Still Dreaming - Treebros

Chapter 5: "The Ice Don't Melt In Mid-December"

Thursday, September 7th

  There are few things in life more boring than research papers. I know I should get used to them, seeing as I'll probably have to do a lot of them. But the information all blends together, and I keep thinking 'But what if this is wrong?' or 'What if I'm about to accidentally plagiarize something?'.

Thank God I'm not doing a research paper. My Environmental Ethics professor is actually pretty cool, and let us decide whether we wanted to do an argumentative essay on nuclear energy or a research paper on polar ice caps. It kind of felt like high school again. Especially as I tapped frustratedly at my keypad, as if that would make Word load faster.

Argumentative essays aren't exactly a huge upgrade, but I'll take whatever win I can get. The universe hasn't exactly been too kind to me lately.

My bad luck streak seems to only continue as my phone starts to vibrate. No one would call me unless it was an emergency.

I'm not surprised when I see that it's Connor. I want to think that he's calling me instead of texting because he knows that I don't like it, but I don't think he'd realistically do that. I might. But he wouldn't.

"Connor?" I ask, picking up the phone. Maybe he's hurt. Oh God, he's hurt and my immediate reaction was to assume that he was being a dick.

"Please help," he croaks. A stone forms in the back of my throat, choking me and dropping down into my stomach where it resides heavily. He's hurt. This is just like that incident with Ty.

The thought that there's so many things that 'incident with Ty' could be referring to makes the stone sink a little further.

"What happened?" I asked, trying not to be panicked. If I panic then he might panic and he could lose blood even quicker. If he's losing blood. He might not be losing blood. But he could be.

"I don't know where I, I," Connor starts, but cuts himself off as he starts coughing. "Can't find my laptop charger," he finishes. I start to wonder if he's choking on smoke until I process his question.

"Okay?" Is he delirious from smoke inhalation? Is our building on fire?

"I need to get the notes from this random dude behind me in Max English," he says. He must be delirious because there's no way he called me to ask for a laptop charger when he could have walked up to my dorm. Or even just texted.

"What are you talking about?"

"He said I didn't look good and I should go and that he would send me the notes," Connor says. He doesn't sound good. At all. Maybe he is dying.

"That's nice of him. Are you okay?" I ask. I can't tell if I should be worried or pissed at him. Well, more pissed than I usually am. More worried than I usually am too.

"I think I'm sick or something." That's good. Well, not good. I'm not happy that he's sick, but being sick is a lot better than dying in a fire or getting beat up after school hours.

"Huh. I couldn't tell," I say. Sarcasm to hide the fact that I care. I'm turning into Jared.

"Fuck, fuck you. Can I please borrow your charger?" Connor asks. If he's too sick to look for his laptop charger than he's almost definitely too sick to comprehend any of his notes.

"Sure. What's your room number again?" I ask. I can just borrow Sam's if I need it. He probably won't mind.

"Fucking, um. 502," he mumbles. I didn't think he got sick that often, so it must be pretty bad.