My eyes flared open as the sun rays kissed my face.

I sat up, stretching my arms above my head. I can only hear the faintest sound of the morning. The very faint sound of birds singing from outside, and that's about it. I turn to my side, grab my bible, and place it on my lap.

This has been a routine I disciplined myself on doing every morning. To be honest, I can not complain. There's an actual difference when starting the day with God.

I bend my head and whisper a prayer

"Dear God, thank u for waking me up this morning and for your overwhelming love. Jesus, lead me throughout this day to be my guide, aman."

I turn to the Book of galatians and read the first three chapters, highlighting them.

By the time i got out of bed, my little sister had already finished her shower. She signs me good morning, her towel wrapped around her brown damp petite body, her braids in bonnet. A young black woman who looks younger for her age. She smiled at me with her brown still half asleep amber eyes.

She moved into my apartment when she was only 16, three years ago. I was a freshman in college at that time, bearly knew the world from outside the fortress my parents had trapped me into. However, I understand them, and they just wanted to protect me. My autism and mild loss hearing did not help much.

Growing up as a golden child was not always a good thing. I had to be home-schooled. I always felt like a porcelain doll, to delicate and fragile. However, I also felt like Chawezi had it tougher. Although she was the last born, my parents had always neglected her. Thinking I needed more love and attention, I always tried to make it up to her as much as possible. So, I understood her fear of being left behind on her own. Now she's under my roof and care.

After getting ready, I put in my earring aids on, then go to my study and pick up my folder. Today, I have to go to a site with my team. As an apprentice home designer and a real estate agent assistant, my boss had given me an important project to work on. While he went to celebrate his 30th wedding anniversary in Greece with his lovely wife.

It has only been four days since we started. The site is old and damaged, but our job is to demolish, repair, and supervise the construction under a contract with a company. my team and I will do the designs and renovations needed. then sell it to at new price.

I take my folders and walk to the door.

"Elisha, wait," my sister says, following me behind.

"What up?" I say and sign with my free hand.

"Are u still going there?" she says while signing. Her eyes looked troubled.

"I told u there's nothing to worry about, I only do the design, remember," I say, waving the folder.

"Yes, but... what if something bad happens? "

"What could possibly go wrong?"

" i had that dream again, Eli, I'm worried," her voice almost too faint to hear

"I m not doing anything construction stuff. that's for the engineer, okay? " I kissed her forehead.

"I'm gonna be careful, promise," then hugged her goodbye and headed outside.

She had a bad dream about that place two nights ago, and now she's trying to convince me to give up this project. I love to be worried for but this is too important to throw away.

The site is about 35 minutes away from my place at Calgarycitycentre. Fortunately, there is very little traffic on a tuesday morning in Calgary Canada.

I find my team already settled inside an old dining place in the third flour, having random conversations while sipping coffee.

"Hello everyone, I brought doughnuts," I say, settling the box on the old wooden table. I have been working with these people for about three years and a half. Although the job is quite competitive, I have grown a few bond with most of them.

"Ohh, Elisha, you're a live saviour!" Matthew exclaims, giving me a side hug and grabs a doughnut.

The smell of his spicy cologne lingering around me. A tall white Canadian with dark, clean, shaven hair cut. He has always been friendly with me sometimes too friendly. He flirts with me, quite often but knowing Matthew, the guy who flirts with everything that moves.

"Eli, pass me the chocolate one, sweetheart," Aarushi says in a light indian accent.

I have known her for years now. she's 32, six years older than me and a mother of two mischievous little girls. She looks exhausted as always. Today, she is wearing a brown hijab and a modest long sleeve creamy beige dress. Her thin glasses rested on the bridge of her nose and a red dot on her forehead.

Her beauty never seems to age. She looks elegant and put together. She had always been a mentor to me, providing me with the best feedback and advice. she invites me to dinner every week and sets me up on blind dates from time to time.

My two other colleagues, Victor and Diego, sign hello, and both grab doughnuts. They have been learning ASL for a half year now. Diego's nice is deaf ,so he's learning for her. I always felt touched by the efforts. They turned back and continued what seemed to be an argument. You can never know with those two.

Both are Latinos and have known each other since college. they are extremely talented renovators and an overall sweet and kind man.

