Blue Flower

Chapter 18

-Chester-

The weight left by Andrew's hand still lingered on my shoulder. I touched that part because I didn't want the feeling to fade away. I closed my eyes and smiled, while I pressed my hand harder to my shoulder. I loved the feeling that it gave me, and as I opened my eyes, I felt the cold wind brush my cheeks. I took the steps out of the football field and enjoyed my day right.

School festival was over. The place was back to its normal atmosphere. Its cleanliness and quietness never failed to soothe me. I snatched a few coins from my pocket and slid it in the narrow slot of the vending machine. I waited for a minute, and it ejected a cold can of coffee.

“Feeling tired?” a girl's voice asked beside me.

I opened the lid of the can and took a little amount of coffee.

“Yeah. I was busy drafting out my thoughts last night.”

I yawned and tried to feel the coffee's taste in my tongue. It was good.

“Well, that's what you are, right? Come to think of it, my sister could never do that. Staying up all night and doing something? Phew! How I wish.”

For an instant, I had an inkling that this girl knew me well. I paused for a while to really think of who she was, and what she's doing here.

“Hey, are you alright? Chester?”

I looked at the person speaking beside me. Her voice, thought it wasn't too loud, was deafening my ears.

“Hera?”

“Yeah. It's me.” she said and winked.

I froze in my place as i scrutinized my eyes up and down her image. I thought it was a stranger, but it was one of my many acquaintance.

"Why are you here?"

She sighed, and then smiled at me.

"I got expelled at my school in Springville. You know the trouble I' m in right? I was proven guilty."

I laughed out loud. Hera was a certified troublemaker, and now she was beside me, starting her life from scratch.

"You deserve it."

"Shut up."

I took another sip of my cold coffee. I was about to walk away when she grabbed my arm.

"What?" I asked.

"It's improper for you to leave me here. Can you show jme maround the whole place? I'm a new student you know."

I rolled my eyes.

"Okay." I said and dragged her with me.

The whole morning period was my free time. I walked with Hera around the school. From the vending machine, we paced down the hallway and pointed each and every classroom for her information's sake.

"Wanna go to the library?"

She hesitated before she answered me.

"Sure."

The vast expanse of our library overwhelmed Hera's eyes. The whole place was painted with white, from the walls and up to the ceiling. The cold air conditioning unit blared from every counter, making the students feel so comfortable and sleepy. Its size was fifteen times larger than our house.

"Wow. This is really cool." she said.

"Let's go."

I led her to a shelf of books, and we browsed through there like crazy. I sat down on the floor after I found one.

"You're really a bookworm." she said as sheran her fingers on those hardbound books. I just smiled, then got up to find a seat for the both of us. She followed me shortly after finding one good book to read. I seated across a white table beside the window, to see the swirling brown leaves fall outside as they dance side by side with the wind. Perfect. Just perfect.

"Hey, are you done with that?" she asked, referring to the book that I was reading.

"I'm almost halfway." I answered.

She kept silent, and did what she was supposed to do. I finished the can of coffee and continued to read. The caffeine made my eyelids close when I expected the opposite one. I slowly closed my eyes and drifted into a calm sleep.

I felt something tickle my nose. The tingling sensation motivated me not to wake up.