Rock, Paper, Scissors

27: You Should Get That

We found Noah on our way to the cafeteria and started discussing the test. Our teachers always gave us the same test, they had created this sort of alliance to ruin our lives with awful hard questions they created together. I find myself smiling as I realized our answers had been practically the same.

"That doesn't mean it's a good thing," Noah said as we sat at the table. "Maybe it just means that we're both going to fail miserably."

"Why do you always have to be so pessimistic? Have a little faith in us. If not us in Nick's amazing tutoring skills." I turned to Nick to thank him again. If not for his red ears I would have never noticed, he was embarrassed by my compliment. He was very good at not letting his emotions show, always with that stoic expression on his face. I let that go and we kept talking about random things. Micah asked us how the test went when he joined us a bit later and Tyler kept glaring at another table, where Rebeca was sitting. I wondered if something more had happened between her and Nick.

"Jesus Jules!" Noah blustered out of nowhere.

"What?!"

"Could you use a cap or something please? I'm sick of finding your hair everywhere. It's in my clothes, my car, my food, and now my mouth!"

"Who says it's mine? It could be yours," I defended myself while Tyler chuckled, finally taking his eyes and attention from Rebeca.

"It's long hair, Jules," he said deadpanned.

"Could be your mom's."

"It is brown, my mother is blonde."

"Well I'm sorry, it's Fall. While the leaves fall from the trees during Fall, my hair falls from my head. That's how things are, it's nature. There's nothing I can do about it." That was true, every time I brushed my hair these days, I felt like half of it either stays in the brush or fall over the sink. Thank god I have a lot of it, or I would be bald by now.

My phone buzzed on the table, I looked at the name on the screen: my mom. She's probably worried about my stability. She always over worries this time of the year, afraid that I would collapse or have anxiety or panic attacks. And every year I do. But having her always on my back only makes it worse. Like now, I was distracted, having a good time and when I saw her name, I remembered that I had issues, and worst of all I remembered what caused them. So, I decided to ignore her and let the phone buzzing.

"Who's that? An ex-boyfriend?" Tyler asked.

"Just my mom, probably to make sure I didn't forget to do my chores," I lied.

Tyler left it at that, still distracted by the other table, but Nick surprisingly didn't. "You should get that," he said in a very, very serious and grim tone. "You never know."

Jeez, great way to bring down the mood. I looked at him trying to figure out where that came from. He looked sad for some reason. Was this why Tyler had been killing Rebeca with his eyes for the past hour? My phone buzzed again, and I reluctantly picked up, Nick's words on my mind.

I talked to my mom and she was just letting me know that she and dad were coming home late. They had dinner with some old college friends.

"Want to have pizzas at my place tonight?" I asked my friends. "My parents are out." And I don't want to be alone, I almost added. I didn't want to have time and space to think of things I shouldn't, things that would drown me in darkness.

They all agreed, and so we decided to go shopping for a few supplies we needed, meaning soda, beer - for Tyler -, and ice cream - lots of it, as requested by me. We got to my house as my parents were leaving. They greeted my friends quickly, reminding us to behave and to not disturb our neighbors, even though our only neighbors were Noah's parents.

We ate, we played games, we talked about all and nothing, while Nick's phone kept buzzing every few minutes. He picked it up the first three times to read the texts he got but apparently decided to ignore it and left the phone buzzing in vain.

"Maybe you should get that. You never know," I whispered to him, quoting his own advice. He let out a weary sigh.

"I'll check it later, it's not urgent." And I felt, yet again, that I was overstepping his boundaries, so I recoiled myself and focused on the vanilla ice cream in front of me. Not looking at, nor saying another word to Nick for the rest of the night.

***

It has been three days since I last slept through the night. Last night I even took two pills, but it was in vain. I woke up from that same recurring nightmare, then fell asleep again as I was exhausted from the lack of sleep, only to wake up again crying and sweating. It was that time of the year again and even after four years, my brain hadn't forgotten about it.

Today was the anniversary of that dreadful day. My mom asked me if I wanted to stay home but I told her I was fine. I was wrong. I couldn't focus at all in class and kept fighting the tears prickling in my eyes all morning. I was tired, sad, and felt somehow claustrophobic. The feeling only got worse throughout the day.

At lunch, I wasn't in the mood to talk. The guys noticed, asked me what was wrong, and I just made up some lame excuse. They didn't press me for more. I let out a weary sigh and got up, feigning I had to go to my locker before class. The truth was that I needed space, and maybe a toilet stall where I could hide while I cried.

I was halfway through the corridor outside of the cafeteria when I heard Nick calling for me. I turn to see him practically jog towards me.