-Kylie-
I woke up with a groan coming out from my lips. Heat was sizzling in my back so badly that I wanted to pull myself up, but some heavy feeling pinned me to my sh eets. I'd been like this for two days already, after the rain.
There was a knock on the door, and there entered Lacey, already dressed up for s chool.
"Hey, I was about to wake you up," she said, coming to the side of my bed.
"What time is it?" I asked her. God, my mouth tasted like death. Everything arou nd looked so gray that it seemed too early to be getting up.
"Oh, look, it's already skin-thirty," Lacey exclaimed, looking at her bare wrist .
I stifled a laugh.
"No, seriously, you need to get out of the bed and fix yourself up," she said wi th a giggle. "It's already twenty-five minutes before school starts, and you don 't want to be late, do you?"
I covered my face with a pillow, groaning.
"I can't get up," I slurred. My head was throbbing so hard, it felt like there w as a hammer beating on it.
"Huh?"
I removed the pillow and let out a sigh. "I can't get up," I said more clearly a nd coughed. "It's like there's a strange force pulling me down, restricting my f reedom of movement."
Lacey's delicate features crumpled up. "Uh," she muttered, scratching her head, "you mean laziness?"
I just closed my eyes and placed an arm over my warm forehead. "Please wake me u p when school ends."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, if that's it, then get up already. We might miss the bus! Or..." Her lips stretched into a mischievous smile. "Do you want me to ask Tristan for another ride with him?"
I immediately jolted upright, ignoring the pain that had increased when I forced myself to sit up.
Lacey laughed and waggled her fingers at me, singing: "Just as I thought. Twenty-two minutes left!" before skipping out of the room.
I rolled my eyes and dragged my lazy feet to the bathroom. I stopped for a momen t when something appeared in the corner of my eye. Turning around, I saw Tristan through the window on the other side, leaning on what I supposed was his mirror . Headphones over his ears, he was rocking his head while mouthing lyrics to an unknown song.
In a matter of seconds, his head rotated towards me, as if something had signale d him. Our windows were both hazy from all the dewdrops, but I could still see h is image forming a smirk as he grabbed his backpack and exited his bedroom.
My phone buzzed on the desk, and despite of what I was feeling right now, I lung ed at it, half-expecting it would be Erik. Instead, much to my disappointment, i t was Tristan, saying: Ugly.
Scowling, I texted back: Shut up. I always wake up with a good attitude, but the n idiots like you happen.
Then he replied seconds later: Meh.
Me: I swear I'll get a payback from you for what you did that Wednesday!
Him: What are you talking about?
Me: Don't play dumb! You know, back in the coffee shop? Grr!
Him: That was already two days ago! Can you not get over it? Jeez, it's not a bi g deal. It'd been just Erik.
I rubbed my temples as I threw the phone on my bed. He just wouldn't understand it, of course. What a royal pain in the ass.
***
I scratched at the back of my head as I listened to Julianne's speech about limi ts and all the devastating numbers written across her notebook.
"...so you have to factor both the numerator and the denominator-" she pointed h er black ballpoint pen to the equation "-to circumvent the indeterminate form, g et it?"
You know that awesome feeling you get when you finally understand Math? Yeah, me neither. How was I supposed to know all this stuff when I didn't even know the meaning of "circumvent"? I should've been checking the thesaurus for some time n ow.
While trying to prevent myself from having a nosebleed, I nodded uncertainly and sniffed.
"Are you sure?" Julianne eyed me closely, her dark red eyebrows arching up.
"Uh... there's only one thing that I can't quite understand," I said with a forc ed smile, feeling as miserable as a dying cat.
"Okay, point it out and I'll explain it again."
"Great! Let's see, uh..." I began to say, coughed, and pointed to the first solu tion. "I don't get this part."
"Uh-huh, so in that-"
"This one, this one, too, and... Ah! And this, this, this, this, and finally thi s one," I said as I pointed at the work from top to bottom, page one to page two . I paused, took a deep breath, and continued: "Or better yet, repeat the whole thing."
