September Rain Bk 2, Savor The Days Series (15 page)

“Not yet.”

I’ve suffered migraines
since I was five. Noting I can do about it, but they come more
often when I’m upset or worried. And Jakes’ painful admission that
night—
“Not yet”—
had me stressed to the max. The pain came on early Saturday
morning, just before he left.

I didn’t do a thing for two whole days
except lay in my room and writhe. Jake had felt bad, of course. He
wanted to take me with him to visit his mom and little brother,
Henry. There was nothing he could do for me, though. So, he went by
himself and then picked up some extra shifts at work on
Sunday.

And Avery was sick with a
flu or something. She’d called a few times, but I told her to stay
away. The only thing that could help was silence. Austen looked in
on me when Deanna was gone. He brought me water and my pills. On
Sunday morning he made
special
brownies, but wouldn’t let me have any. Deanna
brought me soup, but I couldn’t touch it.

By Monday morning, I was exhausted,
poking around in my bag and digging out a thin white binder labeled
Language Arts. It wasn’t a Language Arts class, it was Advanced
English Literature, but I’d gotten the binder from this shelf in
the office where they kept used materials for students who couldn’t
afford them. I opened the thin binder and started sifting for my
writing assignment.

I couldn’t remember what I did with my
homework. Last Thursday I’d started my essay. I completed the
outline and prepared a first draft. Then, after my headache went
away, I got it out again to write the final draft but could not
recall anything beyond that.

I strained to remember . .
. sitting in my room, lying on my stomach. I was on the floor, my
knees bent up behind me. I remember, music playing and I was
stretching, trying to touch my head with my toes. Then . . .
nothing.
Did I fall asleep?

As I sifted through papers, keeping my
eyes peeled for the corner of the page—I knew I labeled it with all
of the pertinent information and generally, when I started a task,
I didn’t stop until it was finished.

Finally, I found the details I was
looking for and grabbed the page and took the assignment up front.
After placing it neatly in Mr. Harmon’s basket, I headed back to my
desk. Before I got there, Mr. Harmon called me back.

“Miss Patel, is this what you intended
to turn in?” He was holding up a paper by one corner.

Trekking back, I looked at the page
I’d just handed him. My name was in the corner above the beginnings
of the assignment. The top half of the page looked just like it did
when I spied it inside my binder. But at the bottom . . . I hadn’t
noticed. I assumed the essay was complete, but the bottom half of
the page he held was covered in slashes of ink. Shapes that looked
like someone had drawn a picture of a meadow with a little dog
standing in it.

With shame on my face, I took the
assignment back and stared, figuring Austen was playing some kind
of stupid joke on me. He was always doing stuff—nothing mean, just
lame tricks—like he’d always horn in on my conversations with
Avery, acting like I was talking to him and not her, or tell me
that I already washed the dishes when I know I didn’t. Or say I
forgot something at the store that wasn’t on the list Deanna gave
me just so he could go back and get it. It was his way of trying to
get more allowance to spend on his girlfriend.

“Can I turn it in
tomorrow?”

Mr. Harmon nodded. “Yes, but its ten
points a day—I’ll have to dock you if you don’t get it in by the
end of the day.”

I returned to my seat and opened my
text book to the page written on the white board and dug into the
lesson, resolved to talk to Austen about messing with my school
work. But first, I was going to kick the reading assignments ass,
and hopefully have time to redraft my essay.

When the bell rang, the class
collectively sighed in relief. I scrawled out the last two
sentences of my essay as everyone filed out. Mr. Harmon gave my
cramped hand a high-five when I set my completed assignment and
essay into the basket on his desk.

Out in the hallway I was desperate,
nearly jogging as I cut a path through the flood of students. I had
to pee and had been holding it too long. It’d gone away for a
while, but returned with a vengeance the moment the bell
rang.

School bathrooms were the worst. They
were usually filled to capacity or totally empty. Either way, they
all smelled like shit and hair spray. And there was this girl, Rosa
Dominguez, who’d been taking her turn messing with me that quarter.
She was a senior, like me, but she had a lot of friends and she was
on the Softball team. Damn jock-chick with rotten breath and
horrible bleached hair that clashed with her brown skin. She had to
have dyed it herself because it had a distinct orange tinge. It was
ugly. Like her soul.

Rosa had a gift for finding
me at the most inconvenient times—usually when I went to the
bathroom. Sometimes, in the girls’ locker room, too. The locker
room I understood—she was a jock—but damn if we didn’t constantly
end up using the same bathroom at the same time. Every freaking
time. So I tried not to use any of the bathrooms in the main
building and
never
went near the ones by the gym. That pretty much left me the
English and science wings.

When I finally made it to the end of
the passageway, I hooked into the middle-section, the corridor that
housed the freshmen lockers, and launched myself through the
swinging door and into the first available stall.

My nerves were tight; listening to the
voices of carefree freshmen, listening for the one voice I didn’t
want to hear.

There was exactly seven minutes
between classes. Three probably expired before I got to my
preferred toilet. As I relished the release of two diet colas, I
heard the rumble of girls piling out, complaining about their hair
or a boy, all sighing as they herded to class. In a rush, I
buttoned, flushed, grabbed my backpack, and flung the stall door
open.

Rosa Dominguez was standing in front
of the mirror. Of course. She tousled her long orange hair,
smoothing the sides. Her reflection caught mine and her eyes
flickered. Two girls still, lingering near the sinks, tucked their
heads down and shuffled out.

“You know I told you to stay away from
my boyfriend, right?”

My mouth dried up. Her boyfriend was
in my science class. We sat at the same table, but I never talked
to him. Not even during labs. But I couldn’t tell her that. My lips
couldn’t move, suddenly stuck to my teeth.

