Belonging to Lust

Heath got up the next morning to breakfast already made for him on the kitchen table. Pouring orange juice into a tall glass was Zaiyia in her pajamas. Heath’s brow furrowed at her presence. She wasn’t supposed to be up this early on a school day. He was going to open his mouth and voice his concerns as to why she was awake when the crisp smell of bacon wafted past his nostrils. His stomach growled in response, prompting him to close his mouth.

Heath let a mournful sigh as his eyes slowly drift around the kitchen. Yovela was always up this morning making them breakfast together. Now, the person standing in her spot was her 16 year old daughter instead, because she wasn’t happy with her life anymore, or at least that’s how it seemed to him. How could the woman he cared about do this to him, and to her daughter? It just didn’t make sense, and frankly it was going to be nagging at him from the back of his mind for the rest of the day.

“Good morning, Daddy. You should hurry and eat your breakfast before it gets cold.” Zaiyia said when she noticed him standing in the doorway as she placed his breakfast on the table for him.

“Good morning to you too.” Heath replied back as he hurried to his seat to get some food in his empty stomach before work. Once again, her food had him wanting to let out a groan of satisfaction, but held himself back. The young girl had a talent for cooking, and a man could appreciate it. The more food Heath chewed and swallowed, the less crabby he felt about Yovela’s absence. Instead, comfort and warmth replaced all of his negative thoughts. It was a wonderful way to start the day, but Heath felt like keeping his ‘thank yous’ to himself.

Zaiyia drank down her orange juice and rinsed out the empty cup in the sink before placing it in the dishwasher. She wiped her hands on a dish towel before turning around to head back outside towards the guesthouse. Heath looked up just in time before she could open the back door. “Where are you going? Aren’t you going to eat too?”

Zaiyia stopped and turned halfway around, her long braids making small thudding sounds as they connected to the glass door. “Oh no, I have laundry to do.”

Heath frowned. “Do you have any clean clothes for school today or are they all dirty?”

“Daddy...I’m a girl and not just any girl, mind you. I’m talking about a girly girl. We always need more clothes.” Zaiyia explained while hiding back a smile at his silly question.

Heath nodded. “Oh righhhht.” He frowned in thought as he wiped his mouth clean of any crumbs around his mouth with a napkin. In the meantime, Zaiyia had remembered that she had made him lunch for work earlier, and headed back towards the fridge to take it out for him. Heath was digging into his wallet for his debit card when she walked up to him.

“Here you go.” Zaiyia held out his lunch pail for him as he stood up from kitchen table. He reached over and took it before holding out his debit card for her to take.

“Thank you very much, and here you go. Don’t lose it. I’ll be getting off early today to come pick you up after school so you can do some clothes shopping at the mall, ok?”

Zaiyia flipped the card over, looking over the plastic numbers and his chicken scratch signature on the back. She instantly felt bad about him having to spend his money on her once again, but she was kind of low on clothes. Zaiyia quickly thought of a way to not overburden him. “Look you don’t have to come pick me up. I can get to the mall on my own just fine, so you won’t have to take me.”

Heath raised an eyebrow with some serious doubt in his eyes.

“I can! Trust me, I’m good with directions.” Zaiyia defended herself.

Heath didn’t say anything else on that matter other than a suggestion. “Go crazy with it.”

With that he left the house to go to work. Zaiyia headed for the living room window to watch him back out of the driveway and drive off down the road before running off to clean the rest of the house up and then head out the door for school.

________________________________________________________________________________

Zaiyia couldn’t keep denying the hair raising at the back of her neck as possible being a sign that something wasn’t quite right. Carefully looking around the hallway filled with bustling students, Zaiyia’s eyes caught sight of what was responsible for making her paranoid. Across the hall by the bathroom was a group of girls Zaiyia had seen around school before but had never officially met. They were gathered close together by a classroom and shooting her dirty looks every now and then while talking amongst themselves in hushed whispers. Clearly, they were shit talking Zaiyia for reasons that she didn’t want to acknowledge.

“Oh come on, are you serious right now? I didn’t even fucking do anything this time to deserve this drama and already I got trouble following me. Damn, and I was trying to be on my best behavior, shit.” Zaiyia mumbled beneath her breathe as she put some of her book away in her locker. When she finished with her gathering her things, she closed her locker and headed off to her next class without a glance back at the haters.