Julianne gazed at me wide-eyed. "But Kylie, this is already the third time I've explained the entire lesson to you," she said in shock. "Do we really have to go back to the start? I'm running out of saliva."
This was always the main problem I had whenever my brain cells were dead.
I rubbed my temples. My eyes were kind of heavy and blurry, and I wanted to doze off for a moment; at the same time, though, I didn't want to take a break and s pend my free time resting my exhausted body. I had a lot of catching up to do on schoolwork, and if I didn't complete it, I'd be screwed for life.
"Okay, well, let me solve this one, and then you tell me if it's right," I said, grabbing the pen off the table and starting to solve the easiest equation I cou ld find. My mind was whispering, "I have no idea what I'm doing," but my hands c ontinued to work by themselves.
Minutes later, I found myself puffing out my chest in triumph. Julianne took the notebook, her eyes scanning rapidly through all of my work. In a little while, she handed it back to me, staring at me levelly.
"How did you do this?" she asked as I grabbed the notebook.
A wide grin spread across my face. "You mean I did it right? Hell, yes!" I excla imed so happily, I almost jumped to my feet and let out a scream of joy.
"Nope," Julianne said indifferently, and my face dropped. "Don't get too excited , because you made a lot-I mean a lot-of mistakes in that problem and you're now here near the correct answer."
"But... it was the shortest equation and somewhat easy to solve..." I uttered, v oice dropping on the last word.
Julianne flicked her finger up, saying, "Math rule number one? If you found the equation easy to solve, go back and re-check, since you must be doing something wrong."
I let out an exasperated sigh. "Gah! I'm out. Can't take this crap any longer," I groaned and sniffed again, squeezing my eyes shut. "Darn, Mom is so going to k ill me once she knows my results. I just have to prepare my résumé for McDonalds if don't end up passing Calculus."
"Aw, don't say that, girl. I thought you weren't a quitter!"
"But it's different when it comes to Math." I shook my head, and then lifted a f inger when an idea popped into my head. "Hey, why don't you tutor me at home aft er school? I think it would be a lot of help."
"I'm busy with school activities. You know, the Literary Club? The school paper? So, I can't. Sorry," she said with a small shrug. "Listen, why don't you just a sk Tristan to help you? You two live right next to each other, so it's much easi er for you to contact him anyway. Besides, he's way better at the subject compar ed to me."
My head ached even more when I heard his name.
"No flipping way!" I exclaimed as I opened my eyes in terror, but Julianne just looked back at me curiously. "Come on, Jules, just for this week- I swear I won' t be heavy baggage to carry. Pretty please? With cheese and pepperoni on top? Yo u know you want that."
"I told you I have activities after school," she said, smiling and rolling her e yes.
"You can make yourself an excuse from those for once," I persisted. "And it's no t as if those clubs have that many activities to do, like, preventing the melt-o ff of icebergs in Antarctica or something. Those club members are just sitting a round in their rooms, talking about gossip and whatever. I'll bet you're the onl y member who even does anything."
"Exactly," she replied. "That's the reason why I'm taking action on that matter. "
I slapped my hand to my forehead. "Julianne!"
"Okay, look, what's wrong with asking Tristan for some help?"
"Everything."
"Oh, please, Kylie, it's not that bad if you ask him. You have to set aside your hatred over him- God only knows the reason behind that-and tone down your... yo ur pride for a moment. Trust me, you need him for this."
Her eyes looked into mine, glinting as if they were forcing me to consider her w ords; however, I didn't even spare a second to think about it. My decision was f inal.
"Ah, whatever!" I moaned, brushing my itchy nose. "Forget everything. I can hand le this myself."
"Right." Julianne sighed, shaking her head. "If you say so, Ky, but don't say I didn't give you any advice."
"Fine, Jules, fine!"
"Okay, okay, relax. You've been having high blood pressure or something since ye sterday." She paused, as if waiting. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Aren't you going to tell me what's got you so stressed out?" she wanted to know .
I rubbed the back of my sweltering neck with clammy hands. Feeling lightheaded, I sunk further into the bench.
