Lightless [Z.M. AU]

Chapter One

"So I was thinking about what you said the other day about the whole blackout thing you had on the roller coaster and I looked it up online." Liv leans against a chipping red painted locker next to mine.

"And?" I ask as I dig around for my AP Biology textbook.

"There's this thing called a 'Greyout' and people prone to passing out black out in rides because their blood rushes to their feet on the inverted loops." Liv seems pleased with her accomplishment of being able to be the solution behind my blackout on The Guardian Angel last night.

"Except I'm not prone to passing out and we never went through a loop. I blacked out at the bottom of the hill." I tug my textbook from the bottom of the stack and slam my locker shut before anything can fall out.

"Maybe you're just a special case then."

"Maybe." I murmur, noticing a now familiar face walk down the halls.

Zayn runs his hand through his hair, which looks longer now that's not up in a quiff. A pair of black frame glasses sit upon his nose and the dark brown eyes behind them avoid all eye contact with the girls whispering to each other about the mysterious new senior boy.

"I bet Gabe could set you two up." Liv says, eyeing me as I watch Zayn disappear around a corner at the end of the hall.

"Why would I want him to do that?"

Liv rolls her eyes as we walk through the busy hallway towards the AP Bio Lab. "Well you're obviously into him. Even though he was a bit of an asshole for disappearing right after the first ride."

"Maybe he had a 'Grayout'" I tease and Liv punches my shoulder as we enter the lab.

"Shut up. I was only trying to help." Liv drops her stack of books onto the black lab table with a loud thump that causes a few students near her to jump.

I sit down on the stool next to Liv and continue our conversation over Zayn's mysterious disappearance just a few days before at the fair. Just before the bell rings I watch as a dark head of hair slips into the room. Zayn sets a slip of paper on the teacher's desk and moves to sit at an empty lab table in the very back at the room.

Mr. Watson, the AP Biology teacher, studies the paper from Zayn carefully through his smudged 1980's glasses and then stands up from behind his desk. "Well, class it look like we have a late transfer. Therefore I am going to have to switch up the lab partners for today's assignment."

A majority of the class collectively groans. We had already chosen lab partners ourselves the previous week and any change would not go over easily. Typically we were assigned partners and any opportunity to chose ourselves was rare.

"Every student sitting on the left side of the tables will move forward one row. Everyone in the first row, please move to the very back."

I look directly to the back of the room realizing I will be paired with Zayn. Liv winks as I collect my belongings and move to the back of the classroom.

"Hi." I say.

Zayn turns his head slightly to me, but doesn't respond verbally.

"The lab handouts were given to us last week, but there's extras in the file cabinet at the front of the room. The lab's on cell division."

"I'll do my own work later."

"You're going to need the handout to be able to record the experiment results."

"I said I'd do it later didn't I?" Zayn snaps.

"Sorry," I look away from Zayn and open my lab packet. "I didn't mean to push it. I just thought that you know, I don't even really know actually. Sorry."