She should have known focusing on her schoolwork and ignoring everyone else’s existent wasn’t going to help keep her out of trouble. No matter where you go or how you act someone is always going to hate on you, Zaiyia recalled her mother saying to her when she was little. The only thing she could do was to ignore it on the outside but to be aware of everything going on around her in the inside. From the look of the girls they didn’t appear like they could fight at all, but just in case, she preferred to be one step ahead of them and prepared when the fists start coming at her. Until then, she wasn’t going to address the issue.

Zaiyia was one of the first to enter History class before the more popular kids started showing up in their groups. She didn’t look too long at them, except for the one gathered in the front of the class with the footballers that was looking over at her with a handsome smirk on his face. Zaiyia’s eyes narrowed a bit as the rest of his team members followed his eyes to see that he was staring at the new girl sitting in the back. Zaiyia decided to look away then and stare at the names of the history books on the shelf next to her desk. Every now and then she would look back and see the same guy looking at her with that same stupid smirk plastered on his face. One of his friends that had also been looking her way had decided to go over to chat with one of his friends sitting a few seats ahead of Zaiyia. The guy also seem interested as to what was going on with the smirking football player staring at Zaiyia. “Dude, the guy just broke up with his girlfriend yesterday after school and now he’s making googley-eyes at the new girl. Take a hint, Mark. Jesus, you’re stupid but not that stupid!”

Zaiyia closed her eyes and let out a heavy sigh as she overheard their short conversation, and ignored their hawk-eyed stare. This wouldn’t be the first time some idiot broke his girlfriend’s heart thinking he had a chance with her, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be the last. And it also could explain why those groups of girls were glaring at her in the hallway. They must have been the poor girl’s friends and they’re obviously blaming Zaiyia for their friend’s broken heart. Her thoughts were interrupted when the teacher stepped into the class room, apologizing for his lateness. He ordered them to open their history books to page 36 to continue yesterday’s lesson. Zaiyia’s mind determinately focused on her school work, and ignored the many glances of the football team throughout the rest of the hour.

At lunchtime, Zaiyia sat by herself near the windows eating off of her lunch tray while simultaneously completing her homework. To get the house cleaned and Heath’s dinner cooked before he came home, Zaiyia had to get as much homework done during school as she could. Usually homework didn’t take so long to complete so she was currently flying through it even amongst the chatter of the rest of the students in the cafeteria. Her concentration was on nothing but her school work so it was pretty easy to ignore the same group of girls from earlier sitting across from her, talking shit. They were constantly glaring at her, and probably thought that they were intimidating her by taking up the table right across from her as some form of scare tactic. It took everything Zaiyia had to keep from laughing at their failed attempt. Of course if she did it may start a fight between her and the haters, which Heath wouldn’t appreciate.

Heath…

Zaiyia’s mind drifted to her ‘Daddy’ and how sexy the man was when all of a sudden someone decided to take a seat right across from her. Zaiyia looked up to see one of the footballer friends of Mr. Stupid, which was the guy that was smirking at her earlier. Her visitor also had a stupid smile on his face that reminded her of that immature chant little kids did that went like ‘I know something you don’t know! I know something you don’t know!’ Zaiyia desperately wanted to roll her eyes at the drama that was about to unfold from him coming over here and her haters witnessing it. She just wanted the guy to get up and walk away and leave her alone. When the minutes ticked away and all he did was sit there and smile at her, Zaiyia’s eyes began to narrow into an impatient glare, causing him to laugh at her in amusement. Zaiyia finally rolled her eyes and mentally cursed the immaturity that the boys her age seemed to all have. She gave her current situation an ‘I don’t care anymore’ shrug and went back to completing her homework. Instead of taking the obvious hint that she wanted to be alone, the footballer leaned over the table to study what she was writing.

“So what are you doing?” The footballer asked her.

Zaiyia didn’t bothered to look up at him, because she knew the look on her face would offend him because of his stupid question. “Homework.”

The footballer nodded, before going back to smiling again. “Oh that’s cool…I know a guy that likes you.”