"I'm all right," I replied evasively.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Uh-huh," I assured her with a firm nod. I've been acting like I'm okay since ye sterday, Julianne, so please don't interrupt my performance.
"You really are not. Have you seen your face? It's white all over. You've been l ike this for days." Then she paused. "You're sick, aren't you?" she said with su dden clarity. "Let me check." Julianne's voice hinted at a lot of worry, but whe n she lifted her hand towards my forehead, I dodged it feebly.
"Jules..."
"Crazy, why did you force yourself to go to school?"
"I don't want to miss my classes."
"Well, aren't you that dedicated?" She shook her head. "You really should go to in the clinic and take a rest there," she prompted. "Or do you want me to drive you home instead?"
"No, really, I'm fine," I insisted with a grin, avoiding eye contact. "It's just a little headache."
She sighed, and then a series of beeps pierced the air. Distracted, she reached into her pocket and grabbed her phone.
"Darn, another emergency meeting of the club," she said.
"You should go now," I said, nodding. I began to grab my things from the table. "I'm just going to the library to return a book."
She frowned. "You sure you can handle yourself?"
I nodded. "Yeah, I swear. See you later."
***
My teeth clattered as the cold breeze from the air cooler seeped into my skin. I wrapped my arms around me and wished I'd brought two thick jackets along with m y blue cotton sweatshirt.
I was scanning the bookshelves for another Calculus book. My vision was blurring so badly, I needed to rub my eyes in order to see more clearly, and after I had , I noticed a person on the other side of the shelf staring at me through the ga ps of the books.
When we both stepped out, my jaw dropped.
"Hey, Kylie," he greeted me.
"Oh, Erik, it's you," I said sheepishly. "You scared me for a second."
"Sorry." He laughed and looked around. "You came alone here?"
"Yeah, Julianne's at her club meeting right now," I said, and then I just rememb ered something. "Oh, I almost forgot. About that message you received that Wedne sday... I'm sorry. But it wasn't me, I swear. Tristan was actually the one who s ent that," I muttered, embarrassed.
Erik laughed, and I guess he was the only one out of the two of us who could fin d anything amusing.
"Yeah? I see. I really thought I was such a huge bother to you guys."
"If anyone of us was a huge bother, it was him," I blurted, then my cheeks heate d up even more when I realized how it sounded a little bit wrong. "T-that guy. H e was lucky I didn't slug him," I mumbled. "I'm sorry if that made you upset or whatever."
"It's okay. Let's just forget about it. So..." He cleared his throat and said, " What's up? What have you got right there?"
I showed the book I had, rolling my eyes. "I know. I'm turning into a huge nerd now," I told him in amusement. "You?"
"Well, look what I found in the deepest parts of the shelves." He lifted up a Th e Walking Dead comic book. "I know. I'm still a huge sucker for this."
I snorted a laugh. "At least it doesn't make your head crack all day."
We went to a table and settled there.
"You must be working hard in your studies," he remarked. "Getting ready for coll ege, huh?"
If I ever pass senior year...
Though I was full of doubt, I nodded, just so he wouldn't be disappointed with m e.
"Which university do you want to attend?"
"Um... Imperial," I said doubtfully.
"Hey, that's great! I know you can do well, Kylie." He grinned. "Me? Well, I'm s till thinking about my decisions. It better goes that way, doesn't it? Better th an jumping into stuff you're not quite sure of. It's kinda hard for me ranking a ll those universities and colleges, choosing which the best among them is."
"Wow, that's definitely a big task to tackle."
"Yeah, sometimes I just push the college stuff aside and wish for a letter from Hogwarts to appear in my mailbox."
We stared at each other for a moment before erupting into laughter. Erik's words had broken the ice, and somehow, I felt a little better. Someone made us hush, and we both bit our lip, suppressing our laugh.
A silver trinket around his left wrist caught my attention.
"Hey, I just noticed that thing just now." I pointed at the object. "Is that an identification bracelet? That looks cool."
He lifted it up. "Uh, yeah, it came from someone I knew."
"Best friend?"
"Girlfriend."
