by Zara Rivas
I tried to hand him my homework and his countenance changed for the worst. A small smile showed up on his face and he refused to take it, supposedly on the grounds that he thought I was late because I was attempting to complete it last-minute. I scowled, crumpling up the paper into a little ball, and tossed it into the garbage can next to his desk. A few people snickered at this and I made my way to my seat and slumped down into it. I knew trying to convince him my power knocked out my clocks would be a fruitless attempt and a real waste of time.
I did, however, sneak the charger into the power outlet behind my desk and manage to charge my phone during class. I just nudged my bookbag in front of it so my oh-so-wonderful teacher wouldn't see it.
I wasn't the only one in a glum mood that day—Avery, unusually, had a bad case of the blues. She texted me during government with a short-tempered text message about how she wanted to just cut that day, and hey could I?
Sorry, no can do. Gotta turn in too much homework. :( I sent back, and she didn't reply.
When I saw her at lunch she slouched onto the cafeteria table bench and glared at the plastic tabletop.
"What's wrong with you two?" Torrance asked, looking between us.
"Nothing," we said at the same time, and neither of us laughed.
"Okay," Torrance said slowly, "that was weird."
I lifted a shoulder in a halfhearted shrug and prodded disinterestedly at my sandwich. She just stared. I glanced up at Avery and noticed her identically apathetic stare towards her own food.
Henson and company sat down at the table, fresh from the lunch line, and looked between the three of us with silent curiosity. Tyler plopped down next to me and nudged my shoulder playfully. He ducked his head to look at my face when he received no response, and removed his hand from my shoulder, placing it on the table instead.
"Something wrong?" He tilted his head.
"Not really," I sighed. "Just a bad day."
Thunder crashed and the cafeteria lights flickered, but stayed on. I looked up at the ceiling and tuned out the conversational chatter around me, heaving a sigh.
"Dramatic, hmm?" Tyler smiled, filching a potato chip from my bag.
"I guess so."
Christian sat down next to Avery and she scooted imperceptibly away from him. Surprise must have registered on my face about it because Tyler glanced inquisitively at them, but neither of them noticed. Christian looked troubled and Avery didn't rectify her movement.
Adrian, for the first time in quite a while, sat down on the other side of Tyler and started to eat her lunch without any sort of greeting or comment. I caught her looking at me out of the corner of her eye and she smiled a little, but still said nothing.
"We're a cheerful lot," I grumbled, pushing the rest of my chips to Tyler. "Here, you mooch, eat the rest of them."
"I am not a mooch," he said indignantly. "I am simply looking out for you. These potato chips are unhealthy and I'm only concerned about your heart."
"And you're full of it," I supplied.
"Maybe," he conceded.
I sat in silence for a few more minutes before giving up. I stood up and grabbed my backpack.
"Catch you later," I said to the table, and walked out of the cafeteria.
I ran into Sinclair, who seemed to be headed exactly to the place I'd just abandoned, and he looked surprised to see me.
"Hey Lexington, skipping out on lunch today?" He shoved his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and studied me.
"Nope, I'm just hosting a dinner party on the roof. Such nice weather."
"Ahh, sarcasm," he said lightly, "such a wonderful creation."
"Piss off, Sinclair, now's not a good time. Not today." I tried to sidestep him but he placed himself resolutely in my path. I wouldn't look him in the eye; I didn't want to encourage him.
"What's wrong, Lexington? You're more touchy today than usual." He took a step closer and I fought the urge to just shove him out of my way and be done with it.
I looked up at him and he seemed a bit surprised. "Not today," I repeated, and tried to sidestep him again. This time he let me, and I took off down the hallway with no particular destination in mind. He didn't follow.
oOoOo
Xavier was surprised to see Sloane burst out of the cafeteria when he was about to walk up to the doors. She looked agitated and curiosity decided to rear its head.
"Hey Lexington," he called out. "Skipping out on lunch today?" He studied her and watched the irritation already present on her face flare in her eyes. Uh oh.
Then she'd said something snarky and dodged his attempts at holding her in the hallway for a moment. Perplexed, Xavier watched her head down the hallway and wondered what caused her bad mood. He walked into the cafeteria and decided to sit with Christian and his crew. Going up to the table, he saw that Sloane's mood was apparently contagious. Sloane's friend, Torrance, simply shook her head with a look that said she was just as confused as he was, and he took a seat next to Tyler.
No one was very intent on talking to each other, except down at Henson's end of the table, so Xavier ate his lunch in silence and watched everyone. There were no obvious signs indicating what exactly was wrong, though, so he settled for listening to the rain beat down on the roof.
