Life Designed (Life Plan Series Book 1), Eliza Taye [great novels .TXT] 📗

Feeling a little hurt at April’s sudden distance, Garrett lowered his arm from the wall and replied, “No, I really wouldn’t have. I hadn’t decided what to put in my Life Plan yet. My entire focus was on the Council. I had nothing on my Life Plan beyond my first name.”

April chuckled, crossing her arms and shaking her head at him.

“April?” shouted a voice from downstairs.

April’s face shifted into one of concern as she fled the room without a word and raced down the stairs. Garrett followed her, alarmed at her sudden change.

“Mama, is there something wrong?”

A woman slightly shorter than April stood in the entryway to the library, hands clasped together, wringing them nervously. Raven hair hung loose down her back almost to her waist.  The skirt she wore had patches in several locations, but her blouse was immaculate.

“Mama, are you okay?” April fled down the last few steps, grasping her mother’s hands in hers.

“Yes…yes,” stammered her mother. “I’m just in so much shock I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you mean?”

Garrett finished descending the stairs, sitting on the last one. He didn’t want to interrupt them with his presence, but he didn’t want to miss what her mother had to say either.

April’s mother’s long, black eyelashes fluttered as she responded, “I received my job for today and could hardly believe it.”

“What was the job?” April was getting a little impatient at having to draw the explanations from her mother, but she didn’t want to be rude either by pressing her.

“The job was working as a medical assistant in a clinic. It was all basic work, nothing highly skilled, but when I was done, the attending physician asked if I’d like nurses’ training.”

April blinked several times before she frowned. “But that’s impossible.”

“I know,” emphasized her mother.

“For one, you should have never been assigned the job of a medical assistant…and then to be offered nurses’ training. Well, that just doesn’t make sense.”

“But, April, in an odd way, it does make sense. In my rejected Life Plan, I had wanted to become a nurse. So, in some odd way, it’s like I’m finally getting to live part of my Life Plan.” April’s mother’s face brightened as she spoke, the fidgety nervousness fading away.

“But, Mama, it’s too late, your Life Plan can’t be fulfilled now. It’s thirty years too late for it.”

April’s mother nodded. “I know it is, but here it is happening.”

“But it can’t,” breathed Garrett, his jaw slack.

April’s mother turned to Garrett, noticing him for the first time. “Who are you?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mama. This is my friend Garrett Gibbons. He’s the one I took the towels and sheets to.”

Once he’d been introduced, April’s mother’s face brightened, her white teeth shining. “Ah, you’re that friend. April has told me so much about you. She hardly talks about anyone else. It’s nice to finally meet you. My name is Zayna Selendery, but you can just call me Zayna.”

Garrett gave her a polite wave. “Nice to meet you too, Zayna.”

“Mhm, I’m sure.” Zayna grinned at Garrett for so long it became uncomfortable and he had to look away.

Feeling embarrassed at her mother’s response, not to mention her reaction, April redirected the focus on her mother. “Mama, how is it that you received a job for a skilled worker? For someone who would normally be training to be a nurse or a doctor?”

“I don’t know,” responded Zayna, “but isn’t it wonderful, April? At long last, I’ll be able to live a little of what I’d planned.”

April still couldn’t come to terms with her mother’s admission and neither could Garrett.

“Zayna, you said that it was part of your Life Plan to become a nurse, but you live in the Undecided sector. How can your Life Plan come true now?”

“I have no idea, Garrett, but it has.”

April gave Garrett an incredulous look and he responded with a shrug. April couldn’t figure out how this was happening. For all intents and purposes, it shouldn’t be happening.

Zayna took April’s hands in hers again. “Look, April, I know you’re trying to figure out how this is happening with that beautiful, smart brain of yours, but maybe it is a way of good things finally coming to us.” Zayna reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of trecins. “Why, look how much money I earned today: 300 trecins! Can you believe it?”

Garrett’s eyes widened. Three hundred trecins a day was an average wage for the Decided sector, but in the Undecided sector that was a fortune. Zayna was lucky she hadn’t been pickpocketed on the way to the library.

April glanced at Garrett again, worry, terror, and confusion evident in her eyes.

“That was a pretty difficult assignment, don’t you think?” wondered Chloë as she and Opal exited Trenton Hall.

“I’d say. It was a pretty heated debate between the positives and negatives of being a Decided versus an Undecided.” Opal cradled the textbook for her next class in her arms.

“You bet it was. I think I’d have to side with the Decided arguments though. I’d rather know the major events of my life than to leave them to chance. I’m surprised we still even have Undecided sectors. It’s better to make up your mind, than live the way they do. I mean, everyone gets the opportunity to submit a Life Plan when they turn 17, so what excuse can you have not to submit one?”

During Chloë’s rant, Opal had grown quiet. By the time she’d finished, Opal burst out, “Well, not everyone can make up their mind and know what they want to do by 17. Some people are afraid of what could happen if they choose wrong. To them, it’s just as bad as not knowing what