If I Fell

Chapter Eight

“Did you understand the chemistry homework?”

Stifling a yawn behind my hand, I gave an one shouldered shrug at Kat’s question. “I think I might have gotten the gist,” I said vaguely.

Alright, that was a little lie. For one thing, I’d barely stayed awake the entire class with my chin cupped in my palm and my eyes drifting closed throughout the lesson; it was hard to concentrate that way. Then there was the fact that chemistry wasn’t a good class for me anyways.

Okay maybe it was a full blown lie.

Well, I had gotten the gist of the fact that I had no idea what I’d managed to scrawl down for notes and that the pages due in our workbook were a complete mystery to me.

Yeah I’d gotten the gist of that, at least. And it was going to be just enough to make me have a full blown headache once I got home tonight unless I got some help with it.

“You should ask Marcy,” I told Kat quickly before she could start quizzing me about it. I didn’t need her to catch me in a lie right now. “She’s the best at chemistry out of all of us.” That wasn’t a lie at least.

However I had told her that with more of an agenda than just trying to get her help from Marcy – although with the way I’d phrased that, it made me feel rather guilty. Before the bell had even rung to signal the end of chemistry class and beginning of our break, I’d realized that my lunch period was officially lost since I’d be spending it in class with my teacher begging for help. And I was hoping – probably rather selfishly – that I would be able to avoid Kat coming with me.

It had been nice of her, sticking beside me when Marcy and I hadn’t been speaking – though she hadn’t know what we’d fought about – but her incessant talking about school and worrying about grades, reference letters and volunteering was doing nothing but setting my teeth on edge.

All I seemed to be hearing lately was what I needed to do to get into Yale, and it was driving me mad. I had perfect grades, my mom was more than willing to pay for every cent to send me to the ivy league school, I’d already gotten reference letters and had more volunteer hours than anyone could hope for without doing it for a full time job. I’d never been nervous about school before, I’d known what I had to do once I graduated high school. I knew what was waiting for me.

But lately it was the last thing I wanted to think about, let alone talk about. And of course it was the only thing on everyone else’s tongues.

Even as I thought about it now I felt my stomach was turning.

I didn’t understand it, honestly.

Running a hand over my face wearily, I clenched my mouth to hold back another yawn, happening to glance to the side only to find that Kat’s mouth was moving. Blinking, I interrupted the words I hadn’t even heard, asking, “Sorry?”

Kat sent me a look that was annoyed, but quickly turned to slightly concerned as she looked at me. “Are you feeling alright, Allison?”

“Yeah, perfect,” I replied, confused, “Why?”

“You’re looking pale,” she observed, a slight crease in her forehead as she looked me over. “I mean, paler than normal.”

Oh, well, thanks, I thought sarcastically with a mental roll of my eyes, that’s just what everyone wanted to hear. “I didn’t sleep well last night,” I told her honestly, but ruined that by tacking on a fib, “Just thinking about schools.”

What a little liar I was becoming these days.

Last night the reason I’d been up almost the entire night was because I’d found a band named The Doors, and there was no point me even putting up a fight. The moment I’d listened to that first song I’d staggered over named People Are Strange that battle had been lost. I’d been enthralled by it.