Dreamer Chapter 3

As I walked, I didn't dare to look up from the ground, save for a quick, wary glance towards the big white building I called home. Maybe, if I were lucky, Caroline would be out visiting her friends. Or maybe, she’d be preoccupied with something else to the point that she hadn’t noticed that I hadn’t come home at my normal hour. At this point, I’d be grateful if she was moping in her room, depressed and wallowing in sadness. Coming home late was one sure-fire way to piss Caroline off, and that was an experience I did not wish to go through again today- once was quite enough for me.

 

Creeping up the driveway, I fished my ring of keys out of my pocket, wincing slightly as they made a loud metallic rattling sound. It probably wasn't loud enough to attract anybody's attention, even under these circumstances, but I felt so paranoid, I wasn't able to tell either way. Besides, luck had some sort of paranormal vendetta against me... But maybe, this time, when I needed it, luck would smile fortune onto my life... I twitched again as I inserted the keys into the lock, and with another loud clunk, the door unlocked.

 

Caroline attacked me as soon as I crossed the threshold. “Young man!”

 

I was never lucky.

 

Alarmed, I looked over towards the kitchen only to see my mother looking quite beside herself out of worry and anger, the anxiety twisting her mouth into a scrunch.

 

“Where have you been?! Do you realize what time it is? I have been worried sick! For I knew, you could have been kidnapped or murdered! I have told you over and over! If you're going to come home late, call me! How could you be so irresponsible and selfish?” She'd never been such a hovering presence even when I was a young, reckless child… But ever since Christopher’s death… I recognized that she was being overly protective, but each accusation brought a fresh wave of guilt over me. After all, I was the one at fault here...

 

Still, I had no desire to get grounded for a few weeks, so I decided to tell the incomplete truth. Just this once. Out of habit, I glanced down at my shoes before looking at her nose. Anything to avoid her eyes… “Sorry. I was going to call, but I was having so much fun, it totally slipped my mind. I really am sincerely sorry. You know I’m responsible. It just slipped my mind this one time, and besides just now, I’ve always made sure to call every single time I was coming home late.”

 

This seemed to calm her down a little, though her eyes were suspicious that mine did not meet hers directly; she knew me far too well. She took a deep breath before speaking again. “Were you over at Rich’s again today?”

 

I was kind of hoping she wouldn’t ask that… “No… I was actually hanging out with Abbie at her house. She’s a friend of Julia’s that I know from school. She's uh... Really something.” Catching Caroline's dirty look, I added, “Her dad was there, don't worry. We wouldn't do anything anyways. Strictly platonic.”

 

Caroline was frowning again, but this time, it looked as though she was in deep thought. “Abbie Randal? William Randal’s daughter?”

 

My mother’s face looked just as puzzled as I felt, although it seemed to be a different kind of bemusement- I was wondering why she cared so much, but she seemed to be deliberating on something… Else.

 

Odd. What was it to her? But if it would distract her from her anger... “Yeah, why?”

 

Her face brightened up substantially, but it didn’t quite completely cover the quizzical look she sustained at me. “The Randals! William and I were friends, way back when we were in college. After graduating, we both ended up moving here. We only found out a few years ago. Strange, isn’t it, how these things work out? I haven’t talked to the dear in ages. Has he remarried yet?”

 

That was a weird question, even by Caroline’s usual standards.

 

“I dunno mom. When I first meet people, it’s not as if the first things I want to find out about them concern their parents’ martial status…”

 

“Mm… Watch the sarcasm, kid. Well, whenever you’re going to be over at the Randals’, just call me when you’re going to be home late, okay?” She gave me a devious look that, for some reason, bothered me. There was too much assumption in it. “Dinner’s going to be ready in a few.”

 

I shook my head. “I’m not hungry tonight.” And it was true. I had far too much on my mind to let hunger pangs in.

 

Caroline became the concerned parent again. “Dyer, you ought to eat… A growing boy like you needs-”

 

There was an ear-splitting, painfully loud shrieking hiss behind her in the kitchen as the soup boiled over. Taking advantage of her momentary distraction, I dashed up the stairs to my bedroom. My sanctuary. Every inch of the wall was covered by some band poster, which added some life to the otherwise boring décor. As an added benefit, it drove Caroline crazy. For a mother, she was pretty lax, but in her book, cleanliness was above godliness. In mine, that level of obsessive cleaning was classifiable only as overtly ridiculous, and punishable by the posting of “filthy” band posters upon the hallowed walls. My eyes drifted over to the top of my dresser, where the mirror solemnly reflected the last few rays of sunlight onto the ceiling, the only space in my room that was not covered up.

