Palindrome

Thirty- Seven

Chapter 37

"Retrograde Amnesia."

Paxton scrunches his nose in confusion while I wait on the answer. We're sitting on the ground to the side in the school library during free period. Nagi was going to join us to study for the Ap Psychology quiz they have next period, but she got caught up doing something else for Chase.

At least that's what she says.

Seriously you tell your best friend about kissing one boy and suddenly she's 'failing pre-calculus' and has tutorials to attend. It's been one week and she's pulled that excuse for the past four days. She'll run out of classes eventually but until then...

I look at Paxton over the edge of the flashcard with his neat cursive. He's still trying to pull the right answer from the far reaches of his mind. Which also means he's distracted and doesn't notice my very obvious gawking.

We haven't kissed each other since last Friday, or spoken about whatever this is between us. Every instance he gets Paxton finds a way to touch me and I end up doing the same without realizing. Whenever my hand brushes against his my nerves are on the edge in a way that makes me strangely giddy. I don't know if I'm ready for the 'talk' whatever it entails.

He sighs loudly messing with his hair, strands standing out of the edge now. I resist the urge to smoothen them out, instead blinking at the definition of the term.

"Loss of memory for events immediately preceding a head trauma. A form of amnesia where someone is unable to recall events that occurred before the development of the amnesia," I read out the words for him.

Does that cure depression?

Maybe I should get retrograde amnesia.

Paxton stares at me blankly before groaning and dropping his head on my lap. I nearly jump from the sudden movement and the flashcard slips from my fingers landing on his forehead. He picks it up holding it in the light and frowning it.

"Rohi do you think I have retrograde amnesia?"

I lean down monetarily distracted by his sparkling green eyes and freckles. "Pax being forgetful doesn't translate to amnesia."

"But it's happening so much," he whines covering his eyes with his arms.

Hesitantly I run my fingers through his hair and that gets him to relax a little. He looks overly stressed over this one quiz. Now that I think about it he doesn't seem as relaxed these days. Sometimes I'll catch him squinting in concentration or fazed out.

"Hey, are you okay?" I ask, the words pouring out from me without meaning to.

This gets him to peek at me from under his hand, he smiles but it doesn't stretch all the way to his eyes. "Yeah I'm good, just a migraine."

Furrowing my eyebrows I continue threading my fingers through the knots in his hair, "We should go to the nurse then, get something for that before-"

I reach for my phone to check the time but Paxton stops me by lightly gripping my wrist. I freeze involuntarily realizing that it's the one where my bracelets rest. Jerking my hand away from his hand, I let it hang to my side.

"Don't bother I already took something for it."

He grabs my hand threading his fingers with mine, "This works better anyways."

My heart's hammering so loudly that I can't process my thoughts properly. I guess right now is probably the time to have the 'talk'. Before that though, there's something else that needs to be done.