In the car, Isaura was chattering away about her day to her father, who was driving the car. She sat at the back and was neither using a seatbelt nor a car seat. There was no car seat in the car, and wearing a seatbelt was painful as the belt hit her face.
"So. Did you enjoy school?" came the deep voice in front.
Isaura was smiling as she clapped her hands, "Yes, you were right Daddy. It was fun."
"And?"
Isaura thought hard, her fingers on her chin, then said, "Yes, and everybody was really nice."
"Good," her father replied, easing into traffic.
"At first, I had no friends," Isaura chattered on, "It wasn't that they were mean or anything, but I guess, they didn't know how to talk to me. I didn't know what to say to them either."
Isaura pouted a bit, remembering the two that sat beside her, on the left and right.
"What did I tell you about that?"
Isaura gave a huge sigh and placed her hands on her lap, the corners of her mouth were a bit down as she then started twisting her skirt.
"Isaura," came the slightly more stern voice in front and Isaura jerked a bit.
Looking down, Isaura said softly, "I'm sorry, Daddy. I will try harder."
There was a slight sigh from her father and he said to her, his tone softer this time, "You need to make friends. Not just be by yourself."
"But I did make friends, Daddy!" Isaura then shouted happily, clapping her hands and smiling widely. It was as if the earlier sadness had never existed as her eyes shone and she was even swaying on the seat.
"There's Alex, Aurora, Fleur and Ziad," Isaura said, as she counted them out with her finger, "Oh, and Teacher Krauss. He's nice, too."
"The teacher doesn't count," her father responded, "You need friends your age, or at least, close to your age."
"I do have friends my age," Isaura muttered under her breath.
"Zue does not count, Isaura," her father admonished her.
Isaura pouted a bit but she knew what her father was referring to. Zue was her childhood friend … and was her only friend. Lots of people found her weird and she didn't like them anyway.
Crossing her arms across her chest, Isaura remained quiet then and her father did not press the issue any longer.
It was always like this whenever Zue was mentioned.
Her father said she needed more friends and not just focus on Zue, but Zue was like, her other half of her soul. She told her everything and Zue was her pillar of strength. She was the only one that understood her and she trusted Zue whole-heartedly.
Isaura couldn't understand why her parents didn't like Zue.
But at least, they didn't stop her from being friends with Zue.
They just wanted her to get to know more people.
At first, Isaura had been reluctant to go to school. She felt that the people in school would be just like everyone else and would treat her differently.
When her parents told her about the Accelerated Class that she qualified for after doing some test, she still wasn't excited. Then, her parents told her all about Alex, Aurora, Fleur and Ziad.
The more she heard about them, the more interesting it was.
Especially Alex.
She had tried looking them up online, but other than Fleur, there was practically nothing about them.
She followed Fleur's cooking channel and became a small fan. Seeing how deftly Fleur made her cakes and cookies, using specially made utensils that fit her small hands, awed Isaura immensely.
Isura couldn't do that and she didn't think she would ever be able to do that.
However, even if she couldn't actually 'see' who Alex, Aurora and Ziad were, her parents were quite informative and told her a lot of things.
So when she had come to school, and actually was lucky enough to get paired with Alex for the ice-breaking session, Isaura felt like she had already known Alex for a long time.
Everyone - other than Aurora, Fleur and Ziad, of course - seemed to avoid him.
Not that they were scared of him, but they kept their distance a bit.
Isaura had no idea why.
Alex was absolutely perfect.
He was good looking, smart, and best of all, he didn't look at her strangely.
He was a bit stiff, but that was okay.
Isaura smiled again, thinking about Alex and how wonderful it was to be in the same class as him. She couldn't wait to tell Zue all about Alex.
With that thought, she started humming a tune while looking out the window. Her father, Steward, glanced at her for a while through the rearview mirror then focused his attention on driving again.
Upon arriving home, Isaura opened the door quickly then carefully got down from the car. She didn't even wait for her father, as she ran towards the house.
She dashed through the door and ran upstairs like a gust of wind and her mother, who had just walked out of the kitchen, saw this scene.
Noting her husband coming in, she jerked her head upwards and gave him an enquiring look.
"Things went well, Rose," he replied, "She's probably going to be telling Zue everything."
Rose pressed her lips into a straight line and turned towards the kitchen, complaining, "You would think …"
Feeling a hand on her shoulder, she stopped and looked back. Steward shook his head and Rose sighed.
"Zue is important," he replied.
"I know, I know," Rose told him, "She keeps Isaura grounded."
"Yes, and that is important," Steward told her, "Isaura needs to remain as innocent and kind as she is now because…".
Rose gave a huff and brushed his hand aside as she cut him off, "I'm not stupid, you know. So stop mansplaining things to me."
"I'm not," Steward denied, "I'm just pointing out things that you tend to forget."
Rose gave him a glare, proceeded to ignore him and went back to the kitchen.
✿ Author posts on WN and neovel ✿
Upstairs, in Isaura's room, she was busy clacking away on the keyboard as she chatted with her best friend, Zue.
Is: School was just as Daddy said it would be. It was fun and nice.
Z: You met Alex?
Is: Yeah. He's sooooooooo handsome, Zue. He is really the type you like.
Z: Maybe
Is: He is, he is! He's so nice and kind, too. He let me hold his hand when we went to the canteen.
Z: What? Really? So you like him?
Is: Of course I do! He's so nice and kind!
Z: You said that already
Is: I did?
Isaura looked back at the words before and she then continued typing.
Is: Oh yeah, I did. But that's because he is! He's so smart, Zue.
Z: So are you.
Is: No, he's much more smarter! He doesn't forget things like I do.
Z: How do you know that? You've only met him today and been with him for a day.
Is: I just know he wouldn't. You should have seen how fast he was doing his work. And he was working so hard that he didn't even want to go back home.
Isaura's hands on the keyboard paused after that long sentence and she looked out the window. Her mind wandered and she didn't even realise her hands were moving as well as she thought of Alex.
"Isaura! Dinner!"
Isaura looked back at the computer screen, noting Zue's last words: You are hardworking as well.
Is: Gotta go, Zue! Dinnertime. TTYL
Without waiting for an answer, Isaura switched off the computer, jumped down from her chair and ran downstairs. Zue always took a long time to reply, but whenever she said 'Talk to you Later (TTYL), Zue would not respond.
Isaura understood that Zue didn't want to hold her back with her slow replies, so there was no need to wait once she said that. It then became a code between them as to when Isaura was leaving or logging out.
Isaura was really happy that she could have this method to communicate with her friend. Before Isaura knew how to read and write, they could only talk freely at night. During the day, her parents would be around and she didn't like them to listen in.
So, when everyone was asleep, Isaura would sneak a call to her.
Her parents had given her a basic child handphone that only had Zue's number in it. However, once her parents found out about her late-night calls, the phone had been taken away.
She now could only talk to her best friend through the special chat application on her computer. After she's asleep, her parents would switch off the wifi router so she could not use it anymore to talk to Zue.
Isaura had been upset over that, but soon, learned to overcome it.
She had broken the rules, after all.
So nowadays, Isaura followed the rules properly lest the computer gets taken away. Not being able to talk to Zue was torture.
Now, with school, and Alex, Isaura felt things were looking up again.