Maya's POV
"Ugh."
I squinted my eyes as I tried to open them, battling with my vision due to the light streaming through the pathetic curtains, that may as well not have been closed. Wait... Closed?
I didn't close my curtains, did I? I sat up quickly.
I looked down to my feet and wiggled my toes, just seeing my socks. No shoes. I swear to God I didn't take those off!
I looked past my feet to my footboard and saw my... jacket?
I snapped my head down to look at my torso, seeing only my white top from yesterday. No jacket.
I didn't take that off! I swear I didn't! Did someone else? No. That's impossible, there's nobody else...
GHOSTS.
But I thought most of them were bitches... why would I have a guardian angel?
I shook my head, standing up and walking over to the one box of clothes I had until the moving men came.
"Must've been Chad..." I muttered as I leafed through them.
Tate's POV
It's not like ghosts can sleep, but I sure as hell paid a lot more attention than I had been doing when I heard Maya stir. My head snapped round to find her sat up and looking in confusion at her curtains, her feet, and finally her jacket.
Chad was right... she's definitely not stupid.
She shook her head and threw her legs over the side of the bed to stand up. I dove to the floor to avoid getting kicked, and luckily I was fast enough.
I watched her walk over to this battered old box, opening it to find a few outfits- presumably for school.
"Must've been Chad..." I heard her mutter.
Wait... Back the fuck up! CHAD? CHAD? She thought it was Chad? I scowled at how he was managing to steal my glory without even being here. For fuck sake he's gay and he's already hogging all the girls!
But Tate... to be fair... He's the only ghosts she's met so far...
I rolled my eyes at the reasonable voice in my head. I had half a mind not to listen to it. It was the voice that had been distracting me all the fucking time when I shot up Westfield. "You shouldn't do it, Tate. Don't do it. It won't end well." I shook my head at the memory. To be fair... it had been right though...
I shook the thoughts out of my head when I heard a hushed "ah-ha", and turned to Maya to see her holding up what I presumed to be today's outfit. It fit her style. Simple. She threw the black jeans on the bed and threw her blue sleeved white baseball top on top of them. Then her hands travelled to the hem of her shirt. Oh shit she's undressing.
I quickly turned around, eyes covered for good measure.
Well fucking yeah she's changing Tate... That's kind of what you do every morning.
I mentally slapped myself at the thought. I daren't look back around to see if she was finished, so I just watched out of the corner of my eye for yesterday's outfit being thrown onto the bed. When the jeans and the baseball top had been picked up a good forty seconds ago, and when I heard the whining grunts that I think all girls go through when they put on jeans, I turned back around. My hand was still over my eyes, of course, as I squinted out between my fingers.
I sighed as I saw Maya opening the curtains, thankfully fully dressed. That could have been awkward. Not that I'd have minded seeing... Honestly I don't know why I looked away- usually I'm quite forthright about that sort of thing... Maybe it's because she's so innocent. Yeah... let's go with that.
Once she'd done that, she fished around in that box, finding a hairbrush and a toiletry bag. She brushed her hair and it fell as perfectly as it had done yesterday, before she went over to a small mirror on the window sill and started to apply make up. My sister, Adelaide, would love Maya. Ugh she'd ask her to do her make up every damn day. But my cocksucking mother wouldn't want that now would she? "Wipe that smut off your face!" "You'll never be a pretty girl, Adelaide!"
Yeah... parenting skills 10/10 am I right?
Anyway, Maya was so skilled. She moisturised her face, filled in her brows a little, applied some pretty neat eyeliner, and she was done! Simple as that.
I saw her slip into some burgundy VANS before grabbing a brown bag and heading out into the corridor, the force of the door swinging her curls back. Then she just walked away, and I heard her soft padding down the stairs.
Maya's POV
I bounced down the stairs and into the kitchen.
"Hey sweetie! Good night?" Mom asked, looking up from the coffee pot.
"Can't complain," I shrugged, smiling.
"Oh crap, my bus leaves in like five minutes!" I cried, looking at the clock.
"Honey we'll take you," Mom started.
"No Mom don't worry about it, you need as much time as you can get to get that God awful mural off the wall," I joked, grabbing a couple of breakfast bars, an apple, and a bottle of water.
"I'll be fine, see you later," I promised, leaning in for a kiss on the forehead.
"Okay sweetie, love you," she called after me as I headed towards the door.
"Love you too!" I shouted, slamming it behind me.
I bit into my apple as I bounced down the driveway towards the bus stop. Once there, I turned back around to face the house.
I didn't even noticed we had next door neighbours until I noticed a girl with downs syndrome stood in the adjacent yard, staring at me. I smiled at her, and she gave me a small smile back, before my bus pulled up and I hopped on it to get to school.
I walked back up the drive seven hours later. School had been decent, I'm not gonna lie. I had a small circle of friends already; Alyssia, Clay, Jessica and Nate. They were all pretty decent guys and we'd exchanged numbers and I had at least one of them in each of my classes. So yeah... pretty good day.
"I'm home!" I called as I wandered through the open back door.
"Hey sweetie!" Mom's head popped around from the living room.
I walked through to see her chiselling at the walls to get the murals off. I grabbed a chisel and joined her.
"So how was school?" she asked, smiling over at me.
"You know what? It was good, actually," I smiled; "I made some new friends; Alyssia, Clay, Jessica and Nate, and the teachers are nice too. And the subjects are pretty interesting- Mom! Did you know there's a module on psycholinguistics? How cool is that? I'm gonna tell Dad! Is he in one of his sessions?" I asked, only temporarily pausing for breath as I chiselled at the wall.
"Yeah he's in a session," Mom laughed at my eagerness; "But he'll be finished soon. Looks like you've got two career paths ahead of you then," she joked.
"What?" I asked through my smile.
"Well that man, Chad who came by yesterday? He seems to think you'd make a pretty good interior designer. And I have to say, I agree with him," she said, smiling.
"Really?"
"Yeah honey! You have all these amazing ideas! Anyway you father's session should be done any minute, so I'll talk to you later," she dismissed me, taking the chisel out of my hands and shooing me away.
"And don't forget Chad has an appointment with you later on!" she called after me as I neared Dad's 'office'.
"Mom you make me sound so professional," I joked, before almost running into Violet.
"Violet? Are you o-"
"I'm fine," she said harshly, pushing past me and making her way up to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
"Okay..." I muttered, heading the rest of the way to Dad's office.
"Well, Tate, that's the end of our session for today," I heard Dad's footsteps and another set near the other side of the door.
"Thanks so much, Dr Harmon," a voice said, and the door knob turned before my Dad opened it to reveal me.
"Maya?" he asked, and the boy he was with looked at me in shock.
"How long have you been stood there?" Dad asked.
"I literally just got here. I wanted to tell you about this module in English, but it can wait if you're still with a patient," I trailed off.
I glanced over at the boy. He was wearing a green and black striped jumper with blue ripped jeans and black converse. His blonde curly hair was almost as unruly as mine, and his eyes... I didn't see much of them, but I could tell that there was so much pain in them... and unbelievable amount of pain...
"Tate was actually just leaving," Dad smiled at 'Tate', and I couldn't help but think the name sounded familiar.
"Uh, yeah... thanks again Dr Harmon. Uh... It was nice to meet you," the guy sheepishly nodded at me, no smile, and not meeting me in the eyes, before shoving his hands in his pockets and wandering off.
I glanced back to watch his retreating figure before Dad snapped me back to reality.
"What did you wanna tell me then?" he asked, a smile evident in his voice.
"One word, Dad; Psycholinguistics!"
"I knew you were my daughter," he joked, ruffling my hair as I laughed.