"Remember when you smacked Paul in the face with the football?"
I cringed. "Remember when you tried to kiss it better?”
"I did not,” she laughed, “much."
"Anyway, I will be in the library exercising the only muscle I need. My brain."
Lauren shook her head, deep in thought. "I don't know how we are best friends."
"You need me to make you feel like Wonder Woman?”
With a straight face Lauren nodded. “I need you to help me with my math homework more.”
I laughed, losing my concentration and tripped on the edge of the walkway. Lauren's hand shot out to catch me. “Okay, I am Wonder Woman,” she said.
Before my birthday I’d been normal; well, at least I thought I was. I'd always been happy existing in my own little bubble. Happy in my bubble, bopping along, trying to stay out of the way of Eleanor Heavers. Then I'd blown out my sixteen candles and everything had changed. Everything.
By the time Lauren and I reached class, a pinch of anxiety was gripping my insides. It was uncomfortable, and I hoped it wouldn't result in a trip to the toilet before registration. No one wanted to start the new school year doing the hallway dash to the girl's lavatory.
Lauren eyed the double doors with measured dislike. "Ready for another boring year?"
"There's a new boy." I shouted the words in my excitement—I didn't know how I'd forgotten to mention it before.
Lauren's mouth fell open, her gum balancing precariously on the tip of her tongue. "Get out. There is not." New kids didn't turn up often. When the last new student arrived, lesson plans had been disrupted for days. He was still famous for being the new kid, and he arrived two years ago. "Where?" Lauren craned her neck trying to locate the newcomer.
"Well he's not here right now, is he?" I rolled my eyes and tried to shush her with my hand. I'd already had enough people stare at me for the day and it hadn't even started yet.
"Are you sure he's real? He's not one of your migraine hallucinations is he?" She chuckled, but I noticed her eyes flick over me.
"No. I haven't had a headache in, uh, in days."
A frown creased between Lauren's eyebrows. "Days?" Her body angled towards mine a fraction, like she was ready to take a bullet for me.
"Don't fuss," I sighed.
"I'm not fussing."
Exhaustion washed over me, I hated feeling I was so different. "You are."
Holding her hands palm up she said, "I'm not. Okay, I'm forgetting all about it, see?" She motioned dragging the thought from her head and throwing it over her shoulder.
We both turned for the doors. "Ready?"
I groaned. "No."
"Come on, you love this stuff."
I shook my head hard enough to make it hurt. "I love the library. The rest of it can burn."
"Maybe it will. It's the end of days, don't you know?"
I laughed and shouldered my bag. My laughter pulled some enquiring glances from a bunch of first years as they scurried past. "The end of days? Have you been reading the Daily Rag again?"
Lauren looked at me, her expression wide eyed. "I saw it on the news. Meteor showers. Days getting shorter even though it's not daylight savings yet."
"It's scaremongering, that's all. It's just global warming, etc, exactly the same as when we had the heat wave in April."
“That may be so.” She snickered. “But I hate the bloody dark.”
I laughed. “Still? Really?” Before I could say anything else, the bell tolled, making us jump. “Come on, doom and gloom," I said, "let's get to class before we get a late slip first period."
"See you at lunch?" She turned for her class while I eyed mine up three doors down the corridor.
"Yep." I hoped I'd make it to lunch. Over the last few months I’d viewed the day as an assault course. It needed completing in hourly intervals. If I got to the end of the day without some physical calamity befalling me, I considered it a win. "See you at lunch," I said, but she was already through her door.
My focus was on the red chipped paint of the classroom door, so I didn't see the chair jump out and attack my leg.
"Bugger." I rubbed my thigh, which was already aching with that heavy lead sensation that comes from a dead limb, and tried to gain my footing.
"Easy there." A hand jutted out and grasped my elbow, stabilising me as I threatened to topple again.
"Sorry," I mumbled. My cheeks were glowing a vicious, volcanic, burn. I could live without Eleanor Heavers finding out I'd fallen over not once, but twice on the first day. I knew she would, though. Gossip spread through the school like fire through a parched forest.
"You seem to be vertically challenged." The voice was soft, bringing a low bell to mind. My stomach felt all squishy, which was odd when combined with numb legs.
My eyes snapped up into the shadowed face of the boy from the picnic bench. His face tilted under the worn peak of his baseball cap. His features obscured in shadows so I couldn’t get a good look at the caps owner. "I am not." I stated. My blatant lie made the burn running along my cheeks intensify until I was uncomfortably hot. He was scrutinising me and I didn't know why. I stood there, while from under the cap, I knew he was evaluating what he saw. I prickled, straightening my shoulders. I didn't exactly march off down the corridor in outrage at his blatant presumptuous scrutiny. I just kind of suspended there while he stared from under the cap.
"No?" he asked. His fingers still held my elbow, and I tried to peer closer so I could see him better. It was an impulse I couldn’t ignore and I shifted forward.
"You also don't seem to grasp the concept of personal space.” He stepped away, breaking the spell that had pulled me towards him. The burning flush transformed into an all out uncomfortable sweat.
"Sorry, I was just. Um, just." What was I doing?
"Just, what?" The voice sounded like it might be amused if it could be arsed.
"Just trying to see you." The words blurted from my mouth, clanging into the air around me like boulders into a small rain puddle.
"Trying to see what?" As he spoke, my bag slipped off my shoulder. It smashed onto the floor with the heavy thud that twenty overdue library books will make. I scrambled to pick up the mess.
"You," I said. Glancing up, I looked to see his reaction to my outrageous declaration, but there was nobody there. Just me and an empty hallway and the bell tolling on the wall, telling me I was late for my first class.
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Rapture (The Immortal Chronicles Book 4) Page 12
