The Exchange

Chapter 7

There was still a week until school began, and to prolong it, I woke up at seven to meet Arti and Blaine at Lady's Cafe for breakfast.

I was certain I didn't have to rush, because we would be lucky if Arti even bothered to wake up for our breakfast at all, there was usually a voice in the back of my mind screaming that I needed to get everything done as efficiently as possible, so I listened to that and scrambled to get ready.

As I walked out the door, Viktor smiled and wished me a good morning. I nodded in response and replied with the obligatory good morning.

Blaine had gotten us a table by the time I had arrived five minutes before our scheduled meeting time, and he sat there on his phone with an iced coffee in his other hand. Without looking up, he took a sip.

"Is Arti coming?" I asked.

He turned at my voice, then shrugged. "I figured you would know with the female connection."

"What?"

He smiled. "I've noticed that girls have this sixth sense that tells them all sorts of stuff without them even having to talk."

"I'm not sure—"

"And I have two hypotheses as to why this may be. One, as females, you have less important things to talk about, such as other females, potential mates—"

"What the fuck are you talking about, Blaine?"

"—how good the other looks, plots to overthrow the government, et cetera. So you can't waste time discussing location, current thoughts, or other useful information. Or, the more plausible option, you're reptiles."

I took off my glasses and wiped them with my shirt. "Jesus, what goes on in your brain?"

"What? I thought you'd like my insight on womanity," he said, crossing his arms.

I laughed and sat down in the chair beside him. He held out his coffee to me, and I took a sip.

"Not bad," I said, taking note to get one for myself when Arti hopefully arrived.

Blaine set the coffee back down on the table.

"And anyway, you're saying that all girls do is talk about other people, when you're the biggest gossip I know," I continued.

"You wanna know who's actually a huge gossip? Inez Garcia. She knows something about everyone."

The king of the gossips was at it again. But I couldn't resist asking, "What has she told you?"

"She said you got kicked out of preschool for stabbing a kid with a colored pencil," he replied.

My eyes widened. "How does she know that?"

"Wait, what?" He laughed.

"Look, if Jimmy didn't want a colored pencil jammed in his arm, he shouldn't have tried to kiss me."

"Fair enough."

Since then, I had sworn off violence, and instead, I preferred to brutally murder my enemies with harsh words and aggressive stares.

I checked my phone. It was 8:05, and there were no texts from Arti saying that she was on the way, or any explanation as to why she was already five minutes late. When Arti felt like coming, she showed up on time, but when she didn't, she never came at all.

I sighed. "Maybe Arti's still sleeping. I guess we were asking a lot of her to wake up this early."

"She told me she would be here at least ten minutes early. God, she's such a liar." He ran his hand through his hair, then rubbed his eyes.