Sofia: Phoenix Rising - Fire and Water Book 2
Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Groggily I wake and blink a few times as the annoying sunlight filters in through the window, shining directly on my face. Grumbling incoherently, I roll over so that I can complain to Ash only to realize that he isn’t lying next to me. I am so not a fan of early birds! Blah! Sucking it up, I toss my blankets off of me and finally maneuver myself so that I get out of the bed. My only incentive for dressing and going down the steps of hell (the muscles in my legs quiver as each foot hits a step) is that I can smell coffee brewing down in the kitchen. Ash smiles as he sees me enter the room, but I blatantly ignore him and taking a travel mug from the cupboard, fill it with the steaming hot liquid before turning to him and asking, “are you ready to leave?”

I truly feel like I have a hangover as I make my way through the hallways of the high school. As the stairs that lead to the second floor come into my view, I feel like I might cry. Ash looks over at me and grins. “You can do it babe. I have faith in you.”

“If I could raise an arm right now Mr., I would punch you and make you remove that smug look from your face. Butt head!” My words come out harsher than I mean them to, and I hope he knows I really am just joking with him but at the same time, I still have to climb up the stupid stairs.

I feel like I have cement blocks tied to my feet as I lift each foot one painful step at a time until I have come to the top of the stairwell and then as if I’m carrying a sledgehammer with me, I slowly make my way to my locker. So tired! I lean my head against my locker door for a couple of seconds. “Hey, I’ll see you in class Sofia.” Ash tells me as he walks away from me. One minute later I am still staring at my locker when Lori comes up to me.

“Hey, where have you been. I feel like I haven’t talked to you in months!” Lori exclaims as she gives me a hug. She notices me wince as she steps back to look at me. “What’s up? How come you look like you were beat for a week or at least drunk for the last 24 hours.” She laughs at me!

“If you went through the type of exercise training, I went through yesterday, you would look like this too. Muscles I never even knew existed hurt!” Lori puts her arm around my shoulders saying ‘aw’ as she does so.

“Well, I can’t say it won’t hurt, but it will get better, and, in the end, you will be so happy that you have done all this training.” I laugh out at this, ‘happy’ isn’t the word I would use, nor do I foresee myself ever using that word in regard to exercise.

“Have I ever told you your optimistic view of life can be really annoying?” Lori laughs and then hooks her arm around my arm and suggests that we head to class. I scrunch my nose up at her suggestion but walk with her anyway.

It is hedging on the end of February and the sky is a beautiful blue. The weather is feeling more and more like spring, and I have donned a pink hoodie that has the word Love! Written across the front in silver cursive writing, and shredded jeans and pink sneakers because it is ‘warm’ outside today and as an Ohioan, we take full advantage of any warm weather we may get. With my lunch tray in hand, I walk out the cafeteria doors towards the picnic table that I usually sit at in the warmer weather. I can hear Lori and Ash before I see them, and I wonder why they seem to be arguing. “Hey you two. What’s up? You guys seem to be in a heated conversation. Do you want me to stay or go sit somewhere else?” I ask as I place my tray on the table and take a seat next to Lori and across the table from Ash.

They both go quiet as I look at them which makes me want to know even more about what was going on between the two of them prior to me sitting down. “Hey Sofie. You can stay. We are done chatting anyway.” It looks as though Lori is forcing herself to smile as she looks over at me. What in the world was going on? In my head I hear Ash say that he will explain everything after school, and I can’t do anything but nod my head okay at him.

“How are you feeling Sofia? Has the pain dulled any since yesterday?” Ash looks at me genuinely concerned but I definitely get the feeling he is trying to distract me from what had occurred just moments before.

“I feel a little better now than I did this morning,” I say in response to his question and then a thought pops into my head. “Hey, have any of you seen Blake today? He wasn’t in any of my classes. Should we be concerned about this?”