 

I knew exactly how well my body betrayed my emotions because I had spent hours and hours, as a younger child, looking into that same mirror and imagining myself in various social situations, to gauge my own reactions… Even then, I was self-conscientious and insecure, a trait that only seem to increase exponentially over time. When I was embarrassed, my cheeks would flush bright pink, which would gradually turn dull red, depending on how long I felt the embarrassment. If I didn’t want to tell the whole truth, I usually averted my eyes down to my shoes, or at least averted my eyes from gazing into the other person’s eyes. Whenever I felt happy, truly happy, my eyes would shine, and my lips would slope up at the corners, baring my teeth and exposing my smile.

 

I sighed slowly, giving me time to delay in thinking about the day’s events. Finally, my breath ran out, and I breathed back in, resigned to what was coming next.

 

Abbie was being unnecessarily obnoxious about it, but she was right. I needed to move on and learn about my gift- or curse, whichever one it was more of. And she was correct on another term, one that I objected to more than just learning about the dark powers. The best way to safely test these powers would be to experiment cautiously on a willing subject… Naturally, I couldn’t tell anybody else, or else I’d be locked up in some mental institution, and Abbie already, by some impossible chance, knew everything about it, and she was all too willing to be a lab rat, for whatever reason. But what would I do if something went wrong there as well? What would I do if I... Lost control again? She knew exactly what the risks were, but she was prepared to go through with it anyways.

 

She was quite the mystery, in all she said, and all she did… But by now, I was duly convinced that her mind reading had something to do with her eyes… Physically speaking, her eyes looked like they could pierce your entire body and it always appeared that she knew exactly what a person was thinking. Why shouldn’t that piercing quality actually extend to my mind? What other possible, or reasonable, explanation would cover all of this? And now that I thought about it, hadn’t she asked me to look at her eyes repeatedly in the shack? Actually… Every single time she seemed to read my mind, it was always when I was looking directly into her eyes…

 

Though my hands were occupied with taking off my tee shirt and jeans, the task was not enough to keep my mind busy. It was floating about elsewhere, wondering how in the world I was supposed to tap into my powers in the first place… It had been years since I’d used them, and since then, I’d avoided going into dreamer mode whenever possible, with a few small exceptions… Lucid dreaming wasn’t going to hurt anybody, and plenty of other people could do it. And as for the color spectrums of my dreams… Well, that wasn’t something I could help. But for the more sinister things I was capable of… I didn’t know if I could do it still. I finished pulling on a nightshirt, and looked to the bed, half-excited, half-sick with worry.

 

My stomach growled, complaining about how irresponsible I was for skipping dinner… “Shut up,” I murmured to myself, “It’s going to be hard enough already going to sleep this early without thinking about how hungry I am…”

 

I climbed into the bed and tucked myself in underneath the soft cotton sheets, and after a moment's hesitation, closed my eyes and cleared my mind. My body trembled in fearful anticipation, expecting something dramatic to happen any second. After lying in my bed for twenty minutes though, I had to admit, there was no way I was going to naturally sleep… So I made an executive decision- I’d just force myself to sleep.

 

Force sleep was the only of my dreamer techniques I ever used, and that was only sparingly, when I desperately needed to fall asleep, but couldn’t. The best part about the process was that it was draining on my mind, which put me to sleep even faster. In all fairness though, it was probably closer to painlessly knocking myself out than forcing myself to sleep.

 

I concentrated all my energy on that one small section of my mind. It took all of about seven seconds, and I knew instantly when I was asleep. Great. Now what?

 

Relaxing my mind, I let my most primal instincts take over, and I could feel the power flow unbound; it was warm to the imagined touch. The inviting black stains slipped across my eyes, covering everything in the world with complete and unrestrained darkness… It was all so familiar, as if I did this sort of thing every single night, but I hadn’t used this particular dreamer technique in years. Déjà vu buzzed excitedly around the base of my skull, and I knew I’d succeeded in tapping into my “dark powers” after all… Not that Abbie would ever condone my use of a negative term for this power. She’d find some new terminology to label it…

 

Abbie. That snapped me out of my stupor. I had to focus. Abbie. So was I in her mind? All I knew was that I was in dreamer mode, and I had no other idea what to do or where to go… Back when I was eleven, I’d somehow done this… But my conscious mind was so ruled by inner emotion, I had no recollection of how I entered Christopher’s mind…

Hm. Overruled by base emotions. Not a bad idea. There was no time to keep my pride intact… I’d just have to act like a child.

