Dried and Dying Roses (BWWM)

Four: Keep Going...Please

Four

She didn't know where he was. Adrian had disappeared over two weeks ago, and Isa had no idea where he had gone off to. Isa tried to clear her mind of him, and she believed the she was succeeding so far.

Sitting at her desk, Isa tapped the mahogany grain with her fountain pen, staring off into space as she sat at her office desk at Sweetie's. She had been in a rather sour mood for a while now; snappier towards her employees, family and close friends, and she felt terrible about it, so Isa tried to separate herself from the people she was around the most.

With a sigh, Isa threw the pen down, pushing away from her desk and walking to her office door as she became restless, "I can't hide away forever," She muttered, gripping the cool doorknob and slipping out of the office and running right into Kenneth Shaw, whom at fourteen towered over the full grown woman at six feet, and still growing.

"Issy!" He exclaimed, hugging the woman tightly.

Isa returned the embrace, pressing her lips to his temple, "Hey there, big boy. What's been going on?"

Kenneth shrugged, running his hands over his medium length blonde hair, "Nothin'. You missed my game last night."

"Shit," Isa cursed, slapping her forehead. She knew she had something to do last night, but was so out of her mind, that she couldn't remember what for the life of her, "I'm sorry, Kenny, I completely forgot. How did it go?"

As they walked to the table in the corner of the store, Kenneth went on about how his basketball team, the panthers slaughtered their opponents with ease. "I wasn't even tired afterwards," He shrugged with a grin.

As a freshman, Kenneth has surpassed junior varsity, and played good enough to be on varsity, and he was well known for his skills. Isa had no idea what went on during those games, but she was there to support him at almost every game. She was like family to Kenneth, and he was like her little brother. She sure did spoil him like he was; despite Ryan's telling her it wasn't necessary.

"Well, I'll be sure to come next week." Isa murmured as she watched the teen pull his homework and books out of his backpack, "What do you need help with today?"

Kenneth reddened at the question. Isa knew already what he needed help with.

He passed over his list of work to complete for the night in language arts, and Isa took it. The two had a whole routine worked out when it came to Kenneth's homework. Even though he was almost fifteen, Isaline forced him to highlight all the things he needed help with that night, and then bring it to her daily. She set aside three hours of her day to help her little buddy.

"Kenneth, why are we still struggling with parts of speech?" Isa frowned, leaning back in her sear and leveling him with her honey gaze, "And document analysis too? All you do in your free time is read!"

He sighed, slumping even lower into his seat, running his hand over his face in frustration just like Isa had watched his father do many times, "I-I don't know, Issy. I love to read, but my teacher has a certain way we're supposed to do the analysis, and I always do it wrong!"

"And what about parts of speech? I taught you this a long time ago! It's been years, what's the problem?"

"I always struggle with that," He muttered, hitting his palm against the table, "God, I hate Language,"

Isa smiled at that, scooting next to Kenny after passing him a snack, "It's not that terrible, you just have to pay attention."

Almost hours later, Kenneth seemed to get the concepts a little bit more, and was not as upset as he was upon entering Sweetie's. "Tell your father you're ready to leave." Isa groaned as she stretched before standing up, at eight o'clock, "Tell him he can leave early too, I can handle everything here."