“Tired and crappy. But not today. You took the sleeping pill Jen’s dad left for you?” he asked, sifting through his notes.
“Yes. Wait, how do you know about that?” I gave his shoulder a shove. “Do I have no privacy whatsoever?” My face heated, not from a blush, but from anger. Who did he think he was interfering in my life? Demi-angel business, fine. The rest of my life he needed to stay the hell out of!
He rolled the shoulder I shoved, and one side of his mouth tipped in an amused grin. “We all need to know what’s going on. The pill interfered with your ability to function. You weren’t one hundred percent physically. We had to make sure we were.”
“Well, excuse me for sleeping.”
He looked down at his notes and shrugged. I had no idea what he was thinking. Jake was a shallow pond. You could see right to the bottom. A person could decipher every thought, snide comment, or joke. Not so with Chay. Compared to Jake, Chay was the depth of an ocean. Deep and dark. There was no way to decipher him. At least, I hadn’t found one. I needed a secret decoder ring.
Class started, and Chay and I worked silently on the assigned lab. He added the chemicals, and I wrote down the results. I reached for the lab slip and turned the page in the packet when he said something that threw me even more off-balance than I already was.
“You smell good today.” He tilted his head and watched closely as he poured chemicals into the beaker.
My heart did a little flip right before it tap-danced around my chest.
Why do I care what he thinks?
My hand stilled over the paper I recorded the results of our lab on. “As opposed to what? Do I smell bad most days?”
“No, you always smell good. Apricots.”
“Huh?”
“Your hair. You must use apricot shampoo. I like it.” He glanced at me then. Just a quick look out of the corner of his eye.
“Um, thanks. You smell good too,” I said, cringing when my voice came out strained and weird sounding.
He nodded once in acknowledgement. He didn’t speak, only winked, and one side of his mouth lifted slightly in a grin. He continued with the experiment, leaving me to wonder what the heck just happened.
“Done.” He flipped the book closed. “You should leave.”
“Why?”
“You’re gonna have a vision.”
“How do you do that? How do you know I’m going to have a vision before I know?” I shut my chemistry book harder than I meant to and glared at him.
“Sometimes I have visions of you having visions, not always, but sometimes. Actually, they’re more glimpses than full visions like yours. It’s odd, if you think about it. But there you go. Anyway, like I said, you should leave.”
“No. I can’t have one now.”
He shrugged a shoulder.
My stomach clenched, and I narrowed my eyes at him. I pushed my chair back. The feet screeched across the tiled floor. I walked to the front of the room and asked my chemistry teacher to be excused. With each passing second, my stomach twisted tighter. It felt like the time I got my hair stuck in the fan when I was a kid. It wrapped around the fan blades so tight that I thought it’d pull from my scalp.
“Is your assignment finished?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can wait until the bell rings. It’s only fifteen minutes,” he said, not looking at me. I hated when people didn’t look at me when I was speaking to them.
My stomach squeezed harder, pushing the breath from my lungs, and I wrapped one arm around my middle and held on to the desk for support with the other.
“I really need to go to the bathroom,” I insisted. When I saw he was going to say no, I blurted, “I’m going to puke. I really need to go, and like, right now!” His face scrunched up in a disgusted look, and he nodded for me to leave. I hurried out of the room and down the hall.
I tried to think of somewhere private. I couldn’t have a vision in the middle of the hall while people pushed and shoved their way from class to class. Ducking into the bathroom, I locked myself in a stall. It smelled of urine and stagnant water. Wet toilet paper stuck to the puke-green floor. I stepped around the mess and leaned in the corner of the stall, my arms wrapped around my stomach like they could shield it from the searing pain shooting through it like missiles. My head pounded in time with my racing heart.
My vision started to fade, like someone was dimming the lights. The room turned gray, and then was cloaked in darkness. When all I saw was black, images started scrolling through my mind like credits after a movie.
Lily talking to Jake. Jake laughing. Hobgoblins watching from the rafters in the school’s ceiling, watching between the cracks in the tiles.
“Lily. What about her? Come on, come on,” I whispered.
Chay. Lily. Chay’s angry. Lily laughs and walks by, her finger trailing across his shoulders.
She’s trying to recruit the team one by one.
I flew out of the bathroom and skidded to a stop, my sneakers squeaking across the floor.
“What are you doing here?”