Destia Jayden February 29th,20XX

Kaja waved at the back of the car as the car turned around and drove in the opposite direction to my school. While I understood that there was little sense in transferring to a new school a few months to graduation, I still lamented the lack of opportunity.

That was North high!

They weren’t as good as the school that Sparrow went to, but they could most definitely hold their own!

For the first time in a long time, I wished that I could have been a year or two younger. Then again, the thought of having to repeat my first and second year of high school while having to hide my powers and be a Squire made me take back the unspoken wish.

“Oh, could you let me off here?”

We were still about a block away from school, but I could make up the difference by running. I didn’t plan on hiding anything about working at Squire, but I also didn’t want to flaunt it.

Compared to Sparrow’s high school and North high, my school was very average. It wasn’t awful, but none of us were getting chauffeured to and from school.

I tapped the thick soles of my shoes a few times and tried to gauge how fast I could run without wearing them thin and hurting myself again. There was still about fifteen minutes before classes started, so if I went slightly faster than a jog, I could make it with time to spare.

My jeans were heavy on my legs, and my sweater was slightly too thick for what I wanted to do. These were not running clothes, but that wouldn’t bother me too much. I took my hat off my head and shoved it into my back pocket. While I wasn’t planning on running fast enough to lose it, it was better safe than sorry.

I started slower than I needed to, but my eyes were still sensitive from the wind and I found myself unwilling to test how they fared. Joyce had taken our measurements, and the scientists had insisted on me wearing goggles and thick, metal laced socks in the lab, but I didn’t have any of that equipment here.

“Dee!! You’re back!”

A familiar voice suddenly called to me from behind, and I forced myself to a halt.

There, rounding a corner, was a close friend of mine. She had grown distant lately and always had a slightly concerned expression on her face when we met. I didn’t blame her for it since I’d suddenly distanced myself from them last year when I’d first gotten my powers, but we were both working on getting our relationship back to where it was.

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“Raina!”

I stopped and waited for her to catch up with me.

We weren’t close enough to campus for her to be walking so slowly, but then again she had never been one to get to class early or even on time.

“Rare running into you so late. Anything going on?”

Before I’d moved into the Squire dorms, I’d take the bus as close as it would bring me and then sprint the last five blocks. Since I didn’t want to risk anyone seeing me and I didn’t want any questions about how I got to school if someone was familiar with my bus route, I was usually one of the first people in school.

While I could have done something similar, the best an internet map had given me was a bus ride that brought me halfway into the city and I would have to run the rest of the way. In comparison, running a little late and having to jog a block to school wasn’t that inconvenient.

I could have asked to be dropped off early, but that would involve making the others wake up earlier than they already did. I didn’t think any buses went from where we all lived to my school, but I also didn’t want to make the others get to school earlier just so I could avoid being one of the last people to school.

I’d just have to come up with something else. Maybe I could ask Joyce to drive me while she went to work?

Even before I finished the idea, I dismissed it. She worked on the opposite side of the city, but even if she didn’t, I didn’t think we were that close.

“I woke up pretty late today. I’m not used to living on my own yet.”

She perked up a bit at my indirect mention of living at the Squire building.

“That’s right! How has it been? Was that why you were out for the week? Oh, I’m dead jealous of you.”

Her reaction was excessive and out of character, but I put it up to the fact that we hadn’t seen each other for so long.

We barely got onto campus before the gates closed and quickly made our way to class. We shared the same first period, so it had been convenient to get to school together.

The day passed in a blur of borrowed notes and sometimes inappropriate questions about Joyce and Aaron. It was too easy to forget that the kind and soft-spoken man I saw almost every day was at the level of an idol to others. Heck, half a month ago, I would have passed out if I got to have a fifteen-minute conversation with him.

The lunch bell finally released me from class and I made my way to the courtyard. I usually treated lunchtime religiously since I needed to make up the energy I burned in the mornings, but I’d ended up walking slowly to campus today.

One useful thing about my body nowadays was how fair it was with energy. Regardless of what I did or when I did it, it would only put out as much as it needed to and would keep as much as it didn’t.

“Dee!”

“Destia!”

“Dee!”

All of my friends waved me over with bright smiles, and I suddenly felt a sense of peace in my heart. That was right.

Even though I spent a lot of time alone in the Squire building, it wasn’t because I was a loser, or because I was antisocial. I wasn’t so unlikeable, or at least I didn’t think I was.

I just needed to give us time.