To Tear them Apart

8

"Sooo... How was your date?" Aer asks at the end of the day. I groan at them and flip them off. "What? You ditched us at lunch to be with her and her friends, and you expect me not to think you were on a date."
"Aer. She said it wasn't a date, so let it go." Khaleesi tells them, giving Aer a look. Aer puts up their hands in defense.
"But in all curiosity, how was it? Did you have fun? Is she nice? Can she hang out with us? What did you talk about? Are you two dating yet?" Maxine asks in rapid fire.

"What is this? Twenty questions?" I ask giving her a look. Maxine nods and puts her head in her hands looking at me expectantly. Khalessi and Aer are giving me the same look.

"Fiine," I groan. "It was nice. We just talked about whatever. She can hang out with Khaleesi. Not with you two."

"What? Why?" Aer and Maxine complain.

"Because you two are idiots," I say. "I can't trust that you two aren't going to do something stupid. I want her to like me and you two are just going to fuck that up for me."

"So you do have a crush on her?" Khaleesi teasing. My cheeks burn bright red and I look down.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I mutter, not looking at any of my friends. I could tell none of them believed me, but I wasn't going to let them think they were right. "I'm going to the Med wing tonight to visit Liam. Does anyone want to come?"

"I would but I have homework." Aer groans. "Tell him 'Hi' and 'I love you.'"

I nod and look at Maxine and Khaleesi. They shake their heads no and I nod my head.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I knock on Liam's door in the medical wing and my father opens the door. We give each other a hug and I walk inside. Liam looks away from the tv and smiles when he sees me.

"Hey! You just missed Amias. He had some studying to do so he couldn't stay long." Liam tells me. "Mom went to get some drinks from the dining hall." I nod and lean down to give him a hug and tears start forming in my eyes. I blink them away and break from the hug.

"How are you feeling? Any better than last night?" I ask him and I sit on the chair next to his bed. Liam sighs a little, but nods.

"Physically, I feel fine. My body is a little sore from when I fell. Mentally, I'm still a little worried about the vision I saw. Did you know that nobody has had a vision like that since... What was the year you said, dad?"

"June 1980," Dad says. "That caused a huge thing over in England. Thank goodness your grandfather didn't have to go over there and help them. Who knows you guys would be here if he did."

"Wow. What was the vision?"

"It was more of a prophecy." Liam says

"What's the difference?" I ask him.

"Most visions are prophecies, but not all prophecies are visions. Sometimes a vision is something that's just gonna happen tomorrow, and only affects the person seeing the vision," Liam explains.

"Ok so like on the first day, and you saw that August and Mariana were going to destroy your stuff."

"Yeah. That vision wasn't necessarily a prophecy, it was just something I could see a few seconds of in the future."

"So, how do you know when it's a full fledged prophecy?"

"You would really just kinda know the difference. Like I can control when I see visions, but I can't control when I see prophecies."

"So, a prophecy is a vision you can't control when or where you'll see it."

"Pretty much," Liam nods at me and I sigh and put my hands in my head.

"My brain hurts." Liam and our father laugh.

"Do you have any idea of who the girl you didn't recognize yet?" I ask him. It's Liam's turn to sigh and put his hands on his face.

"No. I wish I did though. It's really weird because I feel like I should know who she is, but I don't."

"I only ask because I might know who it is, but I'm not 100% certain." I told him. Liam takes his hands off his face and my father looks at us. "I think it's a girl that is in one of my classes. We're becoming friends and she really looks like the girl you saw in your vision."

"How can you know for sure? Have you said anything to her?" Liam asks me.

"I don't know for sure and no I haven't said anything to her. I was going to say something to her today, but I chickened out. I didn't want to scare her away from being my friend."

"Well, it's probably best that you don't say anything to her about it right now," My father says. "If she is the one in the vision, we have to be absolutely sure she is the one." Liam agrees with our father and mother walks in with a few drinks in her hands and a smile on her face. She looks at me and her smile becomes even bigger. I smile back at her, and get up from my seat to help her with the drinks. She handed one to Father and I handed the other to Liam. She sat in the seat I was just in and sighed again.

"So. Phoenix. How's school going?" Mother asks as she adjusts herself.

"Well, it's going good, but I'm here to talk about myself. I just wanted to see how Liam was doing."

"Of course. What were we talking about before I interrupted?"

"We were just talking about Liam's vision." Father says to her. Mother gives us an irritated look.

"I thought I said not to talk about that vision any more."

"Mom. We have to talk about it at some point. All three of your kids are in the vision. My friends are in that vision. We need to talk about what he saw and try to figure out who this woman is," I try to explain to her.

"I understand that, but right now we should be focused on Liam getting better."

"Kristina. Liam is okay. The doctor told us that this morning.

"Then why is he still in here? Huh?

"They just wanted to make sure that everything is all clear." Liam says calmly, taking her hand in his. She shakes her head again, but doesn't say anything.

"I'm going to go to the library tomorrow, and see if I can find anything that could help us with who we might be dealing with." I say suddenly. My parents and Liam look at me a little surprised. "What? I might be able to figure out if someone like this has happened here. I know there was a huge thing in England in the 90's, but who knows we could be dealing with something similar."

"Phoenix. I'm happy you want to figure this out, but at least wait until I get out of here to do that, yeah? I want to help you."

"Well, text me when you get out of here. I want to look after classes. I might drag Maxine with me to help."

"Why Maxine?"

"She's good at researching things for a few hours. She might not seem like it but that's kind of her thing."

"Are you sure that you guys should be doing this? I mean this could happen in 10, 20 years." Mother says

"It could also happen tomorrow. We need to see if we find something soon before this actually happens." I told her. I know she doesn't like it by the look on her face, but doesn't argue. We move away from the topic and talk about everything and anything until I decide I should go back to my dorm. I deliver Aer's message to Liam, then walk out of the room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I walk into my dorm and my friends look up.

"How's Liam?" Khaleesi asks.

"He's good. He's probably leaving tomorrow."

"Well, that's good. Was Amias there?"

"Not when I was. He apparently left just before I got there."

"Did you send him my love?" Aer asks. I smile and roll my eyes at them.

"Yes. He loves you too." I tell them. I also laughed out, "He also told me to give you a kiss, but I'm not doing that because of cooties." They roll their eyes and stick out their tongue at me, and I laugh harder.