Selected (Book 2 of the Immune Series)

Letters

I spend the rest of the day on the couch, an icepack on each leg. Lexi is laying on the floor, spread eagle, eyes closed half-asleep.

"You can sit up here," I mumble, rearranging the ice packs.

"The floor makes me feel dead," she replies, not bothering to open her eyes.

I watch her breathe, the slow rise and fall of her chest. Her face is still dirty from the rain, hair still half wet. The heavy rain drops beat on the roof of the house, our own personal drum beat.

"Did it have to rain?" she asks, turning to finally look at me. I shrug, tossing her an ice pack. She lays it over her forehead, sighing in relief. "I mean, it slowed me down."

"Lexi, you ran it faster than I did," I say, rolling my eyes.

"Well, I had to make up for that test I bombed."

"Well, it's over now," I snap, laying back in the pillows. She exhales loudly, and the room falls silent again.

The scores won't come out until Wednesday, meaning we have to wait to know. I knew the test was going to be bad, but I never anticipated the wait. Replaying the test questions in my head, I start to second guess myself.

"Lexi?"

She makes a little sound, not opening her eyes.

"What year did World War Two start?"

That gets her attention. She snaps her head towards me, the ice pack falling off.

"Um," she mumbles, glancing at the ceiling, "1914?"

"I thought that was World War One..."

My voice trails off.

"Ohmygod," Lexi groans, "You're freakin' right. World War Two was in 1939. I failed."

I sigh in frustration as she begins to hyperventilate, covering her face with both hands.

"Calm down," I say, getting up and kneeling in the floor next to her. She looks through her fingers at me, eyes wide. I can see the different shades of brown in her irises, the rise and fall of the freckles on her cheeks.

"Shut up, Q," she moans, closing her eyes again. I sit back on my feet.

"You can't worry about it," I whisper, poking her leg, "It's over. You can't redo it."

Her breathing slows, and she finally nods.

"I'm going to, um, go home," she stammers, sitting up suddenly. I scoot back so she won't hit me.

"Why?"

"To get naked and think about all my mistakes in life," she says, wiggling her eyebrows at me. I scrunch my nose up at her, recoiling.

"Too much."

She chuckles, pushing herself up off the floor.

"See you Wednesday, Q," she says, waving from the doorframe.

Once she's gone, though, the silence in the house is unnerving. The rain still beats down on the roof; the wind shakes our window panes. I can hear the clock in the kitchen ticking, see the door rattle. Outside, the waves are shattering onto the sand; the sound that resembles crunching glass filling the air.

I sit back up on the couch, pulling my tablet off the side table. I scroll through until I find something to read, deciding on a medical journal about the effects of smoke inhalation on the human body. It eventually puts me to sleep, sixty two pages in.