 

I wished that I were in Abbie’s mind. It was as naïve as I could get, and I sincerely hoped that Abbie would not see this part of the experience if this experiment failed. If I had only been seeing, not feeling, I would have thought it had been unsuccessful. The surroundings were just as silent as before. Nothing went “whoosh” or exploded into facets of light. In fact, it seemed to just get even darker, although the previous black was pitch and complete.

 

But somehow, I just knew I was there.

 

Shivering slightly at the awesome raw power of my dreaming, I made a mental reminder to myself to keep my wishes in check…

 

So, what did I do now? Should I just wish for Abbie to kiss me? Would that even work?

 

I clenched my imaginary teeth in frustration. It was absolutely not fair, not fair at all, that Abbie brought up the truth about my past. She knew what kinds of pain it’d bring me, and that I’d be fighting to understand my own inner demons… No man on Earth could resist that curiosity. But of all the challenges she could have chosen, did it actually have to be a kiss? There was something else here, besides her exploiting me... Or maybe that was just it. On every level conceivable, she was working to exploit me. That would make sense.

 

Abbie also knew that I would do anything she told me to… There was no escaping the power of her eyes, and the subtle hint of preconceived failure within them. It was a challenge to prove her wrong, to prove that I wasn’t the failure or the coward she must have thought I was. And there was the matter of how she treated these strange powers- she didn't take them seriously, and played with them as though they were toys. I nearly cursed her right then in my mind, but at the last second, I realized that that wouldn’t be the best of ideas… Not here.

 

Pain washed over me as I flipped through my only dreamer memories, careful not to let any of them leak into Abbie’s mind… No need for her to have any memories that could lead her to become gender-confused. Christopher died again and again, like my memory was on repeat. The screaming... Thinking back on things, I had simply wished Christopher to death, but that in itself didn’t make sense. There must have been some change. If he wished to die because of my wish, I must have unknowingly altered either his thoughts or emotions…

 

So for this to be successful, I’d have to alter both in time. I’d try to change her thoughts today, and I’d try changing her emotions tomorrow. Maybe either would work, and maybe it was only one that'd do it. But how would I change anything in the first place? Was thinking these thoughts enough? Would I have to resort to childlike wishing again?

 

“Yes…”

 

I jumped up in shock. The low violent hiss wasn’t Abbie’s voice, and it certainly wasn’t mine… The disturbing thing was that I knew it all too well. It wasn’t a voice I wanted to be hearing, not now, not ever. And especially not under these circumstances. But if what it was saying was true, I could be done and out in a few seconds. With the appearance of the voice, I had every excuse to get out of Abbie’s mind as fast as I could.

 

So I tried to focus my thoughts. “Abbie will wake up tomorrow to think of nothing but kissing me.”

 

And once I repeated that to myself a few times, I got out of there fast.

 

***

 

Nervousness and anxiety are always unpleasant emotions to feel, but within the confines of the cold brick walls of Atway High, the smallest problems could easily be blown completely out of proportion. And what was just a bag of nerves turned into full-blown hysteria.

 

Time is always against me, lurching and lagging in every inopportune place possible. Caroline calls it ADHD, and I call it a complex with time. I am usually used to it, but this day was unbearable. Try as I did, I couldn’t even block out the familiar droning silence of first period and the uptight noise of second. Every instant that I had to be still sent a stinging sensation through every single one of my nerves. Lunchtime couldn’t come fast enough, not because I needed the food, but because I needed the answers.

 

So by the time the clock read 10 minutes to lunch, I was going into a silent panic attack in my seat, fidgeting every few seconds. So this is what hell was like. To have to wait forever, in the hopes of something better, or even for the appearance of hope of any kind… A single hysterical giggle erupted from my lips, breaking the dead stillness of the room, but it didn’t make the stomach full of butterflies feel much better. Maybe I did have some sort of hang-up with time. Yesterday, time seemed to speed by all too quickly, and today…

 

Mr. Hamilton glared at me. He probably wasn’t having much of a better day than I was.

