A Long Way From Home

Chapter Sixteen: Kelvin

        Breakfast the next day was not what I'd call... ideal. Since we didn't have kitchens in our rooms, obviously, we had the choice of using the common kitchens that were open 24 hours a day, or we could eat the premade food in the cafeteria.

         The cafeteria food wasn't bad. Plus, it was included in your tuition, so it felt kind of free. Grocery shopping was hard when you lived in a space school out in the middle of nowhere desert.

        Most people agreed that Cafeteria was therefore the better option.

        For some reason, my head hurt despite the fact I'd had absolutely nothing to drink. Maybe that was it- I'd had nothing to drink, including water. I reached for the plastic cup in front of me and held it to my lips, waiting several seconds before taking anything to drink.

       "Maeve, are you okay?" Faith's fork and knife paused their attack on the questionable sausage and powdered eggs. "You looked like you were about to start gnawing on that cup for a minute."

        I quickly set it down. The water wasn't satisfying in the slightest. If anything, it only felt like it brought even more attention to the dry parts of my mouth. Now I just wanted to chug more water. "Sorry, just a little out of it."

       "Yeah, you came into the room at the middle of the night or something, didn't you?"

       "Did I make a lot of noise?" I cringed at myself. "Sorry, I just really wanted to get into bed."

      Faith raised an eyebrow. "Two sorry's in, like, thirty seconds. You're fine, dude. I'm just curious." She grinned broadly at me, stuffing a piece of meat (?) in her mouth. "What'd you get up to? Will I be jealous? Don't tell me if I'll be jealous."

       I raised both eyebrows and pinched my lips together in silence.

        It only took a heartbeat before Faith sprawled herself forward on the table, nearly getting breakfast on her uniform. "I can't take not knowing, please tell me! Please!"

        "Are you sure?" I leaned forward to meet her and shifted my tone to a whisper. "You'll definitely be a little jealous."

       "Maeve, I wanna know so bad."

       I looked side to side as dramatically as I could muster, only stoking the frenzied fire in Faith's eyes. "Last night... I went to a party."

        Her lips went into a big 'O' shape, but I kept going before she could interrupt.

       "And I saw Shiro there."

       The 'O' got bigger.

      "AND, Faith, AND, he asked me out on a date."

        Faith slammed her utensils against the table, getting us looks from some of the other students around us. "You're kidding, right? That was a joke?"

        I shook my head.

        Like a fish gaping for air, Faith floundered about for words to say. "You- uh- date, with Shiro? Willingly?"

         "I didn't put a gun to his head or anything!"

          "No, that's not what I meant! I just thought..." Her face flushed a bright pink, and she looked down to her plate before tilting her head side to side and mumbling incoherently.

       "What?"

      "I just thought you were..." she trailed off into mumbling again.