Head Above Water

6. Pain Reliever

I successfully avoided Malcolm the following week or so, which had actually benefitted my schoolwork. I hadn’t realized how much my thoughts had begun to drift to him until I forced them from my head. I had no idea why he kept worming his way into my mind. Sure, I found him interesting, but he was seriously damaged goods. Multiple personalities? That wasn’t healthy.

I begrudgingly admitted to myself that I was majorly attracted to him and decided that’s what I would blame for my lack of focus. However, a pretty face did not make up for a broken mind.

Thus, my decision to do the brave and noble thing—avoid him. We may have had four classes together, but it was surprisingly easy to ignore him there. We sat on different sides of the classroom in Econ, didn’t have the opportunity to talk in Dance, and had been given a ton of work to keep us busy in Geology and Creative Writing.

Who am I kidding? It’d been nearly impossible to ignore him. Even if I didn’t actually look at him, I could still feel him nearby. I was hyper-aware of everything he did or every time his eyes rested on me. For someone I’d only met a couple weeks ago and barely knew, he was already a ridiculously central part of my daily life.

Connor kept begging me to join them for lunch, but I brushed him off, offering excuses and apologies. I admit I was being a bit melodramatic. Rick had essentially just asked me to mind my own business. Really, I couldn’t fault someone for wanting their privacy, especially since I was so protective of my own, but I just couldn’t shake it off. In essence, I’d felt rejected.

The real bummer about avoiding your friends though, was that the days tended to drag on, and since mine were abnormally long already, it was quickly becoming rather torturous.

Thankfully today was over and it was Thursday, so the week was almost over. I had called my swim coach to let him know I’d be skipping practice this evening. I usually didn’t do that, but my brain had decided to throw a rave in my skull and I couldn’t bring myself to leave the choir room yet, let alone face practice.

Mr. Taylor had given me free reign of the choir room. We were quickly becoming good friends and I picked on him like an older brother—outside of class time, of course. I had turned the lights off earlier since it was hurting my eyes, though I left the backstage doors open so I could see by the light of the hall. My ears began ringing and I curled into a ball on the risers with a whimper.

I felt a disturbance in the air around me, but I disregarded it in my pain. “Gemma,” a voice breathed so softly I thought I’d imagined it. I felt cool, smooth fingers graze my cheek and opened my eyes to find Malcolm crouching over me, his face creased with concern. His eyes glowed faintly in the dark room. I’d always figuratively thought of his eyes as glowing before, but I hadn’t realized they actually did.

“Gem, are you hurt?” he asked me, still whispering. His eyes travelled over my body looking for signs of an injury.

I sat up slowly and shook my head gingerly. “No.” He waited for me to elaborate and I noticed he was resting his hands on my thighs. Thankfully my headache demanded priority over other bodily sensations; otherwise I’m sure my heart would’ve been pounding out of my chest at this point.

“I get headaches sometimes,” I explained. “I just have to let them pass.”

I saw Malcolm’s eyebrows draw together in a frown before I closed my eyes again and dropped my head into my hands. “You don’t have to stay, Mal,” I laughed humorlessly. “This is normal for me.”

“Look at me, Gem,” he put a finger gently under my chin to tilt my face up to his. My eyes were squeezed half shut from the pain, but I tried to do as he asked. He held my gaze firmly as he reached out to rest his hands lightly on either side of my head then he began to massage my temples with his thumbs ever so gently.