Liquid Silver

Twenty Five

Jem could not believe she'd been put on the sidelines this time.

Being left behind because of the worlds worst reading assignment ever was a low blow. The only reason she did completely kick up was the fact that Lydia had insisted that Brett come over to Scott's house so she wasn't there alone.

Theo clearly couldn't have cared less, he was itching to get out the door the minute Corey walked out. Obviously the period of not needing to be proving himself helpful was short lived. Eventually Jem told them to leave.

"You can't read it alone, Malia nearly killed herself" Lydia insisted, but she was tapping her foot just the same.

"Then I won't read anything until he's here" She told her, arms folded where she was still slouched on the couch, the god awful book on the arm beside her. Brett had already text her back saying he'd be there in a few minutes. It made her feel a little guilty that he seemed so willing to just drop anything else he had going on to help her. But it also made her a little fuzzy.

Not enough to get rid of the grumpy feeling she was left with however as Lydia and Theo left her in the house. She tucked her knees up with her phone and the book on the couch beside her. She glared at the cover as though it could tell, the horrible print of a doctor hat didn't look half as terrible as the real thing behind the title scrawled across the page.

She kept her promise not to open it on her own, though she had a feeling in the back of her mind that something was different. The others all said there was a feeling about, when they'd started reading. The only feeling she was getting was total boredom. Instead she scrolled through her feed on instagram until Brett arrived.

She smiled a little wistfully when she came across a photo Maisie had on her story. It was Beth, Logan and Cole eating lunch on the green outside the school, because the weather had been good for the first time in forever. They were all grinning, oblivious to the camera. Beth was leaning against Logan's knees and it made Jem wonder if there was something more going on now. She hadn't been at school today, and she missed her friends already.

It was more than just not seeing them for a day, she could deal with that. It was more so the distance that she knew was starting to grow, and might only get worse. She already knew how lucky she was that they were so understanding when she randomly bailed, which was way too often. But it meant she was missing out on things, and she always worried soon it would start getting too hard to keep trying to catch up all the time.

Or worse, that they would start to lose patience with her soon. That maybe they would stop bothering to keep her caught up, stop trying to involve her when all she ever seemed to do was leave.

Before she had swiped to the next photo, still smiling at her friends happy faces, a text message buzzed in from Stiles. A stone dropped in her tummy when she read it first, not knowing how to reply to him.

Student card logged into the library access system.

It was too vague for anyone else to understand but she knew he'd done that on purpose. She also knew exactly what he meant. Someone had records that Stiles had been in the library the night he killed Donovan, and the night he made the anonymous call to the station.

She was slow to type.

What did you say?

She held her breath as he typed a reply. He was a quick thinker, surely he knew how to handle it.

My cards been lost for a few weeks.

She pursed her lips, not sure how well this cover would work. It was too late to change it now though, he couldn't just change his word.