Time and Earth: A Doctor Who and PJO Crossover (Bk 1)

Chapter 5: Go the Distance

Chapter 5: Go the Distance

The class applauded as Daniel and I finished our presentation. It had gone well, as expected, with Ms Oswald making impressed expressions and scribbling down notes on her papers.

She hadn't mentioned anything about yesterday's conversation before class, and I hoped she never did. The memory of what I'd done was a price tag noosed around my neck.

I stood with my spine pressed firmly against the whiteboard, each vertebrae complying with the planar shape.

Daniel already made a beeline for his desk, not even bothering to wait for me to get my USB. He'd been like that this morning too, and as much as it pained me to say, Will wasn't exempt from that either.

Shaking the memories out, I made my way to Ms. Oswald's desk to grab the memory stick. And just like Daniel yesterday, fell over my own feet.

Ms. Oswald gasped as the applause died down, my knees scraping against the bright blue carpet, a completely different shade to the sky outside. A storm was rolling in, with no sun to be seen for miles.

It was days like these that I found it hard to believe there was a world outside England. A world which had heat that tested humanity's limits, where the horizon could be entirely composed of ruby sand and the ocean could be so utterly, unbelievably blue. So different to the bland shade which stared at me as I laid on my stomach.

Ms. Oswald rushed over, her heeled boots pitter-pattering on the carpet, but I already heaved my body up. Weakness was not something to be taken lightly here, especially when people wove sagas from one display of it.

With her desk so close, I only needed to kneel to grab the USB, my knees bending over the bump in the carpet which had tripped me, which had almost tripped Ms. Oswald many times in class. I should have known I was close to it, should have been more observant. My knees clicked over the bump when I reached for the memory stick.

Standing up, I made sure to step on the cursed fold, apologized to Ms. Oswald, and walked back to my desk.

Daniel didn't ask me if I was ok. I smiled at him, in a silent attempt to congratulate him on our work, but I got nothing. He didn't speak a word in the final five minutes of class.

I told myself it was fatigue that clouded his mind and put a damper on his usual talkative manner. And then he called to those three imbeciles behind us to him, and conversation erupted between them like a long-dormant volcano, ecstatic to be of use once more.

I didn't know why I was so shocked, not sure why my heart faltered in jealousy as I saw a smile break out on his face, something I had barely seen from him these past few days.

The sinking feeling in my being was deserved, I knew, after what I'd done yesterday.

Nodding to no one in particular, I turned back to my own desk, ignoring the stares I got from his friends, daring me to join them. I knew when to pick my battles, and the fight for him, against them, as I knew I'd never win.

The bell rung, and I never wanted Will's company more.

He didn't show up to recess.

Sitting on the bench was like floating on driftwood in an ocean at midnight. With the storm on the horizon, the frosty wind bit into me without mercy, the leaves of the tree behind me whistled in a primordial catcall.

Without Will I realized, I was alone. I spent the rest of recess in a toilet cubicle, hoping that Will and Daniel weren't part of a mass exodus. If there was one thing I didn't do well with, it was loneliness.