High Life | ✔️

36

THE SKY WAS gloomy this morning. Like dishwater. Like godsend omens.

It'd been a week since I had a proper conversation with Jaxon. Or Elias for the matter. We'd just been busy with our respective lives - tests were being dished out in abundance, I was studying to retake my SATs which I'd bombed last fall, so on and so forth.

If it wasn't for the bedside clock, I wouldn't have realized that I'd slept through all my classes today. I jumped up, mildly panicked at the 17:08 that blinked on the digital clock. I gulped down the glass of water on my bed-stand. It was like shoving a palpating heart into a corpse, forcing it to function.

Plucking my phone from beneath my pillow, a smile found itself upon my face. There was a single text from Jaxon.

> Wanna revise calc tonight?

Without thinking, I sent a quick affirmative reply. We haven't been having tutoring sessions in a while now, like I said, we've both been busy. A stressful time of the year. I sighed to myself, revelling in the solitude that I'd been basking in for a week.

✖️✖️✖️

"Why did you want to know if I had a girlfriend before?" Jaxon asked halfway through our Calculus tutoring session.

Though 'Calculus tutoring' would be a far cry from what we've been doing.

Nothing inappropriate, in case you wonder. Just talking, but still, courageous deviation on my end, considering the Calculus test next week. Tonight, we were occupying the tables outside the library, the ones that exist so noisy students who get kicked out could come here to chill.

"You were right when you said relationships filled our emotional and sexual needs, but you forgot a third benefit." I told him, snapping my Calculus textbook shut.

He casted me a disapproving glance, extending his hands to flip the book open again.

"Why?" I asked, in reference to the reopening of a textbook we weren't studying to begin with. "We're not even studying. We both know you'd rather look at my face."

I watched, amused, as the tips of his ears flushed red.

"Jaxon," I started. "Relationships impart life lessons upon us. Where else do we learn loyalty? Responsibility? Patience? Regard for another's emotions?"

He mumbled something under his breath, something that became lost on my ears. I cupped a hand over my ear, asking him to repeat himself in a more coherent voice.

"I said I'm scared of how well you read people." He was staring at his own fingers.

At which point, my phone chimed with a text. From Elias. I flipped my phone over, not wanting to deal with Elias at this moment.

But Jaxon, who was desperate to change the topic, perked up at the opportunity. "Who was it?"

"No one."

He grabbed my phone before I could stop him. Flipping it over and staring at the screen, I watched as his eyebrows began to furrow. I could only blink as he continued to read. After five seconds of watching his eyebrows sink lower and lower, there was decidedly something of value in Elias's text.

Before I could snatch the phone back, Jaxon placed it before me. Wordlessly. Ominously.

The atmosphere was tense now. Buzzing with a newly present foreboding. For several moments, my eyes merely focused on the four words that Elias had sent.

> Thank you, and goodbye

"What does he mean?"

"I have no idea." I responded softly.

With shaky hands, I unlocked my phone to send him a swift reply, enquiring as to what he meant by the cryptic text.

A minute came and went with no response.

"This is bad," I finally said.

"What's happening, Andrea?"

"Bad."

Jaxon was the first to react, reaching for his own phone and dialing for Elias. I watched, motionless, at the implication of unanswered phone calls. He called a few more numbers afterwards, before jumping up and sprinting in the direction of the male hostels. I don't know. I lost track as Elias's text echoed in my mind.

Thank you and goodbye.

This meant bad things. Bad, bad things. My stomach sinking to the fucking ground kind of bad. Static filled my ears, and before long, my vision too.

I registered the paramedics before I noticed the exodus of students in sleepwear from respective hostels. I ignored the way my phone's screen flashed with Jaxon's name. Kind of knew what Jaxon was going to say. I don't know, I didn't really want to hear it.