|Damage||cth| -au- DISCONTINUED

|Twenty-Three|

Aria:

Luke was ignoring me and seeing Calum passed out in the middle of the hallway. A crowd began to appear. Michael disappeared through the stamped. I hoped he was getting a teacher or someone that could help. Calum was looking pale and before I knew it, Calum and I were at the centre of a giant crowd of people. I looked for Ashton's face for some guidance but he went after Michael. I knelt down and stared at him.

As morbid as it sounded, he looked better the way he was. It was the only time that I didn't see him frowning or laughing at the pain of others.

He was relaxed.

It didn't last long.

His mouth began to foam and his limbs started to jerk. If I wasn't mistaken, he was having a seizure. My mum always prepared me for these situations. Especially because she was a nurse. She wanted to make sure that I could be the special person in the room that knew what to do.

'Remember Aria. If their too heavy, you grab the shoulder closest to you and you move them on their side.'

I had a hold of Calum's shoulder and rolled him onto his side.

'You do this in case they throw up. They won't choke on their own vomit. Then...if you can, find something you can use to wipe their mouth.'

Calum began intensely vomiting. I looked around. My backpack was far from me and yet people continued to watch.

Typical of people from this school, they found it funny to film things for their Snapchat stories instead of actually being useful.

Maybe, try to grab a teacher.

I pulled down on my sleeve and as much as I didn't want to, I wiped his mouth with my sleeve. The murmuring of students grew louder as the principal and the school nurse came behind him rolling a gurney. The nurse tapped my back and I moved aside.

"Do you know what happened?"

"No, I just got here and he fainted."

"I can take it from here. You did well. I work with your mother," he announced. "You look a lot like her."

Our principal, Mr. Garrett, hushed the crowd and pulled his miniature megaphone that he always kept his back pocket.

"Don't you guys have classes to be in," he glances at his watch. "Lessons started fourteen minutes ago." No one moves and continues to stare at him. "Now!" he yells. "Except for you...Ariana."

I didn't even notice the bell. Two other gentlemen came pushing through the herds of kids and lifted Calum onto the gurney. I watched him as he was covered in vomit and watched the paramedics attach machines to his body.

I knew he was going to be fine but I couldn't help but worry. In primary school, things like this would happen all the time. I remember being in classes with him and he would go from extremely energetic to really sleepy. I remembered seeing him suddenly fall asleep during lectures and the teachers taking him back to the infirmary.

Looking back, it makes sense that he's narcoleptic. Other kids would fall asleep and they were never taken out of class just for being a little tired. A majority of the time, they were just left alone. And maybe this time was different than all those other times because Calum had a seizure or maybe I cared too much.

As everyone left the hallway, Mr. Garrett and I were left by ourselves. Mr. Garrett was actually my Uncle. He was American. I was half-American if we were being technical. That's where my actual father came from. New York City to be exact. No one at school knew and we decided to keep it that way. He came from my dad's side and married into the family through my aunt. He was the only person on my dad's side of the family that I still kept in contact with. I considered him like a dad. Recently, we hadn't really spoken. It wasn't for any particular reason. I guess just busy schedules.