A blaring horn.
The screech of tires.
A sickening crunch.
I open my eyes slowly, a loud ringing in my left ear. What just happened? I think, blinking in confusion.
"Who is he?" I ask.
"You don't know him?"
"I've never seen him before in my life."
"...
I drive to school slowly, checking my mirrors and looking behind me every turn. I'm not sure why, maybe I'm looking for Micheal, maybe for the angel. I pull into the school parking lot early, parking close to the school. My heart races every time my mind loops back to the dream, to the angel ominous words, to the feeling of sinking so deep I could never swim to the surface.
To the thought that I enjoyed that.
I still have at least half an hour before school officially starts, but I start heading to my locker anyways. Maybe I'll meet Lindsay or Ashley in the halls and strike up a conversation. Maybe I'll just be early for English.
I spin the combination for my locker when I arrive, not really paying attention to my surroundings. I exchange my homework binders for the ones I need for my next two classes and close the door, checking my phone for the time. A text from Amelia flashes onscreen.
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I sigh, typing a quick response, not wanting to think about how this will affect my 'friendships' with Lindsay and Ashley when word gets out that I'm working with a 'loser', apparently.
I slam the door to my locker shut, rolling my eyes. Walking down the hall, I see a figure struggling to unlock his locker while holding a stack of textbooks. I walk over to him briskly, catching one of the textbooks as it falls.
"Hey..." I greet awkwardly, and Micheal gives me a surprised glare. Which is harder to do than you may think. "You... dropped- er, almost dropped this," I say, holding out the textbook.
"Thanks." He says curtly after a moment, looking suspicious.
"So..." I grasp for a topic, my eyes landing on his copy of 'A handmaidens tail'. "Excited for English?" I ask lamely, realizing that it was 8:46 AM on a Tuesday; no one was excited.
He hesitates, still suspicious, apparently. "I guess this project will be fun..." He says eventually as if everything he's saying is being recorded.
"Yeah!" I exclaim, a little too enthusiastically, "Which reminds me, do you wanna walk to class together?" I pause, taking a breath. "You know since our class is... the same one...?" I finish awkwardly, ending the sentence by drawing out the 'n' in 'one'.
"Oh." He looks around, trying to avoid eye contact before his eyes finally settle on the floor. "Um..." He says, clearly uncomfortable, "I'll- I'll see you in class, Kayla."
Micheal turns away, walking hurriedly down the hallway. I stand by his locker, stunned, confused, and- for reasons beyond me- hurt. I'm still standing there when two familiar faces strut down the hallway toward Micheal, intercepting him.
Alisa and Andy. Automatically, I begin to turn away, to ignore whatever hell that boy is about to go through. But then I remember, that boy is Micheal. Micheal. If I'm ever going to help him-
"Well?" Alisa demands, and I square my shoulders, taking a deep breath.
Turning, I see Micheal cornered again. Before I can regret my decisions or change my mind, I find myself walking closer to the trio.
"Hey!" I blurt, causing Micheal to stiffen and the other two to turn my way, a dark glare on each of their faces. "Sawyer!" Micheal finally turns to face me, the look on his face betraying that he'd rather be anywhere else and that I should likely stop talking before I end what's left of our high school experience early. "What do you think you're doing?"
Micheal looks at me like he wants to ask the same question.
"Kayla," Andy says smoothly, stating my name rather than questioning it.
"I'm... terribly sorry." I say in a rush, turning to face Andy and Alisa, "I hate to be a buzzkill but a certain someone didn't do their part for our presentation today. First period." I make it up as I go along, thinking desperately of a way to remove Micheal from this situation.
"I didn't-" Micheal starts, but I shoot him a look at he quiets down quickly enough.
"No kidding! I don't want to fail this class, Micheal, and if it's your fault I do, I swear-"
"What do you want here, Kayla?" Alisa demands, stopping me in my tracks.
"I want Micheal to come and finish his part of the presentation before we have to present in less than half an hour," I say through grinding teeth, trying not to shake. If this goes wrong...
"Well, I'm sorry but we're a bit pre-occupied at the moment." Alisa says in her best 'kind voice'.
"Look. I know that whatever is going on here is beyond me," I begin, taking a deep breath. "But I really need to borrow Micheal right now. You'll have lunchtime. This is urgent."
"You'll have to wait," Andy says gently, or rather, as gently as he can considering his history with cigarettes. "Micheal-"
"This isn't about him!" I practically yell, causing heads to turn. "My average is apparently already dropping. My entire graduation may rest on this project. It's bad enough that I have to work with him in the first, place, how on earth am I supposed to pass if our presentation isn't even done?!" I wince internally at saying those words, knowing how much they reflect the texts Amelia sent me.
Knowing how much they would hurt to hear.
Knowing how much he may think they were true.
"I-" Andy begins but Alisa interrupts him, glaring at me in a way that makes my blood run cold.
"Go." She doesn't yell the word or even force it. She says it plain and simple, staring me dead in the eyes. "Go." She repeats, with a little more force.
I grab Micheals wrist, pulling away from Andy and Alisa before they have a chance to change their minds.
"What. The. Hell. Was. That?" Micheal demands as soon as we're out of earshot.
"What do you think it was?" I hiss back, leading him to our English class.
"I don't know, thanks for insulting me back there!" He deadpans, pulling his arm out of my grasp.
"What else could I say?" I ask quietly, stopping. He stops beside me, looking angry and confused and slightly, confoundedly grateful. "I couldn't let them do that again. I know who it happens to, I know the results." I take a deep breath, looking at him. "And... we do have a project we're working on." I joke.
Micheal looks at me, and for a second I think, I hope, I want desperately to believe that a corner of his mouth quirks up. That he smiled.
That he laughed.
But after a second, it's gone. He scratched the back of his neck, looking down again. "Thanks." He says quietly, turning away and heading down the hall, down towards our English class.
I think back to what just happened. I'm making progress.
