Chapter One
My room is exactly the same as when I left it seven years ago. Only small changes that I can see of. A new vanity table, a plain white dresser in the place where my childish, hand painted fairy one had been, and the added bonus of all my boxes that had been shipped here a week in advance.
It was, and still is, strange being in this room again. The walls are still painted sky blue with white fluffy clouds and my bed is still covered in my white comforter with the little pink roses on it. This room had been my innocence.. a childhood innocence that I can't take back. The day we moved, I left that behind... That was when my memories began to show themselves in my dreams.. and when my powers decided they wanted to come out and play.
I'm still smiling from my... well our warm welcome back by our father. Mom had not informed us that we will be living with dad again, that see had found a place, but it's far too small for myself and Kyle to share with her... so we are here... Home.
Kyle is, at the moment, checking out his old room while mom and dad chat downstairs and I take a tour down memory lane in this room. It's very strange, thinking of your parents being only friends, if that, and nothing else. But I suppose that's just me... Kyle had never said it bothered him that mom and dad split... and we still don't know why they did, only that there had been a lot of fighting before they ended it.
After a few minutes of moving around my room, touching the family pictures on the new dresser, the little nic-nacs on the shelves with my childish books, I decide I want to go see if Dad has kept the play room the same as he has our bedrooms. I smile to myself as I pass the sign on my door. 'Maria's Realm' it reads in my sloppy handwriting with stars colored around it. My bedroom had been my safe haven from my nasty brother and arguing parents. That makes me smile more as I remember and began to walk down the hall.
The first thing I notice as I enter the room that once was filled with Barbie Dolls and G.I. Joes, is that the room has been painted a dark color, almost black and there are weird posters all over the place, even on the ceiling. It takes me another couple of minutes to realize that the entire room has been changed besides the color and wall coverings. There's a bed now, queen size, larger then my old bed sitting in my room right now, a desk, dressers, and a boy sitting in the desk chair... A boy my age and starring at me like I've just grown another head.
I frown at him and in return he raises an eyebrow, a sarcastic gesture I'm sure as a smirk crosses his face. I slowly back out of the room and close the door behind me. There was a boy.. .a young man sitting in my brother's.. sitting in my old play room and he had totally redecorated . The only thing I can think of is that he is one of dad's sister's kids... or dad decided to rent the room.
"Daddy!" I suck in a lung full of air to shout that one word. I want some answers... and now.
"So you just took him in? He lives here too?" Kyle questioned for the hundredth time as I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that I would be living in a house with some strange boy that could probably strangle me in my sleep. Maybe I can still go live with mom and sleep on the couch or something?
"His home life wasn't nice, and then he was just tossed out on his own, he's a good kid, works shifts at the Crashdown Cafe and does well in school. I thought the least I could do was offer up a room that wasn't being used." Dad explained and it made me wonder just how bad this boys... Michael's home life had been that my father felt he needed to be an adult about it and take him in.
"You gave him our room." I protested with a pout, catching a smirk from Kyle as dad smiled and gave my hand a pat.
"You wouldn't have used that room, it was going to waste... but as you can see, your rooms are the same as you left them." He pointed out and he was right. I knew that neither myself or Kyle would have had much use for a child's play room. But it still felt weird not having that around in this house that I... we had partially grown up in. "And I still have all your old toys and things. I just boxed them up and stuck them in the attic, so when you feel like taking that stroll, you can go right up there and dig around."
I sigh and roll my eyes before smiling and leaning forward and kissing his cheek. "Thanks for that... I'll be nice to the strange boy your allowing to live under the roof as your teenage daughter.. very hot daughter, I may add." Kyle snickered and I can hear him saying something about no one wanting to touch me, even with a pole, as I walk away and back towards my room.
To my surprise, when I finally reach my door, a hand closes over mine. I look up, shocked, and find the strange guy, Michael, starring down at me with an unusual look on his face, somewhat unreadable.
"I know about you. You hurt Jim in any way, I'll make you dust." For some reason, his whispered, rough words scare the hell out of me. What does he mean he knows about me? I don't understand any of that. But I don't get a chance to ask because he's walking away and I'm left pondering my thoughts and his words.
TBC
