Life is hard. Hard enough already that dealing with having powers on top of being a teenager is one hell of a wild ride.
What's worse than that? Being the only person who doesn't have any powers at all in a school full of gifted kids. My three older brothers all had powers. All of them. But not me. No, not me.
My eldest brother, Kasi is a Fire Elementalist. Nobody's sure how considering both our mother is a water elemental and our father is an earth Elementalist. My second eldest brother is called Sethupathi, but we just call him Seth for short and he's a water Elementalist. Then there's Kenny, full name being Kennedyor and he's an earth Elementalist.
My name is Mayalissa Idrari Anae-Bane, and I'm sixteen. Yeah, my name's weird. Just call me Maya.
You're probably wondering why me and my brothers all have such weird names. It's because our parents are total assholes as Kas will tell anybody who asks about our names. We moved here to the island three generations of Anae-Bane ago. Before that, my family are supposedly from Mexico on Dad's side.
Each generation of my family has supposedly been an amazing Elementalist with such self-control that they could do it in their sleep. My mom is a healer, using water in most of her practices. She helps people balance their bodies and spirits, and is widely respected by our community for doing so. Her speciality is water therapy.
Dad is a herbalist. He used to be an actual therapist years ago before I was born, helping rehabilitate criminals for society. Apparently he quit to work from home with his plants and make medicine both naturally and artificially because he felt that that's where his passion lies. They own a family apothecary that my mom's grandparents opened when they were young.
Why is any of that relevant? Well, it's because my whole family is well renowned and respected for their powers and how they use them. Kas has two elements for god's sake. Fire and Earth? How cool. Now he lives off the island, studying out in the big wide world away from The Isle Of Genetrix. He's studying to be an engineer, working as a mechanic in the meantime too. Everyone knows my brother. He was crazy in school, and he's always had an awful temper. He's supposedly a bad boy... Whenever he comes home to visit for the holidays, all the girls I know of all swoon and sigh. it's gross and really bad for his stupidly huge ego.
Seth is in college now, and apparently he's another dreamboat. He's great with technology and is really nerdy, and his girlfriend is really adorable. I like her a lot. They're high school sweethearts and have been together for the last seven years, Seth is even considering proposing.
Kenny is known for... Sadder reasons. After high school, we're supposed to go tour the world for two years, find what we want to do and experience all kinds of things out there in the normal world. He and his partner left together, wanting to go into business together as a carpentry and metalwork power couple that could build just about anything. Kenny's boyfriend died in a car accident in Tokyo. He came home to spend some time in therapy, which sucks. He's 18. He should be out having fun, but instead, he's home. Struggling. People always dance around the subject with him, and he hates it. He doesn't want to be pitied or given special treatment. He wants to mourn the loss of his boyfriend in peace and recover mentally so that he can get back to doing what he loves. Building stuff.
All my family have a reputation, from the promise they showed in school to the lives they lead now. Me? I don't even have any of that. Elemental powers are usually discovered at around age twelve, and now I'm 16 and I have nothing. Zip. Nada. Fuck all.
So, time to face the next two years of my life. My day starts at 6:30 am. Always be the first to use the bathroom. Once I have done my business and put my dirty clothes in the laundry basket, I take a shower.
Exfoliation is important so I like to use a scented body scrub and wash the coconut oil out of my hair that had been placed in my hair to help it recover from my excessive dyeing of hair. But how else am I meant to keep these dark roots from showing through? It really ruins my whole look.
Once I've showered, I wash my face and moisturize. After I'm dry, and the moisturizer has soaked in, I put on my fluffy pink bathrobe and retreat to my room to dry my hair and pick out my outfit for the day. I tame the mess that is my hair, putting up the pale pink locks in two cute, messy buns and let loose a few strands to frame my face. Once I've done that, on goes my underwear and some black sweatpants and a stolen t-shirt courtesy of one of my brother's.
Then, I go help my dad with breakfast. Mom can't cook at all, but she makes really nice tea. My mother is a small woman, only five foot one, but that doesn't stop her from putting anybody in line when they cross boundaries. One thing she insists on is that we try a new blend of tea every single day, and none of us really argue with her on it. She's a slim, attractive woman to say she's 43. Her love for loose-fitting clothes doesn't help the fact that every boy at school has told me my mom is a babe. Maya's mom has got it going on... Ew.
Today my lanky father has decided to dress up a little, wearing some pressed black suit pants and a white button-up with the sleeves rolled up. A mistake on his part, considering he's covered in oil and butter and all sorts now. He had decided to make French Toast for breakfast and splattered the mixture he was supposed to dip the bread in all over himself.
He goes to change while I can hear the clanking of my mother's many bracelets while she pours the tea in the kitchen. She loves her chunky jewellery, and even though she fluffs up her brown hair to look like what I imagine is an eighties exercise instructor, she is still really pretty and makes it work for her. She loves wearing patterned dresses, usually with some kind of colourful print. Today my mom settled for a light green silk dress that's tight around the top and loose and flowing after the waist. a chunky brown belt at her waist over the top, as well as her favourite brown shawl and some knee-high brown boots, make my mother look casual but rustically presentable.