"Hey Pearl, want some doughnuts," Victor called out to the blonde chick on the other side of the table. She lifted her pretty lashed eyes from her phone and then eyed the doughnut box in front of me with a disgusted look.

"I'll pass, too much sugar," she says with a smuged looking on her face.

Pearls and I never got along, I tried, though. However, she always gave me the cold shoulder and nasty side eye look.

I gave up on making peace with her. She looks like the clean girl type of girls we see now everywhere on tiktok. Like a perky head blond cheerleader. Her hair slicked back in a ponny tail with perfect bleu eyes and a mini dress that made Aarushi sight in annoyance. In the beginning, I also failed for the perfect Barby persona. Until she decided to show me her true colours and made my life a living hell.

she took everything for a competition and would manipulate people in doing everything for her. poor Victor was under her charm, wiggling his tail around.

An hour later, when the engineers and architect arrived, we settled our plain down and evaluated the work. Being the head of the home design department, I presented my papers and explained the designs we wanted to bring to live. The Company had approved of them. So, my team and I were here to supervise the construction.

After everyone settled and was given the instructions, we started getting to work. Most of the rooms were demolished to give more space. The work went pretty smoothly for the first four hours. I walked around checking the rooms that were being processed.

"Are you here to see me?" Matthew said with a flirty smile glued on his face, lacing his arm around my shoulders.

"I'm supervising. Don't get the wrong idea," I said, brushing him off.

"About that restaurant I told u about, I'm still willing to make some reservations."

His bright blue eyes trace me from head to two. I stopped at my chest area for a bit too long.

I wore a black dress paint with a white blouse slightly transparent ut modest enough. My natural hair up in a bun, living my neck bare for him to stare.

A few years back, we had some history that lasted for about a year and a half. I was naive enough to believe it would last forever. However iwas just dealing with a fuck boy.

Matthew Collins is an attractive guy, smart and charming. He is a Christian, too. However, he is not the one for me. Although I can see he still wants me, unfortunately, that is only lust.

We tried to make it work a while ago, but it didn't. He was too self-centered. He used to force me into doing things I didn't want to do , he was also pretty manipulative. He would turn my words around and gaslight me to save himself.

"Matt, we've talked about it -"

" I know we have Eli, i just wnna clear som things" he reached for my hand.

"Things are already crystal clear to me," I say while signing it so he can let go.

"Eli, I'm sorry, okay," he says, looking desperate. "I just had too many drinks that time, and I regret that."

"So you had too many drinks for an entire month!?" My voice raises slightly.

"I was sad and angry from the break up..." he raises a hand in the air desperately.

"Matthew, all I asked was a break... A break from everything," I say "and it took you two weeks to go fuck some random girls?" It comes out with pain. I raise my eyes to meet his blue sky gaze.

"Elisha..." he lowers his voice."Don't say things like that in work," he grabs my hand and starts speed walking.

"I'm not going anywhere with you. Let's go." I try to get away from his hold, but he was stronger.

Then he opens a silver door and pulls me inside. It is a medium-sized room with shield windows, dusty and old. Almost immediately, I am more aware of the man in front of me. His breathing is ragged, and his brows are tagged together in annoyance. I subconsciously stepped back,hating myself from being scared, but he was twice my size.

"Why did you drag me here." I stare at me, allowing the anger to drag through every syllable.

"So that you don't make a scene in front of everyone -"

"Ohh, I'm sorry. I didn't know I was about to ruin your reputation." I snap at him,

"For God's sake, Eli, you're the one who broke up with me." He raises his voice with irritation. Grabbing my shoulders "What the fuck did you want me to do!" His bleu eyes peirceing mine.

"I didn't want you to go hookup with freaking Pearls and some other random girls in bars." I raise my voice so it matches his. I hate how he tries to gaslight me.

"My dad had a heat attack in front of my eyes. I caught freaking Covid and thought I was gonna die." I stab a finger on his chest, wishing it could do more than just poking.

"Eli -" He looks down on me.

"So yeah, Matthew, maybe all I needed was a freaking break away from the world and your bullshit." I stab a figure on his chest.

"Maybe I needed you to understand me to be loyal to me. you were my freaking boyfriend. but you took it as an opportunity to go bang around?" It only when he started wiping down my tears that I realised I was crying.