Fated to Them (book 1+2) novel Chapter 6

Read Fated to Them by Jessica Hall Chapter 6 – Getting home I pulled up in the driveway, Maya was waiting on the front porch, smiling excitedly when she saw me pull up. Her dark hair hanging loosely in ringlets down her back, her deep dimples making her look more angelic with her big brown doe eyes. She took my breath away, always does when I see her little eyes light up when she sees me. Stepping out of the car, she skips happily over to me bouncing on the b***s of her feet excitedly.

“Aunty Aunty, I made cookies with grandma, they have smiley faces” She announces, pulling on my hand.

I follow her inside. The smell of freshly baked cookies filling my nose, as I step inside our home. I grew up in this house, the walls filled with photos of my childhood and now Maya’s. My sister and I used to be close being that we were twins, she was my other half, yet we were complete opposites now, and had now grown apart which saddened me. G*d, I missed her.

Our house sometimes felt like walking into a shrine of our memories of happier times. Yet it was home, my mother always said you can turn any house into a home, and she was right. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. So, when we nearly lost the place after my father died while away on work, my mother, sister, and I worked our a***s off to make sure we didn’t lose it because he had no life insurance.

My sister and I were working three jobs, my mother was pulling extra shifts at the hospital to cover all the bills, we struggled for years between school and working so much but we survived it, well until my sister went off the rails and then got pregnant with Maya, leaving us with an extra mouth to feed and trying to get her sober again.

Walking down the hallway to the kitchen, I find my mother busily making dinner. I sit at the island bench on a stool, dumping my bag on the bench.

“Bad day?” My mother asks. I run my fingers through my hair before gripping it.

“The worst” I tell her. And she stops what she is doing, turning around to look at me. Maya hands me one of her cookies and I bite a piece off.

“So good Maya you did a great job” I tell her, popping the rest of the cookie in my mouth. It was a little chewy and the centre wasn’t quite cooked all the way through, but she made it so I didn’t care. Maya beams up at me and I return her smile.

“You really think so?” She asks.

“The best cookies ever” I tell her, pinching her nose as she runs off happily, toward the living room where I could hear her favourite cartoon shimmer and shine playing on the TV.