Un-Ordinary Girl

Chapter 10

          As we rode in Jackson's car, I was still fuming. Mom had no right to be like that towards Jackson. He has been nothing but respectful to her. It just wasn't fair to him. Why be so mean to someone you just met? "So, where do I park?"

          "Over in the alley. The dump truck only comes on Saturday and Wednesday afternoons. Just watch out for Mr. Roberts Ford pick up truck. It is like right at the entrance. It's a bright red."

          "Okay." He went carefully around the corner. When we got out, I kept giving him pointers on what to say and what not to say. I told him as much as I could before we walked in the front door. When Mr. Roberts saw me, he looked surprised. Well, I was an hour early. I was even surprised that mom was home early but was too upset to care why.

          "Hey sweet pea. Why are you here so early? It isn't a half a day." He always knew about my school schedule since I had to give it to him every school year.

          "Sorry chief. I had a medical emergency at school today so they sent me home. Before you start asking, I'm okay now. I got whatever medicine that they want me to take so I'm fine now. I gotta take some medicine for panic attacks and asthma." I had to take the panic attack medication twice a day. Once in the morning and another at 3 in the afternoon.

          "I didn't even know you had asthma." I shrugged. Neither did I until today. "Well, as long as you're okay. If you want to clock in early, I'll pay you for it." I quickly got myself together and clocked in.

          "Oh yeah. Mr. Roberts, this is Jackson Stewart. He's my new neighbor, new classmate, and new best friend. I know you were looking for another guy to work here so you can have more days off and not worry about me closing by myself. And since I trust him, I thought he might be the perfect fit." Mr. Roberts knows I don't trust people easily.

          "Hmm. You drive a hard bargain kid. How about this. If he can do things properly today, tomorrow, and Thursday, he can have the job and get paid for his trial days." Jackson looked at me and I gave him two thumbs up. This is a good offer seeing as though he didn't even interview like everyone else had to.

          "Okay. I accept your offer Mr. Roberts."

          "Please. Call me Charles. I've been trying to get Missy over here to call me that for years but her mom has her scared stiff of calling adults by their first names." I struck my tongue out at him. The rest of the shift basically went like that. Me talking to both Mr. Roberts and Jackson as we worked. They both made decent conversation. I didn't need to change my vocabulary or even feel belittled by them. It was a nice feeling. At the end of my shift, when I was in the back, I noticed that Mr. Roberts had pulled Jackson to the side and spoke with him real quick. It was interesting to say in the least but didn't matter to me. What ever they were talking about was there business. I was just ready to go back to the Wong's apartment.

          "Are you ready to go Katelyn?" I nodded at Jackson. "Alright. I need to stop by the super market before I take you home. Is that okay with you?"

          "Yeah. I need to get some ingredients for mushu pork with jasmine rice." He looked at me funny. So I explained to him why. "The Wong's always fix mushu pork on Wednesdays. And since I like it when their apartment smells like that, I decided I wanted it to be like that while they're away as well. I got the recipe for it last week on Wednesday from Mrs. Wong. She taught me how to make it when I was seven. Then she started letting me help make it when I was ten."

          "I see. So you have your own Wong family tradition. Huh. Wish I had something like that." He looked a little bit sad. I didn't want him to be sad.

          "You could be apart of it. Then you could eat it with me tomorrow night and then next week and so on into the future. Then when the Wong's get back, you could eat it with them."

          "Really? They wouldn't mind having me in their home?"

          "They don't mind me. It won't be a problem. They like kids." It was true. They loved taking care of kids. They loved taking care of me.

          "Why don't they have their own? I noticed the extra bedroom that appears to be yours but the paint job seems to have been done for a baby." We had just parked in the parking lot at the super market just down the street from the Starbucks I went to on Sunday. I sighed as I remembered my metaphorical brother and sister.

          "They had a set of twins. One girl, Ming, and one boy, Tsung. They would be one year older than us. I use to spend a lot of time with them. Enough to the point where people thought that we were all related. They had a bad case of bronchitis so they were mostly in the hospital. They caught pneumonia the winter that they turned six because of the severity of bronchitis. They died. That's why they take extra good care of me and don't tell my mom about my job or me buying the groceries. They don't know what would happen to me and they don't want to risk anything bad happening to me."

          He  looked sad and then perked up. "Well, lets get the shopping out of the way and return home like the good little children we are." I chuckled. We got out and walked into the store. I pulled out the list of ingredients that I would need for tomorrow, grabbed a hand basket, and started looking around. I found everything that I needed for the house. I looked around and didn't see Jackson behind me. It was unnerving to say in the least because I have gotten use to him being so close by.

          I started feeling panicked. My breathing became shallow. I placed my basket on the floor and crouched down with me head between my knees. I tried to focus on controlling my breathing. I started to feel like I couldn't breath. It was scaring me. I jumped when I felt a hand touch me. I looked up and saw Jackson. He looked worried. I made my left hand look like I was using my inhaler and he went into my purse and grabbed it for me. I took it and my lungs slowly started to feel better. I was finally able to breath. I stayed crouched for a a couple more minutes before I stood up straight but I stood up slowly.

          "What happened? I step away for four minutes and you have a panic attack and an asthma attack again. Are you sure you're okay? I could always take you back to the doctor." I shook my head no.

          "I'm fine." I coughed a little bit. "I just need to take the inhaler every four hours. I forgot to take it while we were working. I didn't want to worry Mr. Roberts too much. He's in his fifties you know and he already worries so much about me." I lied a little bit. I didn't know if I was really okay. I was new to all of these panic attacks happening more frequently. They use to be things that happened every once in a while when I was younger. But mom was usually always the cause of them. Very few times did I have them because of anything else.

          The asthma I can deal with for sure. The panic attacks on the other hand started happening more frequently after my growth spurt as well as after me meeting Jackson. The doctor thinks they're caused by stress or some kind of childhood trauma. I highly doubt that it could be either of those but how would I know for sure. The asthma is probably from me not taking good care of myself though I only weighed 120 pounds according to the clinic. We soon got in line and quickly got out of the store. He left me at the Wong's house with a promise to pick me up in the morning. I have got to figure out what exactly is wrong with me.