decided to go back to the mansion. As Kay looked out the
window as they drove back she thought about Miguel and she knew she had to talk
to him, she had to call him and tell him goodbye.
She sat by the phone in the den, chewing her bottom lip, trying to work up her
courage, what if he apologized and told her that he wanted her to go back? Would
she? She hated the answer that formed in her mind, if he asked her to come back
then she would, as much as she wanted to forget about him and move on she
couldn't, at least without knowing whether he missed her or not.
With shaking hands she picked up the phone and dialed his number, it rung
once…twice…she was just about to hang up when she heard his voice.
"Hello."
Kay closed her eyes and tried to will her tears away.
"It's Kay," she said softly, she wanted to apologize, to beg his forgiveness for
everything.
"What do you want? Is something wrong with Charity?" asked Miguel tightly.
"How would I know?" Kay asked bewildered.
"Will you please go to her room and check on her? Just don't dump anything on
her," he said alluding to the fish guts at the prom, she could hear the disdain
in his voice.
It felt like the world was spinning, he didn't even know that she had left, did
anyone? It was getting hard to breathe but she managed to speak anyway.
"Goodbye, Miguel" she said as she hung up the phone and collapsed into the chair
in tears.
Any excitement that she had begun to feel about being on her own was quickly
extinguished in light of the fact that no one had even noticed she was gone, no
one. The tears came harder and sobs caught in her throat, how could no one care?
Was she that unloved? The tears fell faster and she could never remember feeling
so unwanted, and then AJ's arms wrapped around her and she didn't feel so alone
anymore.