Not paying attention, he didn't notice the bell for the end of lunch rang until everyone started getting up from the table. Xavier silently followed, still mystified by everyone's awful mood, and made his way out into the hall to head for his next class. Someone caught at his sleeve and he turned to see who it was. A girl he'd only see around a couple of times stood there, solemnly looking at him. She'd been at the lunch table.
"Yeah?" Xavier asked, slightly irritated at her lack of voluntary explanation.
She nodded her head at an empty side hallway, her white-blonde hair swinging with the motion. Noting that the day only seemed to be getting more and more weird, Xavier thought what the hell, it couldn't hurt and followed her.
She turned around and watched him speculatively, and irritation started to creep through him.
"Yes?" he said impatiently.
"You shouldn't hang out with her." Her voice was quiet and serious.
"Her who? And who the hell are you?" Xavier asked, and winced internally at how harsh his voice sounded.
"Sloane. My name is Adrian," she said, with no inflection in her tone.
"I'll hang out with whoever I want," he said flatly.
She nodded. "I know. You should be careful around her."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Xavier found her quiet demeanor and piercing eyes disconcerting, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know why she decided to warn him against Sloane. She said nothing to this, and he backed down the hall, intent on leaving.
"She's not a good person," Adrian said, raising her voice so it would carry down the hall to him. He ignored her.
Maybe it's the weather, he thought. Today is just really bizarre.
He walked quickly to his locker, already a couple of minutes late to class, and as it swung open a small note fluttered out—a note on the same yellow notepaper Sloane used when she broke into his locker the last time. An address was hastily scribbled on it, followed by I get off work at ten. Be there at ten thirty.
Thunder crashed again and Xavier went to class, hand brushing against the note in his pocket, and wished the day was over already.
oOoOo
I slumped down to the floor in the foyer of my house, exhausted. We'd had an unusually high number of customers for a Monday night, which surprised me, considering normally most people wouldn't want to get out in the torrential downpour (the cold torrential downpour, no less) just to get some diner food. Granted, it was amazing diner food, but not worth hypothermia in my opinion. A small pool of water spread around me. I'd gotten soaked in the short run from my car to the house, and the cold seeped into my skin and my teeth chattered.
The doorbell rang, scaring the hell out of me, and I jumped up and looked through the side window. Xav
ier stood there, hood up over his head to keep the rain off, and I cursed. I'd counted on getting home a bit early and hadn't made it, and he was exactly on time. I opened the door and he looked surprised to see me standing there with all the lights off and soaking wet. He chuckled at the sight of me, and I rolled my eyes.
"Hey Lexington, did you forget to take your clothes off before you took a shower?" he quipped, stepping into the house and looking around, interested.
"You did too, apparently." I pointed at the puddle under his own feet, and he grinned. "Don't slip and kill yourself."
"It's dark in here. Going for the whole pre-electricity era feeling here?"
"Yeah. I thought we'd get some torches and candles and then we can go slaughter a pig for dinner or something." I walked down the hallway, ditching my shoes along the way, and pushed my sopping hair out of my eyes. "Come on, I'll get you a towel and you can borrow some of Finn's clothes."
"Finn?"
"My brother."
"I figured."
"Then why did you ask?" I said, slightly amused.
"I have no idea."
"At least you admit it."
oOoOo
Xavier rang the doorbell and it gonged vaguely throughout the house, and he took his time surveying the exterior of the home and the land it sat on.
It looked like it had Greek influences, with white stone and multiple levels and outdoor staircases, complete with lush gardens and bright colors everywhere. It was a monstrosity, that much was for sure.
The door swung open and he found himself face-to-face with a sopping wet Sloane. She still looked aggravated, but less so than in the hallway earlier that day. She wore jeans, a t-shirt and tennis shoes, and he assumed her job had a pretty lax dress code.
Lightning illuminated the room from a slanted window in the ceiling, and everything was white marble and sparkling beauty, but not ridiculously opulent like some manors. Not like his house.
Sloane led him through the archway at the other end of the foyer into a sprawling hallway with large arches leading into other rooms branching off of it. Xavier glanced into each when they passed and saw a large, pristine kitchen, a formal dining room, and what looked like a piano room.
He hesitated for a second at the foot of the stairs, until Sloane called out, "What are you waiting for? An engraved invitation?"
Up the spiral staircase that circled the massive chandelier, down another hallway and through another door, he found himself in Sloane's bedroom. She flicked the light on and the first thing that crossed his mind was that this place really was a palace. Her room couldn't really be called a bedroom—it was more of a suite, in his eyes. Even his room wasn't this big.
Her walls were painted a deep shade of gold, with a light, sparkling blue trim running around all the doors and windows. And there were a lot of windows. Her room must've been in a corner of the house, he realized, because it was shaped like a pentagon and three of the walls had windows. Another door led into what he assumed to be a closet or a bathroom, and there were seats under all of the windows. A couch spanned one of the walls under a window, and her bed hugged one of the walls, so that the center of the room was completely free of anything. A desk, clearly designed specifically for this room, closely touched two sections of the wall. Everything was in gauzy shades of white and very clean, giving him the impression that he'd just walked straight into some exotic resort.