 

My quiet giggling erupted into loud, uncontrollable laughter, coinciding with the minute hand's ticking into the 2-minute mark.

 

With a murderous countenance, Mr. Hamilton violently gestured for me to come to his desk. Although I was one of his favorite students, this probably meant I was going to get detention, which meant that I had to sit in a separate section from all the other students at lunch today.

 

That pushed me over the edge. The curiosity was too much to bear. I needed to know now if my powers had worked on Abbie. It didn't matter if Abbie wasn't even in the lunchroom yet. All I wanted to do was do something. I needed to get up and go, even if it wouldn't take me anywhere. That desire burned like physical fire, hurting me, hurting me…

 

I screamed, shattering what little hushed tranquility there was before in the room.

 

A strong hand came down and clamped itself over my mouth, muffling, but not stopping, the flow of sound from my lips. Its twin found its way to my shoulder, locking me into my chair.

 

“WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING?!”

I had never heard Mr. Hamilton so angry before, and it instantly broke my time-obsession-dementia.

 

“Sorry. I kind of lost it for a second.” It sounded more like a question than an answer.

 

He opened his mouth furiously to chew me out, but at that exact second, the bell rang, drowning his words, and I broke free and ran to the lunchroom. Finally! It all felt so good. Like an albatross untangling itself from my neck and flying away... Skipping the lunch line entirely, I spotted Rich’s distinctive haircut and plopped down in my regular spot, jumping in onto their conversation with bated breath.

 

“I found my dad’s old collection of Beatles albums,” announced Winnie triumphantly. “He’s got every single one of their albums on vinyl. The only problem is, the record player I’ve got at home only plays mono discs, and everything from Sgt. Pepper onward was mastered in stereo…”

 

So there wasn’t going to be any interesting conversation here. Unwillingly, my eyes strayed over to Abbie’s table of their own accord.

 

Somehow, Abbie had made it here before I had, although I ran every step of the way. She looked right back at me, smirked, and stuck out her tongue before turning back to the table and resuming her conversation.

 

At least now I knew what to do tonight.

 

***

 

Since I knew what to expect, I eased up a little before going to sleep, eating dinner and finishing some loose-end homework assignments. Remembering Mr. Hamilton's vendetta towards me, I took care to make sure that my history essay was better-written than the other ones I'd turned in so far- this was sure to appease him.

 

When that was all done, I stepped into the bathroom to care of my hygienic needs. Making no hurry to brush my teeth, I let my narcissistic side comb over my appearance again. To no surprise, my hair was disheveled, sticking up in random places and flatting down in others, but it didn’t look half bad. There was a slightly sickly pallor to my face today that wasn’t exactly normal. As far as skin tones went, I was usually much darker… The strange contrast between my dark eyes and my light skin made me look like a stranger, even though the nose was the same- not dull or broad, but not sharp or minute either, and my lips were still the same shape and color, although they now contrasted against the ashen skin.

 

And the strange thing was that I felt- however subtly- just as mentally sick as I appeared. I looked like I hadn’t seen the light of day in years, with a definite red flush that didn’t look rosy or healthy. Maybe I was stressing over this whole mind power thing too much… Weird though, because I felt very much at rest, knowing what to do tonight…

 

I undressed and stepped into the shower. The hot water washed away my musings, and I didn't give matters a second thought. When I was done wasting hot water, I took my time towel drying my hair and pulling on some comfortable nightclothes.

 

Finally, I was done with everything I needed to get done. My bed sang a siren's song to me, and I thankfully collapsed onto the mattress. I felt the sleep coming, and I embraced the dark stains washing over my eyelids as the familiar buzz around my neck soothed any remaining anxiety I had.

 

After all, dreaming was what I did best.

 

***

 

The next day at school, I thought about skipping Mr. Hamilton’s class, but decided against it. I was probably in enough trouble as it was... The good news was that it was Friday. If I could get him not to give me a punishment today, he'd have an entire weekend to cool off and rethink whatever disciplinary actions he was planning for me. I grimaced. For some reason, I was getting in a lot of trouble lately...

 

Dread settled in as I took my seat. For once, I was actually early to class, but thankfully, Mr. Hamilton wasn't in the room. The last thing I wanted was a before-class-lecture about why screaming in class was not appropriate.

