Revival

11. Trustworthy

~~Trustworthy~~

The teacher monitoring Stella's tedious hour-long detention advised her and a few other students to get some schoolwork done while they were there. Stella tried to, more out of wanting a distraction from the noise of bustling students outside in the hallway heading out for the day, but her class assignments could only do so much.

She was staring blankly at her textbook to prepare for her class test tomorrow for AP Chemistry when the detention warden let her go. Stella didn't have to take it, since it was worth twenty-five percent of her grade and she was months behind on their curriculum, but Stella and her Dad thought it was important she keep on par with her classmates. And she wouldn't hear the end of it from David if he thought she was slacking for even a moment.

Which is why, she decided to go to the library after detention. Well, for her test tomorrow and to complete all the weekend assignments that her teachers were gracious enough to allow her an extra day extension for. She was on her way to her locker to pick up her flashcards and her other workbooks when her phone rang its shrill tone against her side, startling her. It was Carter. "Way to fall off the Earth, Stella Roberts. I almost forgot your name there."

Stella rolled her eyes, adjusting her bag strap on her shoulder, and ducking her head away from the invasive stares of other students, as she passed them. She still wasn't used to the looks her peers kept shooting her. It seemed like there was a new reason to draw attention to herself every day, and she was the only one out of the loop. "Glad to know, I'm not that unforgettable," she said in a low voice, "Though, it's like I'm what's trending over here."

"Well, you're British," Carter pointed out, "Americans probably think that you eat crumpets and ride horses to school every day."

Stella couldn't help but laugh at that. "That's probably true. But what's happened is even stranger."

"What happened? Spill the tea, then," Carter replied impatiently, though Stella could hear the grin in his voice, "Life has been so dead over here. I need any sort of entertainment right about now."

Stella snorted, but the pit of guilt in her stomach she felt at lunch returned as she remembered that she couldn't tell Carter the entire truth. Her best friend, her oldest friend that knew practically everything about her. She used to tell him that he knew so much about her, they weren't ever allowed to fall out, or she'd have to kill him. He told her that what they had was stronger than a blood bond.

It was strange, how much could change in just a week. "What about that girl you went out with last week? Poppy something?" She asked instead, deciding to refocus on him.

There was a pause and then a sigh, and slowly Stella felt her heart begin to sink. "We haven't really talked since then," he explained distantly as though he was trying to pretend he didn't care. Stella held in her sigh. She remembered what he said only last week, "I just realized how much I'm going to miss having you around." She found herself feeling bad for not making as much of an effort to stay in contact with him and for not thinking about him as much as she felt she should have been, "I mean I popped up to her once a few nights after we met, but it was pretty dry."

"Oh," Stella said, frowning a little as she turned the hallway that led toward the stairway, "Well, then that's her loss," she assured. She was about to change the subject, knowing it's what he would want when she noticed Dane leaning casually beside her locker. His arms crossed and his head bowed into his phone. His huge brown curls shielded his face from her view, and the light picked out streaks of copper and amber through them, making her fingers itch for her paintbrushes. She remembered her drawing of Jesse standing at the edge of a cliff, but her memory blurred slightly like she was remembering it wrong.