Pangaia: Agendas (Year One: Fall)

Chapter Fifteen - Cheyenne

Tuesday through Thursday flew by. Cheyenne's days were packed with enough to keep her distracted from thinking about her parents, and especially Denver. After all, that was what Saturday was for when she saw Dr. Warhol. The homework load was heavy on reading for the weekend, and that was all she planned to do.

Curling up in her bed with a book of any kind felt appealing. She needed the time to digest the past week. The twins had brought up the idea of going into town again for some light shopping or maybe a movie. It sounded like fun, but she was in desperate need of some time alone. Her new active social life was beginning to wear her thin.

Friday was supposed to be a perfect day. She had her usual classes of course, but the weekend was near and that gave her fuel for the day.

She should have known something was up when she had seen Denver at the Old Union. After all, it couldn't have been a coincidence he randomly showed up there, nor should it have been a coincidence Anj knew so much about what happened. Denver fit in well with the profile of students attending Pangaia.

For some reason, she hadn't made the connection. She had seen him again, and why Anj had dreamed of their encounter, was because Denver attended the school. Naturally, when he strolled into her third hour chemistry class, she was more than a little shocked.

Denver walked into the classroom fifteen minutes late. The teacher didn't seem to notice or care. No doubt that was a regular occurrence for him, and that was assuming he even bothered to show up at all. She hadn't seen him on Tuesday or Wednesday when she had the same class earlier in the week. Skipping was no doubt frequent.

He wore dark, thick, sunglasses over his eyes. His clothing looked like he had literally rolled out of bed. The blue vintage t-shirt he wore was half tucked into his jeans lazily, and he hadn't even bothered to tie the laces on his sneakers. His hair hadn't been combed and he had about a day's worth of scruffy facial hair. Just as no one in the room acknowledged him, he did the same. He walked to the back of the row closest to the door and sat down—directly behind Cheyenne.

Staying focused was next to impossible for her now. Thankfully Halyn was in class with her, so she had someone she could look to for support.

Cheyenne scribbled a quick note to her roommate. "He's here." Quickly, she passed it to Halyn who sat next to her.

The girl glanced up from her note taking and opened up the twice folded square of paper. She read over the words a few times and then stared between Cheyenne and Denver before writing her response and quickly tossing it back.

"No way, that's him? If he wasn't such a jerk, I'd say he's kind of cute. Are you going to say something? You should kick his butt!"

"What am I supposed to say to him? I don't think there's anything I can say. I doubt he even recognizes me. He isn't paying attention. Not like he was when I last saw him. I don't want to tell anyone else. If this got out, I don't know what people would do."

"What if he gave you rabies or something?"

"I don't have rabies!" Though the thought had crossed Cheyenne's mind several times. She hoped any symptoms of such a disease would have made themselves known by now.

"You never know. Maybe they're weird vampire rabies, or it could be an STD or something."

"I didn't have sex with him!"

"You can still get AIDS without sex."

"Maybe, but I don't think it's an STD." Was that why her wounds weren't healing over? Had he given her some kind of rare blood-borne disease? Anything could be possible.