Sparks and a Girl (Rewritten to publish)

7. Mid-day hike

Jeisa closed her garage door and covered her bike before heading into her house. Technically, it was the guest house, separate from the main house, which she'd exclusively called home until her sixteenth birthday. After the traditional birthday dinner that they always had together, her father had given her the keys to the guest house as a gift. Her very own personal space. He'd even renovated the kitchen to make sure she could practise her cooking whenever she wanted. She loved it.

It was a small, self-contained, cottage, tiny compared to the main house, but Jeisa didn't mind the size. It was way easy to keep it clean, especially since she was so very particular with where and how everything had to be. She actually suspected that her insistence on how things should be was why her dad had given her the space. She'd clashed with the numerous house cleaners hired to maintain the main house more than once. None of them were allowed in her space.

In her room, Jeisa slowly undressed and carefully placed the items of her clothing in her laundry baskets, separated by colour and further by fabric type, ready for the washing machine tomorrow.

She desperately needed a shower.

Before walking to the bathroom, she stood and looked at her naked reflection in the full-length mirror that was on the inside of her cupboard. She tilted her head and studied the image. She looked normal. She wasn't normal. She looked down at her fingertips. She had never really cared to know how it happened because she'd never dreamt she'd use this power the way she currently was. Maybe she should finally try and find out why she was like this.

She sighed and shook her head.

No. She was fine playing pretend.

She grabbed a towel and made her way to the shower.

After the Institute gig, before coming home, Jeisa had spent the day driving around aimlessly. It was now early evening. Her dad would be raiding the main house refrigerator soon for something unhealthy to snack on. She'd go help him.

"Hey sport."

"Hey dad." Jeisa replied as she went to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of her favourite sports drink. She smiled. He still stocked the main house fridge with all her favourites.

"Just got a call from the cleaners. You were as neat as always. They spent less than an hour in that room." said her dad.

He put his phone down, grabbed half of the indulgent pastrami sandwich Jeisa had made and took a seat on one of the bar stools against the kitchen island. He'd been eating here rather than the dining table ever since Jeisa had insisted on preparing all their meals by herself when she was six. She didn't cook for him every day anymore, but he still ate all his meals at the kitchen island.

"Let's keep the assignment list clear for a while?" she said, sitting across from him at the marble topped island.

"Volunteer stuff?" he asked.

He looked up from his phone and took a sip from a cup of foam filled coffee that Jeisa pushed in front of him. Her dad's blue eyes were smiling. He was always happy when she was around. He had more gray hairs around his temple with every passing year, but she thought he looked suave like that. She encouraged him to not dye his brown hair to cover it up.

"Yeah. We'll be starting work cleaning up camp sites and hiking trails after the weekend." she said, taking another sip of her drink. "Also, I met a girl."

"Cool. Is she cute?" he asked, smiling.

"You're not mad?" Jeisa wondered.

"Mad?"

"After everything we've discussed about letting people get too close because of what we do, I just thought..." Jeisa let the words trail off in a mumble.