Numb ~ Dreamnotfound

Chapter 9

I woke up with a pounding in my head. I quickly turned the alarm off as it was making the pain worse. I felt myself starting to sweat as I sat up, moisture dampening my hair. The room seemed to be spinning when I stood up, making me grab onto the wall for support.

I stumbled into the bathroom and rested my hands on the edge of the sink, steadying myself as I seemed to be swaying. My cheeks were red and the heat in my body started to become more apparent as sweat now fell from the back of my hair. Maybe only getting an hour of sleep was a bad idea, but my mind was too jumbled to relax.

I raised the back of my hand to my forehead, the heat of it surprising me. I was definitely sick, but I still needed to pick George and Nick up. I slowly went back to my room and changed clothes before grabbing my bag and making my way out to my car.

The car started to spin as I sat in my seat, so I leaned my head against the top of the steering wheel and closed my eyes for a few seconds before pulling my seatbelt over me and making my way to Nick's. My vision seemed to keep getting blurry, making me blink hard to see the road clearly.

Nick sat in the car and turned the radio up, my head started to throb as the bass rattled the car. I reached and turned the volume down, resting my head against the steering wheel quickly to ease the pain.

"What happened to you?" He asked, turning to look at me. He placed his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, making me sit up. I let my head rest against my seat before looking over to him.

"Do you have water?" I asked, closing my eyes. He rustled through his bag and placed a plastic water bottle in my hand. He moved my hair out of the way and placed his cold hand on my head.

"Clay why are you here? You're like burning up." I unscrewed the cap from the water and took a sip, the coldness of it was refreshing as my body temperature was far too high.

"I'll be fine. We need to go get George." I placed the water bottle down in the cup holder and backed out of the driveway, gripping the steering wheel harder than necessary.

"Did you sleep at all last night? Your eyes are bloodshot."

"Maybe an hour or so, i'm not sure." I shrugged and took a deep breath as I drove, blinking harder to focus my vision back onto the road.

"Only an hour? Did something happen?" The concern in Nick's voice continued as I looked at the road in front of me.

"I was um," I stuttered, "crying." I swallowed hard as I felt his eyes widen while looking at me. Nick knew that I barely cried.

"Crying? Like seriously crying?"

I gave nothing but a nod as we got closer to George's neighborhood.

"But why? Did something happen?"

"I'm not sure why." I said back, not wanting to give the actual reason, since he would be getting in the car soon and I didn't want Nick to be awkward.

"You should go home and rest." He said, putting his hand lightly on my shoulder as I pulled into George's driveway.

"I'm fine."

George opened the back door and sat down, buckling his seatbelt. Nick turned and gave him a fist bump as usual, and I gave a simple "Hey."

I was quiet the rest of the ride while Nick and George talked quieter than usual. Nick even turned the radio down completely, which made me give him a nod to say thanks.

George and I split off from Nick as usual and headed to our English class. Before we could walk in, George grabbed my backpack in order to stop me.