Sloane disappeared through the other door in her room and came out with a couple of towels. She tossed one to him and kept the other for herself, running it over her hair roughly.
"Clean up, you look like a drowned rat." She smirked at him.
"I'm sorry, were you talking to yourself?" Xavier asked.
"Oh shut up." She walked out of her bedroom and he glanced around again, paying more attention to details. She had a bulletin board above her desk that had quite a few photos tucked into the edges, and he perused them while he waited. A lot of them were of her, Torrance and Avery up to various misdeeds. Others were of her and her brothers in various groupings, but one caught his attention: it looked like a full family photograph. A woman who looked like Sloane, only fifteen or twenty years older, stood next to someone he assumed was her father. They were surrounded by all her brothers and Sloane herself. The last person in the photo was being prodded by Sloane, and grinning like a maniac. She looked about twelve or thirteen, and had the same Lexington looks as the rest of them.
Sloane walked back into her room, noted the photo he looked at and chose to ignore it.
"This is all I could find," she said, startling him slightly. She tossed him a gray pair of sweatpants and a plain black t-shirt, and he nodded his thanks. "You can change in the bathroom if you want, I'll just change out here."
"Thanks." He walked into her bathroom and shut the door with a soft click. She had an odd assortment of things on her bathroom counter—various earrings, bracelets, what looked like a few lip rings, eyeshadow, hair dye (no natural colors, he saw with amusement), hair brushes, and dry erase markers. There was writing all over the mirror: song lyrics and dates and homework reminders, and he mused that it was a huge contrast to her pristine, clean bedroom. The bathroom was clean, of course, just extremely disorganized. He dried off and shucked his wet clothing, pulling on the sweatpants and shirt. They fit well, and he hung the wet clothes over the shower curtain to dry.
"If you want, I can throw your clothes in the dryer," Sloane called through the bathroom door. He opened it and handed them to her. She looked very different without any carefully put-together outfits and makeup, and he took in her appearance for a second. Plain black and purple sweatpants, a purple babydoll tee, soaking wet hair, and no jewelry. Much better, he thought.
She left and he flicked open his phone to glance at the time. 10:58. He had no curfew but didn't want to feel like a zombie the next day.
Sloane flung herself down on the couch when she came back and pulled a notebook off of the table next to it. Her hand knocked aside a remote, causing it to land on the floor and switch the stereo on top of her desk on. She pushed the power button, unconcerned, and the snowy noise disappeared.
"Are you going to stand there all day?" she asked Xavier.
"Are you going to be polite and ask me to sit down?" he retorted.
"Touche. Sit, Fido, sit," she smirked.
"You're full of it tonight," he said, sitting down.
"Comes from being around my brothers all weekend." She tossed a notebook and pen to him and relaxed into the arm of the couch. "I figured we'd get a head start on the whole art project thing. I know it's not due until May, but waiting until the last minute won't do us any favors."
"What did Hotchins mean when he said he wanted the project to be…what was it? Our 'interpretation of each other'." He raised two fingers on each hands to emphasize what the principal said.
Sloane stared at him. "Did you just air quote?"
"Forget about that," he rolled his eyes. "Just answer the question."
"Rule number one: don't air quote in my room."
"Fine, no air quotes." He made a show of sitting on his hands. "Answer the question now?"
"I don't know," she sighed. "My best guess is that he wants us to do something that we think would accurately represent each others' personalities. So, for example, making a giant guitar out of little clay music notes or sheet music would be good for a musician or something, if not a bit…lacking in creativity."
Disdain clearly colored her tone.
"So he chose something that would force us to cooperate, in short."
She nodded. "Hence why I called a truce."
"And here I was thinking you just wanted me closer," he said.
"Shut up."
"Shut up? That's a little substandard, even for you."
"Don't let it go to your head. I've overshot my quota of witty things to say to your sexual advances for the week. You'll have to wait until tomorrow for fresh ones."
"It's Monday." He stared at her. "And I
haven't made any sexual advances yet."
"I'm surprised," she drawled with a mischievous light in her eyes. "I mean, I know I'm irresistible, we're alone in my house, and we're sitting on the same couch. Come to think of it, I think I'm offended that you haven't tried anything yet."
"I'm just biding my time," he said casually. "Waiting until you the moment when you least expect it."
"I guess you're waiting for never, then." Her voice was flippant. "Because I'm onto you."
"You're not on me," he said smoothly.
"That's not what I said," she laughed.
"Okay, okay." He thought about their project for a second, and said, "So how do you want to work on this?"
