Embellished With Lies

Chapter Five

"Remember, class," Mr. Martin exclaimed as the bell rang. "You have a test tomorrow. You need to study!"

"Nobody heard you," I pointed out as I walked out of the room.

When I entered the cafeteria, I felt different; like something was off. I had no idea what it was, either, and that was what made it even more eerie.

I grabbed a deep blue lunch tray and gathered my food, paid for it, and sat down next to the guys.

With my fork in hand, I poked at the mashed potatoes and tried to guess what was in the gravy and meat sauce. Beef? Pork? Dog, maybe?

When I took a bite, I figured out what was off.

It was my stomach.

I dashed into the bathroom and hurled into one of the porcelain toilets.

Gross, but true.

Leo followed me in the room.

"Hey," he called, "Kelton, you okay?"

I rolled my eyes and came out of the stall as soon as I was through. "Yeah, bro, I'm fine."

"Man," he started, "you don't look so good."

"What do you mean?" I asked in a snarky, sarcastic tone.

"It means that you're really pale. And you just puked your guts out, if you can't remember. You should, it was only a minute ago."

I resisted the urge to smack him up the head for being an idiot and washed my hands instead. "No duh. Do you have any mint gum?"

Leo dug through the pockets of his jeans and gave me a stick of gum covered in a shiny silver wrapper. "Yeah, here."

"Thanks." I popped it into my mouth. It was spearmint flavored; it worked for me.

Leo leaned back against the bright white, subway-tiled wall. "Are you going to be okay?"

"What do you mean?" I countered him with another question.

"Well, we have an extra hard practice tonight," he mentioned. "Coach makes everyone participate in these, whether they're sick or not."

I could handle Coach. "I'm fine."

"Just go home," he told me. "Whenever you get sick, you get sicker and sicker. And you whine, and you don't get any work done. Just ask the nurse to let you go home."

I shrugged. "The guys won't be mad at me for skipping practice?"

He shook his head. "No, they'll understand. Just go home."

I nodded. "Alright, fine. I'll be back tomorrow, though."

"You don't have to, if you're still sick."

"No, I have to be back tomorrow. Mr. Martin has a test."

Leo raised his eyebrows. "Seriously? Since when did you care about tests?"

I laughed lightly. "I don't. I'm just not missing practice two days in a row. There's no way that that's going to happen."

---

I went to the nurse, and she was hesitant, but she allowed me to leave school and go home.

Thank goodness.

I called Mom to let her know that I wasn't going to be able to pick up Tessa after school, and she told me to be careful driving home. She didn't want to clean out my car.

"You wouldn't have to," I pointed out.

"Would you do it?" she asked.

"No."