Managing anxiety is difficult enough, but for Mike not being able to do so could plunge the world into darkness.
Being born at the bottom in a society that divides itself by magic and abilities only makes navigating his struggles all the more imposs...
The alternative abilities course proved to be the funnest class I'd ever taken, and I really liked Professor Indigo.
Math was math, and I appreciated it, being that it was the only concrete thing in all of Hiraeth. The professor was nice, too, and never gave me any trouble.
Alternative band was a blast. Doctor Annabelle was doing an amazing job. We were getting far in our first song.
Lunch was a little stressful sometimes, thanks to my lie, but I managed.
Biology always taught me something new, and I liked it a lot.
History was easy. Parry and I had become pretty comfortable with each other, too, and that made up for Mallory's routine harassments.
P.E. was really entertaining. Derek made friends with a girl named Kat, and by the tenth Day of school we were talking a lot.
Kat was a fire fawn flare with fair skin, auburn brown hair, a pair of antlers that would catch fire every once in a while, dark ruby eyes, little white spots on her face and shoulders, and an hourglass figure. Although the only visibly deer-like things about her were her antlers and spots, she claimed to have a deer tail. She also wore glasses, but I couldn't tell if they were just for looks or not.
Kat told me she "preferred to live life simply, without the hassle of standing out." That was weird, because she was super smart, and definitely stood out to the other boys in class. One in particular, who wore a leather jacket all the time (even though it wasn't uniform), was pretty mad at me for just talking to her. His name was Jake, and his reason for not wanting Kat to talk to me was because they dated in the seventh grade.
"K-Kat's not some item, it's not up to you who she talks to and who she doesn't. A-A-And if you 'dated'," I replied to him, making quotations with my fingers, "Two years ago, then you should be over it by now. S-She certainly is."
Jake's pale gray eyes narrowed, his fists clenched. He pushed me against a locker, which was so cliché that I almost laughed.
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"What would you know about relationships, creep? Ain't a single being here who'd wanna date some psychopath that killed beings just 'cause he couldn't control his feelings." When he said the last part, it was in a baby voice.
I looked down nervously. "C-C-C-Calm down, okay?"
Jake chuckled and brought his free fist up next to his face, trying to threaten me. "You c-c-c-can't tell me what to do."
Derek had been in the bathroom during this exchange, but now he was back. As soon as he saw what was going on, he yelled, "Hey, back off!" and started running towards Jake.
Jake nodded to one of his friends, who grabbed Derek. He was so small, I expected him to get slaughtered. But he kicked the guy in his groin, sending him to his knees.