Dad returns, wearing a tie-dye shirt that he and my mom made in high school, and some loose jeans. He's a slim man, so it's not too hard to see past him to see how he's progressing with breakfast. I smile nervously at my dad who hugs me tight, seemingly knowing my worries already.
"Don't worry, Bambi, you'll do great. You'll find your element, I just know it." I let him reassure me, hiding my face in his chest, but I won't tell him I hate that nickname. Well- I don't hate it, but it is embarrassing... Being five foot eight, I'm kind of a tall girl so I'm not exactly tiny anymore, but my dad is six foot three so even now, I still feel tiny when my gentle giant for a dad holds me like this. It's like being ten again when I inhale. Pine trees and marijuana smoke. After breakfast, if my dad isn't at work he's baked out of his mind. It helps with his chronic pain so I can't really complain about it...
He pecks me on my forehead and we finish making French Toast, dancing to the playlist he and my mother put together, heavily indulging in their love of eighties music. They have plenty of other songs in this playlist, something for all of us and my dad plates up breakfast while my mom strains today's tea. It's chai tea with soy milk and honey, her favourite. Seth is lactose intolerant, so we don't get too big of a choice in this if we don't want him to shatter the toilet bowl. I wish we could just have normal milk and he has lactose free, but my protests have always gone unheard.
I go and shout Seth, his girlfriend Chloe, and Kenny. It's at this point that the battle for the bathroom begins while Chloe comes downstairs to sit at the table, still in her pyjamas and rubbing her eyes of sleep. She's a little taller than me, about five-nine? With short blonde hair. She's got a few extra pounds but I doubt it's all fat, even if she works in an Ice cream store. Then again, I can't be sure. Chloe then opens the door to the back porch and lets the dogs inside after my dad had let them outside while he cooked and she and my mom talk about some work-related plans.
By 7:45 am, everyone is sat at the table and the dogs are eating happily in their own section of the kitchen. My mother turned a large pantry into a space for our two Alaskan Malamutes to eat where the smell won't bother us, and they can't beg for food. Bear is slightly older, being five years old and is more of a brownish colour than Luna. Luna is only two and is almost entirely white other than the grey on her head and upper back.
Kenny and Seth are both messy eaters, and devour their food quickly, my mother asking about everybody's plans for the day. No matter what, we always eat breakfast together. It's the one meal a day my parents insist we all eat together in our colourful kitchen.
Once we have all eaten, I go and brush my teeth and then go start on my makeup while Chloe showers and gets dressed for work and Seth and my mom do the washing up. Kenny dries and puts away the dishes then takes the dogs out for a walk while my dad goes to his home office and lab on the third floor of this huge house to sort out the last of his things and get appropriately dressed for work. By now it's 8:30 and my dad has left to cycle to work. My mother changes clothes and walks down with their lunch she prepared to get to the building at 8:45 to help my dad open up the apothecary for the day. Seth has classes but they don't start till 10, so he has some time to kill in which he usually sorts the clean laundry out for our mom.
I do my makeup, nice and simple. A base to even out my skin tone, fill in my eyebrows, some light highlighter, line my lips with a pale pink lip liner and on goes a light pink liquid to matte lipstick under a clear lip gloss. A little pink eyeshadow, and my usual sharp as a knife cat eye-liner. Mascara completes my makeup for the day, now for my outfit.
Sweatpants and t-shirt discarded on the white marble of my bedroom floor, for now, I decide on a simple but impressionable outfit. It's fall, and so I have decided to dress a little more warmly. Pale blue thigh-high socks go on but I have on some skin coloured dance tights underneath. No, I'm not a dancer. But a few friends of mine do. They recommended dance tights to me since I love wearing skirts so much.
Some white, platform boots that reach my mid-calf with nice pastel blue laces fit nicely with these thigh highs. A cute blue pleated skirt fits with it and then a white turtle neck sweater with elbow-length sleeves tucked in. I'm not too happy with how bare my arms look so on go a pair of baby blue fishnet gloves the slide over my middle fingers. On goes a blue woven bracelet that my mother made goes on my wrist and I'm dressed.
Better hurry and pack my school bag. It's already nine am and school starts in thirty minutes.
So, I fill up my water bottle, screw on the cap tightly and put it in my backpack with my laptop, phone charger, notebooks and pencil case. There's a honk outside and I rush out, slipping on the heart-shaped pink sunglasses, a pale blue trench coat and putting a strawberry lollipop in my mouth. My ride is here and ready to drive me to school. I'm the first friend to be picked up so that we can head to school together.
As I get in the black Nissan Murano, yeah I know a little bit about cars, what of it? I then pull out my specially ordered cigarettes. Guess what! they're pink. I light it with my metallic pink zippo, running my thumb over the engraved deer on the side. Then I flick it shut and put it back in my white leather purse. I examine my new nails, having had them done only the day before. Baby blue nails with pink cherry blossom trees painted on my index and ring fingers. On my right thumb, there are rhinestones, the same on the pinkie finger.
The windows are rolled down, so the smoke from my cigarette won't make the inside of the car smell, and I can't help but smile as familiar hand motions for me to connect to the Bluetooth speaker and so I load my Spotify and have a look through my playlists. What should I pick? Hmmm...
I think Loser by Beck is a good choice. Everything was so much cooler in the '90s...