Mercury

4°C

I stare at my plate on my tray. This is not happening. The last time I remembered, the cafeteria definitely served much better food than this. I cringe at the greasiness of the food. You can literally spot a layer of oil coating the fries and the lettuce.

“We’re supposed to eat this?” I say as Mila and I set our trays down on a table. Mila shrugs but I can tell she’s very bothered by the quality of the cafeteria food.

I use my fork and poke the food, expecting to see something jumping out. Something brown and has feelers. I shudder at the thought of it.

“How can you be so relaxed? You got pelted with eggs on stage, August,” Mila suddenly brings up the topic of, what I’d like to call, the egg-rain.

I shrug, “It was kind of shocking, and kind of sad, but like I’ve said a million times, I’m used to her antics.” I take a bite of my fries and surprisingly, it doesn’t taste that bad.

Mila grabs my shoulders and turns me so that she can see my face clearly. “No one will be okay being accused with killing the person he or she loves, okay? And I know you’re so damn affected by it, but I don’t know why you’re trying to hide and pretend you’re okay.”

“Mila,” I say, my voice covered with tire, “I didn’t say I was okay.”

She looks at me carefully. “O-kay, so are you okay?”

“I’m not,” I pause, “but I have to be.”

Mila opens her mouth to retort, but is interrupted by someone forcibly throwing his tray down on our table, and comfortably seating himself next to me.

“’Sup,” Troy says, like he’s been friends with us forever.

“H-hey,” I say, recovering from my mild shock.

Mila gives me her best who-is-this look and I reply, “The guy who helped me during the egg-rain,” as I put more fries into my mouth.

Troy introduces himself and stretches his hand out. Mila scratches the back of her head as she awkwardly shakes his hand. “Mila,” she says, and Troy nods.

“Well,” Mila starts after a moment of silence, “I guess I’ll excuse myself to sit with my underlings then. See ya later, August.”

I nod and laugh silently and she leaves after giving me a look that says, “I can’t stand the awkwardness.”

I watch as Troy inhales a mouthful of lettuce. “What?” he asks.

“Nothing. Why are you here?”

“Just to check out on my friend,” he says matter-of-factly.

What a pleasant surprise, so we’re friends now? Not many people here still want to be friends with me, after I got publicly labelled as a murderer by Kayla.

“You’re okay, right? Not, um, cutting?” Troy asks tentatively.

“Nope.”

“Good, because I cannot emphasize more on how useless cutting-”

“Yes, yes, I got it,” I interrupt with a slight smile.

He shuts his mouth and takes in a deep breath. “So, you wanna talk about it?”

“About what?”

“You know, Sam and all that.”

I stop eating. Oh god, is there a place I can be at without even having someone asking me about Sam? I’m really, really tired from all this mental stress. I don’t need everyone to remind me about Sam’s tragedy. I can’t possibly forget the death of my boyfriend, can I?