Delicate Pulse | Violentine

Doubletake

(tw: vom*t)

Throughout breakfast, I could still feel the rhythm of my feet hammering against the track. As soon as the sun had peaked through the curtains I fled for a morning run. There was no way I could sleep after last night, after my nightmare. I could still see the disaster in my mind, down to the detail of texture and rotten consistency. I ran as if my life depended on it, like it was the source pumping the blood through my veins. I had lost count of the number of laps I had done by the time the first bell echoed the corners of the school grounds.

Part of me wanted to share with the table but everyone was eating and chattering and I didn't want to spoil it. Brody acknowledged me leaving early but I brushed it off, saying I was trying to get some fresh air. I just focused on my own plate and ate my feelings instead.

Once that had wrapped up I wasn't sure what to do. Brody declared she was going to fit in a few more hours of study despite it was the weekend. Marlon had some presidential business to tackle and Violet and I weren't talking. Sophie and Minerva didn't even show up to breakfast, not that I wanted to see Minerva anyways.

I settle for a walk, to nose around a little more. There's still half the campus I have left to see. That was the plan until Louis springs in front of me, skipping backwards while facing me.

"Where you off to?"

"Uhhh, walking?"

"A walk?" he drags, slowing to tread aside me. "Pffft! Boooring! How about you help me instead?"

"With what?"

"Winning Aasim over."

He adjusts his lavish trench coat. It's ridiculous to be wearing it at a boarding school but he wears it with pride like a superhero wears his cape. It's not hard to imagine what glamorous lifestyle he was exploiting before Ericson's. He grins at me, his trademark twinkle in his eyes. "You remember that assignment?"

"Hm?"

"You know! You better have your end of the bargain," he imitates. "That nonsense?"

My thoughts bounce back to the first night I was here and I sigh. "You didn't finish it, did you?"

"No, I did. The plot twist is the printer. Aasim and I tried using it and it took a colossal shit. Brewed a massive- no, a mammoth of an ink storm."

I halt. "How did I not hear about this?"

"I don't know, it happened later in the afternoon yesterday and you needed some space. Plus, I was too busy running away from him."

"Well, is he okay?"

"Oh he's fine, his uniform isn't."

He exhales dramatically and shakes his head in fraudulent misery. "So now he's super pissed at me even though I wasn't the one spraying ink all over him. What was I supposed to do? Tell it to stop?"

"Are you asking me to clean his uniform?" I ask, frowning.

"Hell no, there's no way you could save it. Rest in peace."

"So?"

"I think it's time you teach us a thing or two about baseball."

I raise my eyebrows and place my hands on my hips, scoffing. "You want to fix a friendship with baseball?"

He bends to my level and stretches his hand in front of me across the air as if he's initiating a master scheme to me. "It's a fun time outdoor activity and once he's taken his anger out on the ball, I swoop in with a good ole pat on the back and we're buddies again. It's the perfect plan. We might even do a high five freeze-frame in the air."