Delaney Blake's Guide to Detention

Step #3: Get Stitches For Your Trouble

I scream. Like, Emma's freshly buffed beakers should be shattering like a wine glass in an opera singers hands because what the fuck.

The door swings open, flooding light onto the floor in a thick shaft, sharp shadows chopping it into defined lines. It doesn't bleed all the way to me. It doesn't dare intrude on the mess I've made. 

"Delaney?" Emma calls, "are you okay?"

A flashlight beam pans over the room, then lands on me, shining right into my eyes.

"Oh my God," Mr. Dennison gasps.

"What happened?" Emma adds.

I must look like Ms. Isaakov's curse victim, squinting and massacred.

"I slipped. On glass." I don't mention the smirking reflection or the bunsen burners snuffing out all at once. A visit to a doctor is already coming. I don't need Mr. Dennison lining me up for a meeting with a psychiatrist too.

My hands find the counter, gripping it hard as I shuffling toward them. I will not slip. My feet won't fly out from under me. I stand up a little straighter, trying to retain some dignity as Emma rushes over to help me and immediately smudges blood and snake juice all over her dainty cream-colored sweater.

"I'm fine." I try to brush her off, but my legs are shaking too much. It's better to let her pull my arm over her shoulder than it is to wobble myself off solid footing. Today is already the most humiliating day in my life without face planting again.

Emma is warm. She radiates it and that's the thing that tips me off to the fact that I am freezing. The room's gone cold, like it was a stiff breeze blew out all my science pseudo-candles. Wind through the closed windows. 

I shiver and I swear Emma tugs my arm tighter around her shoulders.

"We're going to the hospital," Mr. Dennison says.

No shit. I want to say it, but my tongue has kind of turned to cotton in my mouth. It's a real shame, because I'm pretty sure I could get away with swearing in front of a teacher right now.

This is how I wind up in the back of Mr. Dennison's Buick, Emma's sweater wrapped around me because I'm probably in shock. Emma thinks I'm in shock, at least. Mr. Dennison seems less concerned. They're both a little right.

I mean, I'm not dying, but that smirk keeps ghosting into my vision, superimposed over my blank stare view of Mr. Dennison's headrest. The way my eyes are probably glazing over right now gives Emma plenty of reasons to apply TV trauma victim logic to the situation.

In the afternoon outdoor light, it's obvious that my cuts are mostly shallow. Only one in my leg keeps bleeding forever, red sludge slowly oozing out of me until Emma compulsively wipes it off with a wet cloth that was warm, but is now unwelcomingly cool against my skin.

Goddamn snake jar glass sliced right through my good ripped jeans.

"What are you doing this weekend?" Emma asks, swiping up my leg blood yet again, the cold cloth sending shivers up my body.

I give her a look. Is this a shot? Clearly I'm not hanging out with my boyfriend like I had originally planned. After this fiasco, I won't be surprised if I'm put on house arrest for my own safety. 

"Why do you care?" I ask.

Emma's cheeks flush pink under her even tan.

"I'm just trying to keep you talking."

Oh. I shrink. This is somehow worse than small talk for the sake of small talk. It doesn't even mean anything.

"Why didn't you say so?" I say, in the tone of somebody who absolutely isn't a little hurt by that. "I would have launched into my super villain monologue."