KISS: Casablanca High School

Ch 87: Welcome Home (Peter)

Trying not to fall asleep in my car, I pulled into the parking lot halfway through the school day. My day was going terribly after having to spend almost a week looking at colleges I didn't even want to go to. "Aw, this bites," I growled, shouldering my backpack and trudging through the snow. 

I slid into my desk in English and nudged Eric, leaning toward him. "Hey, what'd I miss in this class?" I whispered. He grinned, flipping through his notebook for a moment. "You need to read up to chapter 8 and start on the symbolism essay. And we had a quiz in calc you're gonna have to make up. But other than that, not too much!" he murmured back. 

Nodding, I sat back in my chair, stretching my legs out in front of me. Well at least that's good. And at least I could see Ace again, that's always a plus. Missed that guy. 

Evidently he didn't miss me though, since his face turned white when he saw me and his hands started to shake as he took a bite of his sandwich. Undeterred, I sat next to him, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Hiya love, you miss me?" Ace gave me a weak smile and a kiss back, unwilling to meet my eye. "Babe of course I did! How was college?" 

Heaving a sigh, I rested my head against his shoulder. "Ahh, college is college. I'm not sure if I'll go, you know? I might go to like a trade school instead and just become a mechanic. That would be pretty chill. How was watching Hooligan?" 

His face grew even paler and a few beads of sweat formed on his brow. My heart sank as I watched him shrug, not looking at me. "Your cat still sucks but he was fine. You haven't been home yet?" 

"Nah, I came straight here because my grandparents didn't want me to miss any more school. I'm excited to see Hooligan again though. Missed him almost as much as I missed you," I teased, but he didn't even react. "Aw come on lovey, I thought you'd be happy to hear you finally passed up the cat on the list of things I loved!" 

He still barely did anything, just flashing me a smile. "Well it's about time," he mumbled. 

Huh. 

Figures that everyone had forgotten to tell me about the physics quiz that we had today, so that wasn't...great. Once the bell rang, I walked with Gene and Paul to the parking lot, kicking up little clouds of snow as I walked. "Well thanks for telling me about the quiz we had today guys, really appreciate it!" I grumbled. 

Gene shrugged, giving me a friendly shoved. "Aw, not my fault you forgot about it." "Yeah Pete, we knew about the quiz since last week! When you were still at school?" 

"He was probably high though, it was announced Friday, when's he ever sober in that class on a Friday?" 

Face red, I grinned and scooped up a handful of snow, throwing it at them. "See I can't even really be mad at you guys because you're right. But what'd you get for number five?" My phone went off as the two of them debated over whether it had been 17.9 or 18.6 and I decided to answer the unknown number rather than ask if they thought 294 was close enough to count. 

"Hello?" 

"Uh hi is this...is this Criss?"

I frowned, trying to figure out who would call me but only know me by my last name. "Yeah that's my name. Can I help you?"

"I picked up a cat off the street and this name and number was on the collar. A black white and gray cat, with a little notch in one of its ears. Does it belong to you?" 

My heart dropped to my feet and I stopped walking, turning to stare at Ace as he walked over toward us. I saw Gene and Paul exchange glances and I realized they knew, they all knew.