The Buddy System (Kladora & Dunclet/ASOUE)

03- A Hitch-Hiker's Song

Isadora POV
There was no way to sleep. I couldn't see how. This day was beyond anything I could ever worry about. Is this a common scenario that other orphaned students on school trips must go through? Probably not, so maybe I'm dreaming.

I pinched myself and felt the pain. I was not in the same crappy hotel room from the night before. I scratched out the 'maybe I'm dreaming part' in my commonplace notebook and continued on a different line.

Surprisingly, I'm not dreaming. Even if I was, this was more of a nightmare.

I'm not going to explain the whole situation in here because I already know what happened, but I want to determine who's fault this is. I can see it as Duncan's, Klaus's, or even my fault. So far, I can't find a good enough reason for it to be Violet's.

The thing about Violet is that she's so unproblematic that it's almost frustrating. I shouldn't NOT like her since she's always nice and willing to help. Am I jealous of her? I feel like I am, but I don't completely understand why.

Maybe I'm mad that someone can always be happy and unproblematic even when faced with a crisis such as being stuck in an airport thousands of miles away from 'our home'. I'm not saying I'm depressed, but I'm definitely not chipper or any of the other words that I would like to scratch out of a dictionary.

Anyways, this is the 'list' describing how it could be any of the three of ours fault.

If ISADORA (me) didn't use the restroom, we wouldn't be pressed for time in the beginning.
If ISADORA hadn't forgotten to restore my supply of pads, Klaus wouldn't have needed to get me one.
If KLAUS has manned-up and given me a damn pad in the restroom, he wouldn't have needed to get Violet to give it to me.
If VIOLET hadn't been paired with Duncan, he wouldn't have had to come along.
If KLAUS had been watching Duncan, he wouldn't have gone shopping.
If DUNCAN hadn't wandered off, we wouldn't have needed to waste time looking for him.

Conclusion: I may have started the problem, but Klaus has the most involvement, and Duncan was the final part of it. It probably was just everyone's collective fault.

I scratched out all of this conclusion.

Actual Conclusion: Nero is the reason why we have the Buddy System, which is the actual reason why we all missed it. If it wasn't used, at most, I would have been the only one who missed it. I would have just had to waddle around with blood on my pants without a pad and possibly bleed through. It would have been extremely embarrassing, but at least we would have come home.

I clicked off my flashlight as I finished writing my thoughts.

"Isadora?" I heard Klaus whisper. "Was that you?"