The perfect timing

After the weekend was finally over, it was Monday again. And this meant only one thing. School. And I wasn’t so thrilled to go after what had happened.

On Saturday after my aunt, Aiden and I had breakfast together, and he left, Lily and I went to visit Nancy in her bakery. We wanted to tell her that I will take her offer to work at her place.

She was thrilled to see us and demanded that we couldn’t leave until we tried one of her new pies. They were beyond amazing and during coffee and cake, Nancy told me about the duties I had to do while working.

My task was to serve people and work behind the counter at the cash register. Which was totally fine with me and I was excited to work next Saturday.

I will only work on the weekends in the morning, because of school, but that was only fair. The place where I would work was lovely and always smelt like fresh bread and coffee. So that was a bonus too.

After chatting and a few hugs from Nancy, we left satisfied and called it a day.

Everything was fine and my aunt and I wanted to make a movie marathon like we did in old times and to bond.

The point was, when we stepped into our apartment and Lily was about to let her handbag fall on the couch, time stopped literally.

Her bag was flying in the air and she was standing there like a lifeless doll. The process didn’t go for long and after a few seconds her bag fell with a loud sound on the couch.

I immediately turned around and tried to act like nothing happened.

It was getting more difficult with each day and I wasn’t prepared for anything. The big question was could I prepare myself at all?

I couldn’t even concentrate on watching the film and told my aunt I was going to bed because I was too tired. She probably didn’t want me to notice, but I saw the disappointment on her face.

The same thing happened the next day again. This time I was standing under the shower, singing Becky G. song ’shower’.

It was dumb of me to think for a second, that there was something wrong with the water supply system and because of that, I didn’t feel any water anymore on my shoulders.

But when I looked up the water was frozen and not frozen like ice cubes, more like hanging in the air.

Even when the water looked kind of pretty in its frozen state, I was terrified and could only star at it until it was running down my body again.

That night I was getting not much sleep either and it didn’t help my situation that my first class this morning was science. I hated science, even when I wasn’t that bad at it. It was the most boring subjects in the world.

So as I was sitting in my science class, I tried to listen to my teacher and not to drop off. I wished I was taking a nap in my bed.

Seconds seemed to pass by like minutes and my head was getting heavier and heavier with each minute.

Suddenly someone nudged me into my side and I looked alarmed to my left to see Liam. He was making sleeping gestures and then pointed at the front.

I gave him a thankful smile for warning me and nodded. It wasn’t a good idea to fall asleep in Mrs. Davonports class. She would give you detention until you were eighty.

However after what seemed like another thirty minutes the bell rang to my relief and I put my things back into my backpack.

“Long night?” Liam asked me with sympathy as he waited for me.

“Yeah, couldn’t get much sleep,” I answered him with a sigh and rubbed at my eyes. Four hours of sleep were just too less.

“Why? Is something or someone bothering you?” Liam questioned in big brother mode as we were walking down the hallway to our next class.

He had this serious expression on his face, like he wanted to protect you from everything in the world.

I smiled into myself at his behavior, but couldn’t be angry at him for being so nosy. He had three little sisters and so he acted sometimes as I was one of them.

“No I just couldn’t fall asleep.” I answered him with a reassuring smile on my lips.

“Are you sure?” he asked me immediately, and I nodded as an answer.

Shortly afterwards our ways parted, and he went to Math where I went to English.

After a long day of classes, it was time for my last one. But unfortunately it had to be PE.

The other lesson I hated with passion. It was also a class, which I shared with Aiden. And with Reece, I thought when I saw him standing there talking to some friends.

Today we had good weather and that meant we were going to do sports outside. I thought the universe hated me, because when we were all standing at the sports field, my PE teacher announced that we were running laps today. A few kids groaned at his announcement and I was probably the loudest.

Aiden chuckled next to me and I gave him a big glare, which he answered with putting his hands up in surrender.

The task was easy for him because running was a second nature for him. For me it was a nightmare.

“As a warming up, I want everybody of you to jog two rounds,” Mr. Kingsley our teacher screamed over the loud chattering of his students.

At his words everyone stopped talking because they knew Mr. Kingsley was merciless. Then we all walked together to the starting line.

“Do you want me to run with you?” Aiden asked me during stretching himself for the run.

I shook my head and replied. “No, I don’t want to hold you back. Besides, if you jog in my speed, I will feel even more nonathletic,” I told him and he nodded in understanding.

I knew he secretly wanted to show his running skills, and he knew not to argue with me.

So as our teacher gave us the signal to start, my best friend immediately became one of the front runners and I one of the last ones with my slow turtle pace.

I wasn’t born to run, I thought as I jogged the first half round.

I was breathing heavily by then and my sides were hurting.

Only two or three kids were behind me and it was a miracle they were slower than me.

As I passed the finish line for the first time, I wanted time to stop and lay down. And this was just the warm up.

Aiden, who was still at the front with two other guys, were half a round in front of me. Which wasn’t fair at all. Why were they so fast?

But suddenly the people in front of me stopped running. Immediately I did the same thing and looked at my surroundings. Everywhere I looked time was standing still and my classmates and my teacher were frozen on their spot. I felt kind of relieved that my power set in if I’m being honest. Now I could take a breath and recover from my run. This was the first time my ability had the perfect timing.

The next thing was to surprise myself, because instead of waiting for time to go on, I continued my round in a normal speed. I know I should have waited at my spot, but this was a one time opportunity.

First, I passed a group of girls and I had to laugh out loud at their exhausted faces. I probably didn’t look any better, but it was just too funny. One of them still had her mouth open from talking. It looked ridiculous, and I suppressed the urge to put something into her mouth.

I then walked by a few single runners and sometimes groups of two. All of them looking innocent and they didn’t know what was happening at the moment to them.

After a while I almost reached the three front runners, but stopped a few meters behind them. It would have been too suspicious if I would outrun them.

The three runners were Aiden, Reece and a friend of his. I think his name is Riley.

Now I had to wait, and I used the remaining time to get some air. The time didn’t wait for long and was now walking forward again.

Not only ten seconds had passed by until Aiden turned around and took a brief glance behind him. He probably had heard steps coming closer.

His face was priceless when he saw me and my best friend stopped in his tracks and waited for me.

I didn’t stop when I reached him and just continued jogging. He immediately was by my side and we ran together.

Reece and Riley noticed Aiden absence and as well turned around. Riley just went back to running after he saw Aiden jogging with me. But Reece gave me another glance before he continued running.

With a still shocked face Aiden asked, “How did you..?” but he stopped himself, when he put two and two together and continued. “In PE? Are you okay?”

With a smile on my lips I answered him. “I’m perfectly fine.”

Aiden narrowed his eyes at me and I knew what he was thinking. I always hated it when my extraordinary ability surprised me and that I was now happy was more than strange. But it was different this time because I could use my ability to my advantage.

And as I passed with Aiden across the finish line and our PE teacher told us, “Good job Aiden and Celia,” I felt great and had this feeling, that my power wasn’t so bad at all. The only question is, how will I control them?