Shadow Wood

Chapter Fourteen

Ellie was acting a bit strange when I walked through the door, and by strange, I meant she was on her phone, fingers dancing wildly over the screen. She put her phone away as she noticed me approaching and had that guilty look about her. I was in no position to ask questions; I was not in the mood to talk. I couldn't get the scene of Petr suffering out of my head.

There was a lot in this world I didn't know about, some of it being too otherworldy to think about or accept, without hesitation. This was one of those things. It was almost laughable at how easily I accepted that Petr could tell me about visions of the past and the future. I wasn't sure how far I could accept that. What lengths did seeing the future have? Most likely, beyond infinity, and that wasn't something I was sure I could ever fully wrap my head around.

Ellie, on the other hand, either decided to ignore my dark mood, or stick to the with facts with me.

"Petr is on his way home now. Seems everything is alright."

I was a bad friend for having left the room like I did. I needed to distance myself from everyone, to think, to reevaluate, to get my head together. The thing was, I wasn't sure what questions I needed to ask or how to phrase them without sounding like an escaped mental patient.

"How do you know?" Her comment still caught me off guard. I refused to look at her, and decided to look down at my notebook instead. I was half listening and half reading my notes.

"I'm friends with Mason." Her voice was casual enough, not in the, I-think-you-should-already-know kind of way.

That brought me up short, though I couldn't tell if I was surprised or not. I didn't think anything would surprise me anymore. Not for a while that is. I've reached the capacity of surprise limits for the day. Maybe even the whole year; perhaps the rest of the decade.

"Mason already took care of things for lunch." She said. "He wanted me to tell you that."

"How close are you two?" I asked instead.

"Pretty close." But she didn't go into detail.

"He also wanted me to tell you that he's keeping his word. You better go along with it, Alex, because he's skipping practice tonight for you. I don't think any guy in his position as captain of the lacrosse team would do what he's doing for you." That was an awful lot of information being passed along, especially for Ellie. What did she mean, skipping practice? Was he taking me out tonight? She still had more to say. 

"And believe me, this coach is much worse than the coach on that Teen Wolf show. So you better accept."

So referring to herself as being pretty close with Mason was putting it lightly. That much was clear.

As lunch period arrived, I was on autopilot as I headed for the courtyard. Ellie made a grab for me and led me towards the lunch line. That's when I remembered the deal Mason apparently had set up for me. Did that mean he already paid for my lunch? I should have felt flattered, but my brain wouldn't settle enough for me to process his act of kindness. I know I should graciously accept without question, but there will always be a lingering doubt at the back of my mind.

It reminded me of the times my dad's family would visit from Colombia, always unannounced, and showered me and my siblings with gifts. But there was always a price. Sometimes my aunts would say something degrading about one of my siblings, questioning our upbringing while sneering at the informal way by which we carried ourselves. We were descended from Spanish nobility, yet were polluted by having the mixed blood of a common foreigner.