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Rika
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Well, Mom and Dad left last night. I know that they had to go. I know that it was important and all that. But that doesn't make it any easier on all of us. At least they hadn't left for more than a night in over a decade. And Mom hadn't accompanied Dad on those trips, so she has always been there for us since the little ones were born. Not that the Z's were little anymore. They were ten going on eleven. Man, time sure does pass before you know it.
They were leaving now, though. And none of us knew when they were going to be back. I know that my brothers and sisters, the younger ones that is, were upset about it. Talia, only fifteen right now, was putting on a brave face through it all. I think that was because she was preparing to pull away from our parents soon. She would be going to college with us next year and then after that, not sure when but eventually, she would be moving to the underworld. If she was overly attached now, then all of that would probably be hard for her. I felt sad whenever I thought about my sister leaving, but I knew that it was something that she chose to do, so I was going to let her make her own decisions.
Today was the first day of school for me and Reagan, and tomorrow was the first day for the other kids. The five of them still attended school in Trinity Falls with all of the other nonhuman kids in the area. That had been where Reagan and I went to school as well, so I had no problem with it, it was a good school after all.
I was glad that tomorrow, I didn't have classes until later in the morning. It meant that I would be able to take my siblings to school on their first day. At least it wasn't their first year in school. They were going into fifth and twelfth grades.
.....
Today though, I was a lot more worried about myself. Well, me and Reagan. We were going to be going to class for the first time. We were going to be meeting with a lot of new people. And we were going to be getting a lot of weird looks, just like our mom and dad had. I mean, us and all of our group that were attending the school, were going to be living off of campus. That wasn't usually allowed for freshmen unless they lived right in town. I guess that even though we were in the next city over, they gave us a pass because our parents always donated money to the school. That and there were a lot of other nonhumans working there.
I spent hours getting myself ready for my first day of class. Despite what my idiot brother might have thought, I was not going to be dating Clovio, and that meant that I was still single and open to new experiences. And because of that, I made sure that my outfit was perfect and my makeup was even better. Oh, and my hair, which was long and hung down to the middle of my back, was styled in a simple yet fun way.
OK, my hair only looked simple, it took me forever to style it so that it was in a high ponytail with a pair of braids going down the side and twisting around the ponytail only to end seamlessly in the ponytail itself. It looked cute though, and that was all that mattered to me.
After getting ready, I went down to have breakfast with everyone before heading off to school. I didn't drive in with Reagan, he was going with Levi, Luka and Rowan. I was heading into school with Ilana, Lyssa and Alexa. I guess even now, when starting school, we were more interested in being with those that we had always been friends with.
When we got to school, we decided to just walk around a little bit before we had to go to class. Since we were living off of campus, we didn't get to spend as much time with the other students and that would make it harder for us to spend time with them. To be honest, I really thought that we would all be better off living in the dorms like the rest of them, but it wasn't what our parents wanted for us.
The four of us, having been the best of friends since we were really little, had aligned our schedules for the first semester. There were similar prerequisite classes for all of us so we thought that taking them first would be the best options. And it lets us be together every single day.
While we were waiting for classes to start, I heard someone call out to me with a strong German accent.
“Rika! I found you!” It was Clovio. He was running toward me with a big smile on his face.
“Hi, Clovio!” I smiled back at him. OK, he was cute, that was true. But he wasn't my mate, so I didn't want to get too attached to him.
While he was running toward me, I saw that he had a larger group of people with him than last time. There were more than just the five of them that I met before. So, I wondered for a moment if they were just people that they had met since coming here or if they were more of the kids from Germany.
“I wanted to introduce you to my friends.” His accent was so thick that it made me want to smile when he spoke. I liked it, I really did. It reminded me of Uncle Dietrich, one of Lyssa and Alexa's dads. “They were not in our group, but they are from the same orphanage. They were on the tour the day after ours.”
“Oh, more friends from Germany.” I smiled as I looked at the group. I saw that among the one that I had met before, there was another guy and two other women. The girls looked like they could have been sisters, but not twins. Well, not identical twins anyway. They had dark brown hair and hazel eyes with thin, pale faces that looked like they were perpetually sad. They were tall, but skinny. The guy looked completely different. He had black hair, green eyes, a handsome face that was filled with angles and looked like it was chiseled out of some pale stone. He was very good looking, very tall, and very mysterious. He also seemed to be staring at our group with shock in his eyes.
I heard someone gasp behind me, but I didn't pay attention to it at first. I was talking with Clovio and didn't want to be rude. He was starting to introduce us to all of his other friends.
“You know Gunnar and Aloisius, as well as Armina and Lovisa. These here are sisters Hede and Hedi, and this here is Warrick. Everyone, these are some new friends of ours. Rika, can you introduce everyone for me?” Clovio smiled and handed the conversation over to me.
“Sure. It's nice to meet you guys. These, here, are my friends.” I smiled and turned to look at them. “This is Ilana, Alexa and Lyssa.” I wasn't paying much attention at first, but when I looked at Lyssa to introduce her, I saw that she was staring at the other group as if in disbelief. It was like she was not able to believe what she was seeing. “Lyssa, is everything OK?” I thought that something might have been wrong or that she was upset about something.
“I..I'm fine. Everything is f..f..fine.” She tried to smile through it, but I knew that I would be talking to her soon. Something was going on and I didn't know what it was.
“Thank you.” Clovio grinned at me. “What classes do you have? Anything that we might be in together?” He was excited. Maybe he had developed a little crush on me the other day. That wasn't overly bad, but I didn't want to break his heart when I met 'the one'.
“Well, we are all taking our prerequisite classes.” I explained to him and started to list off the English, math, history, and science classes that we were all taking this semester.
“Oh wow. That is so funny, Rika.” Clovio was laughing hard like he had just heard the funniest joke in a long time. “We're all in the same classes. Well, not all eight of us, but most of us. Me, Gunnar, Warrick, Armina and Lovisa are in those classes. Aloisius, Hede and Hedi are in half of them and then in other classes for the rest. We will all be together. That is great. We should make a study group.”
“Yeah, sure, that sounds great. The more we have the better, right? If we all work together, I am sure we will pass the classes with no problems at all.” Ok, I think I might be crushing on him a little bit. Would that be so bad? I mean, to have a little crush on a human and maybe date him for a little while. Maybe he just wasn't ready for me to recognize him as my mate. I might not know until later. It might take us some more time or something. And if that wasn't the case, at least we could have some fun for a little while. It wouldn't really hurt either of us, would it?