With a quick spin, she was
suddenly facing me. “Why the
hell
do you keep talking to him?”

When she stepped towards me I backed
away, landing myself back inside the bathroom stall. I tried to
shut the door, but she was too close. Her wide palm clamped onto my
shoulder, shoving me and my back pack over the open toilet. She
gripped my shirt and hauled me out.

I covered my face right as her jetting
fist smashed into my mouth. The soft skin of my lips burned against
her bladed knuckles. I stumbled back and felt myself curling in
cowering away, prepping for the next blow which was usually the
same as the one before by way of the other fist. I closed my eyes,
wondering how I’d hide the bruises from Jake.

The sounds were there, the smacking of
flesh and bone, but I didn’t feel anything. I hesitated before
looking up to find Avery hovering over the orange-haired monster.
Relief coursed through me. She had Rosa by the arm and was twisting
it behind her back. Rosa was pleading, though she sounded furious.
When Avery didn’t relent, she started back on the
insults.

Avery yanked Rosas arm up further
behind her back. Taunting, “Hey, isn’t this your pitching
arm?”

Rosa cursed and tried to twist out of
Avery’s hold. Avery kicked the back of her knees in turn, forcing
Rosa down and hitching her arm up high. Rosas’ already pinched face
winced and she squealed.

“Don’t,” I whispered, quietly begging
Avery not to push the confrontation. She couldn’t get suspended
again. Besides, Rosa was beaten and she had to know it.

The knots in my stomach tightened as
Avery looked down. I recognized the deceptive softness as she
stared at the girl bent below her. “What if I pull a little higher,
Rosa? What will happen?” The girl spit a high-pitched curse as
Avery wrenched her captive arm up. “Come on, only a little higher?
Would another inch be enough to break your shoulder? Do you think
you could still pitch after that?”

A flurry of noise echoed around us and
Avery dropped Rosas arm. We both stepped back and stepped away as
two campus supervisors rushed through the door. All they saw was
Rosa lunging for me, her face twisted in rage. The guards were big
and burly—fierce—as they subdued the threat.

“You alright?” The dark eyes of one
examined my face. I nodded as my tongue skimmed over my bottom lip,
feeling the heat and swelling. He barely scanned Avery and came
back to me. “Go to the nurse. Get an icepack for that lip.” He
looked back to Rosa who was no longer large and threatening but
tall, teary-eyed, and complaining about her shoulder. “You’re
coming with me.”

Rosa was hauled out. We were alone
when Avery took me by the elbow, inspecting my mouth. “You’ll be
fine and I’m late.”

I gave her a quick hug. “Thank
you.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” She
grinned and waltzed out the door.

I was finally alone in the bathroom,
staring at my splotchy reflection, thinking how much better my life
would be once I graduated. No more Rosa or anyone like her. I’d be
heading to college and maybe even my own dorm room. No more foster
homes. Just Avery, Jake and me, living our lives.
Together.

I took a deep breath and let it out,
washed my face and scurried out. On my way to class, I stopped by
the vending machine near the quad across from the cafeteria where
the picnic tables were huddled together and bought an icy cold
soda. Rosa wouldn’t be returning to the bathroom anytime soon so I
figured it was safe.

I bent to grab the can from the bin on
the bottom of the machine and when I stood up my heart was racing.
A chill ran through me though the open air was anything but cool. I
touched my clammy forehead with numb fingers as everything familiar
melted away.

Blood seemed to rush into my ears as I
stared at the empty corridor that suddenly looked unfamiliar. It
was the same, but also out of place. I turned to my left expecting
to see the vending machine, but it had been replaced with a sunny
open area and picnic tables. The position was all wrong, so I kept
turning until I found another corridor and blinked. The sky and
benches, the edges of an open doorway; everything was now frayed
with a static fuzz that stilted the shapes. I knew where I had been
standing a moment ago. I knew what I was doing, but none of what I
was seeing matched the map inside my head. Just a moment before, I
was in front of the soda machine with the hallway behind me. And
that had suddenly vanished.

I was lost. I had no idea where I
was.

I closed my eyes, focusing on
breathing evenly . . . in and out. “It’ll make sense. It’ll come
back. Come back. Come back.” I counted to ten, repeating my name
and address in my head, my school schedule. I’d just sat through
Lit and was supposed to be in Science.

Feeling the cold can in my hand was an
assurance. I knew where I got it. If I just stayed still everything
would fall back in place. I raised the cool cylinder against my
swelling lip and opened my eyes. The vending machine was clear as
day, right in front of me, so was the quad full of picnic
tables.

I took a steadying breath just as the
bell rang and the corridor flooded with a current of students
changing classes. It felt like only a few minutes had passed, but I
missed an entire class.

+++

I met Avery in the cafeteria. I had
her wait for me before she got in line so no one could complain
about cutting. We talked a little as the line moved.

“Are you hungry?” She
asked.

I shook my head and her face soured.
“I’m starving,” I lied, wanting that look to go away.

“What’d you say?” The girl ahead of
Avery asked as she spun.

It was an innocent question arising
from an honest mistake, but Avery never was much of a people
person. “I said those jeans make your butt look huge.”

I tugged her arm back, stepping closer
to girl when her face fell. I didn’t know her, but that was an
awful thing to say. “Just kidding. They’re really cute. Where did
you get them?”

The girl swiveled back to face the
front of the line that had inched ahead. I turned my disappointment
back to my friend.

“Sorry.” Avery gave a look that was
anything but repentant.

I left the line and walked toward the
vending machine against the back wall. I didn’t need to wait in
line when I wasn’t hungry and have to watch Avery start fights for
n reason.

“What is wrong with you?” I asked the
second she came into my peripheral vision.