“Eh, I wouldn’t worry about it. It is only Monday after all. Maybe he is sick or something...” Lori trails off, but Ash jumps in and agrees with her.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t put too much thought in him not being here today. However, we can keep an eye open to see if Blake is absent for longer than a day.” I nod my head okay, but their words don’t ease my worry. I’m pretty sure there is a reason why he isn’t here today, and I bet by Friday, he won’t have shown his face either. For now, though, I won’t push the subject but best believe come Friday, I will raise the question again.

“So, Sofie, when do you get to do your next training session? I think I would like to see you ’in training’, Lori says with a grin. At the moment I’m holding a carrot stick in my hand which I directly throw at her. As she shouts out, “HEY!” she squeals with laughter.

“I think I’m supposed to meet up with Kestrel after school today. You may come with me as long as you promise not to laugh at my struggles.” I give her a squinting glare and a questioning eyebrow raise as I wait for her to respond.

Nodding her head excitedly, Lori says she would love to come with me. “And what about you Ash? Are you going to come too, or do you have to visit with Charlie again?” Lori and I both turn our eyes to him for an answer and he seems to squirm under our stares.

“I’m all yours, Sofie,” he says with a grin, and I scrunch my nose up at him. Lori gives an aww and I stick my tongue out at her. These two are going to cause me to go crazy, I swear! Just as I am ready to say as much, the lunch bell rings indicating lunch time is over with. Collectively we all sigh as we stand up from the table and head back inside the school.

As we all head out of the building, I hop up on Ash’s back, demanding he give me a piggie-back ride over to his car which is parked in the middle of the school parking-lot. After we get in the car, Ash revs the engine and then peels out of the parking spot. Such a typical eighteen-year-old male! Looking into the passenger side mirror, I see that Lori isn’t too far behind us and smile. As soon as we get back to my house, I will dash inside and put some ‘work-out’ clothes on and then we will head into The Nest.

Just about a half hour later, we are at the Nest and inside of the Sanctuary. Waiting for Kestrel to arrive, I thought I’d give myself a little extra stretching time and am sitting on the matted floor, legs in a V-shape form, waist to head centered and leaning in between my legs. “Awesome! Way to be on top of things Sofia.” Kestrel strolls in, a wide smile on her face and I can’t help but feel proud of myself as well.

“Today I thought after we do stretches that we could try to meditate and reach out to our animal self. Since I already know how to do all of this, I will have you watch me do it first and then I can observe you. And don’t fret, most are unable to connect on their first try. So, don’t get upset or frustrated if you can’t connect to your phoenix today, okay?”

I nod my head yes but feel agitated at the prospect of reaching out to my phoenix. What if, rolls around in my head; what if I don’t succeed, what if she takes over me, what if, what if? Ten minutes and a million stretches later, Kestrel is instructing me on the best ways to meditate and I’m trying my best to follow her directions. Deep down though, I just know I’m going to mess this up somehow! Talk about motivational thoughts, right?

Blake had successfully avoided his father for the next three days following his failure of bringing Sofia back to the Flock. He really didn’t feel like having his father glare at him so he had been staying with his not-so-much “ex-girlfriend”, Ashely just so he wouldn’t accidently bump into him. Even though he had spoken with his father a few days back, he, Ashely and her mom, Makayla had chatted and rolled a few ideas around, they hadn’t yet figured out any definitive plan for getting Sofia to come with them.

He had actually missed spending time with the cheerleader captain. Thankfully she knew why they had to break up and couldn’t be happier that he didn’t have to pretend to be with ‘that’ girl any longer. Secretly he was happy too. He didn’t like having to do that to the Einan girl. She was too nice to be tricked into anything, but he knew he was going to have to do so again, soon!

Knowing he couldn’t avoid his father for much longer, Blake decided to go back home. Hopefully if he and his father did end up crossing paths, his father will have come up with a plan for them that would succeed in bringing Sofia ‘home,’ because he himself hadn’t been able to come up with anything that would work that wouldn’t have that dumb Aussie feeling like he should follow her.