I gulped hard and continued: "Oh! Yeah, you had a girlfriend before. Cyrene? Tha t's her name, right? Cyrene... Chen?" My heart thudded loudly as I mentioned the name.
"Yeah, Cyrene. You still remember her, huh?" he said, voice dropping. His should er slumped as he sighed heavily. "We broke up when I moved to Florida."
I'd never seen her in my whole life, but seeing his eyes going all dreamy, I cou ld tell this Cyrene girl was a total chick.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Ah, was it because of the long-distant relationship?" I blurted out.
"No, that wasn't the reason for it. We could've worked that thing out, you know. It's just that..." He half shrugged, half shook his head. "Something happened."
I stayed put in silence, not wanting to pry about that "something", and just let him continue his story.
"Actually, I didn't know what the problem was. I didn't even know what I'd done wrong. She just continued to shut me out. If only she had told me why, maybe I c ould've done something to work things out between us... but, well, I was too lat e because..." He paused. "Someone already took her from me."
The atmosphere felt even more awkward now. This was the first time Erik had ever talked to me like that. If this had occurred back in our freshman days, I defin itely would've made an easy joke about it instead of giving him a sympathetic lo ok, as I was doing now.
Fragments of my own past flashed through my mind. What had happened back in that year may have been caused by a childish prank (blame Lacey and Julianne, not me ), but the result had been much more embarrassing that I'd thought possible. Eri k's words: "I'm sorry, but I already like somebody else" were eight words I neve r wanted to remember again.
Now he was just talking about that "somebody else". I had to admit, I'd used to hate her, but it hadn't lasted long because I'd found it pointless and silly to hate a person I didn't even know.
"Oh, that's... too bad." The hot lump in my throat had gotten bigger, and I clea red my throat to continue: "Curse that guy who stole Cyrene, then."
I didn't know what else to say aside from that.
He laughed. "Yeah, curse that guy. But it's all okay now, Kylie. I sucked it up, got over it when I moved to Florida. And this identification bracelet was the l ast thing I had from her."
I gave him a small smile, which then he returned.
"Kylie, can you do me a favor?" he asked. I lifted an eyebrow, and he carried on : "Can you keep this from everyone else? I don't like other people knowing that. "
"Of course." I grinned, giving him a thumbs-up sign. "Look, you keep my secret, I keep yours. I think it'd be fair for both of us."
"Aha, genius," he said with a laugh. "I know I can always count on you, so thank you. Anyway, I told you that your secret is safe with me. Don't worry too much, Kylie."
"Well... all right."
With that, we fell into silence. It seemed like we had no idea what to talk abou t next, just so we could break the uncomfortable tension in the atmosphere. Soon , I began flipping through the book, only to keep myself from thinking too much about stuff. The breeze was slipping through the thin material covering my body, and I closed my eyes, exhaling warm air from my mouth.
"Kylie?"
My head shot up. Erik was looking at me with doubt smeared across his face.
"Uh, remember that incident near the lockers when Lacey and Julianne-"
I quickly stood up, forgetting how weak I was. He watched me, his mouth hanging open.
"Kylie-"
Oh, no. Please, Erik, don't bring that stupid thing back again.
"Uh-I think I should go to my next class now," I stammered, the words tumbling o ut swiftly. "It's been nice talking to you for a short time. See you around."
I didn't give him any chance to say goodbye to me. I went out of the library, fo rcing myself to walk across the hall, praying that I could do this.
"Hey!" he called out from behind me. "Kylie, hold on! Listen, I didn't mean..."
I kept my attention on the path, pretending I couldn't hear him.
Then, all of a sudden, my muscles tensed as a strange feeling began to crawl ove r my skin. A sickening sound rang in my ears, and I shook my head with pain, shu t my eyes, and then opened them again.
I stopped walking and pressed my hand on the wall.
Everything was swirling in my vision. Black spots swarmed before my eyes. I trie d to fight them, yet they continued to invade my line of sight.
"Kylie, are you-"
Strong hands grasped my shoulders, and then Erik's voice calling my name was the last thing I perceived before darkness completely overtook me.