 

David Miller sided up to me. “So, Dyer, what was the big deal yesterday? Did somebody put something in your breakfast?”

 

I grinned. “Nah. I just didn't get enough sleep the night before, and I started seeing things.”

 

He laughed, amused. “Get to sleep earlier dude.”

 

The bell rang, and he slouched away to relay my information to the rest of the class. David was quite the individual... Wouldn't matter what the class thought anyways, since they all already thought I was a little bit off.

 

Mr. Hamilton walked into the room looking harassed, but not agitated. I cringed, expecting him to blow up, but all he did was glower at me for the first few minutes of the period. I’d been expecting much worse. Maybe he was in a better mood… Whatever it was, it wasn't as if I was about to complain about it.

 

The feeling of hysteria didn't come back to me, and I was able to wait patiently for the bell. Although I wasn't actually in a hurry, I was interested in seeing what happened. Mr. Hamilton nodded curtly at me as I left the room, and said, “Good report, Dyer. One of the best I've seen on the London Blitz.”

 

So the report had made a difference.

 

I walked down the B-wing hallway, trotted down the main staircase, and turned the corner that led to the cafeteria. Skipping the line of hungry kids again, I set my book bag next to Rich's and took my seat.

 

Rich turned to me, and asked, “What’s wrong with Abbie? She’s acting pretty…” His eyes shifted from me to Julia, and he didn't seem to be able to finish what he'd started to say.

 

Julia’s tone made it clear that she was struggling, ironically enough, to keep the defensiveness out of her voice. “Pretty what?”

 

Rich shrugged, and said, “She’s acting pretty s****y today.”

 

If looks could kill, Rich would’ve immediately fallen over and died; Julia’s eyes were usually as quiet and reserved as the rest of her personality was, but her eyes were flashing dangerously, in angry defense of her friend. Knowing her altogether too well, I tried to scoot myself away from her person… She wasn’t known for getting angry, but when she was, boy, did the sparks fly…

 

“What do you mean? You don't even know her. Don't judge people you don't know.” Her voice was ice cold. I stood up, ready to put myself between the two if they began fighting.

 

At that exact moment, as if on cue, Abbie came literally out of nowhere, and without any pretense at all, threw herself against me. Before I had time to figure out what was happening, her lips began to crush mine in a sensual frenzy. Without stopping, she shifted her body weight so that I fell over, off my seat, and she continued kissing me, laying on top of me, trying to press herself even harder against me…

 

I broke away, gasping for air, hoping that the action would deter her from attacking me. My hopes were in vain, and before I had time to take a breath, her lips met mine once more.

 

“…I guess that’s pretty much what I mean, but hey, I'm not here to judge.” Rich sounded like he was trying to restrain a lot of laughter. “Hey, Dyer, I think she got the hots for you too!” At this, he couldn't restrain himself anymore, and cracked up laughing, which attracted far too much attention for my comfort- people's eyes slide off of him and were drawn to us instead.

 

Julia didn’t say anything, and just stared at the two of us, horror-struck. Beside her, Winnie appeared to be trying to keep a straight face, but ended up with a seriocomic expression.

 

Seeing that Abbie had absolutely no intention of stopping, I decided to stop struggling. If I was going to get attacked like this, I figured I might as well enjoy it. It might not ever happen again, I thought to myself wryly. Her lips were smooth, and as I ran my tongue over them, I tasted the sweet flavor of strawberry lip gloss. She drew in a surprised breath and took the act as initiative to use her tongue as another assault tool, quickly drawing it over my own lips and into my mouth. There was an antagonistic tension here, of course, because she knew exactly what I had done to make her behave like this, but behind it, the kiss was intolerably sweet, and I found myself not even wanting air anymore, even though I hadn’t taken a breath since before she started kissing me… I knew it then. She wanted me. Not like this- no, this was my own doing. But inside, she sincerely wanted me.

 

And of course, it was the lack of air that caused strange, glowing patterns to appear on my closed eyelids, as my mind desperately tried to tell my body to take a breath… And like a complete fool, I ignored the vital impulse, in favor of savoring this pleasure...

 

“Um… I think he kind of needs to breathe,” a voice said mildly, somewhere above Abbie’s body. As she spoke, something lifted Abbie’s weight off of my body, and I gasped, unable to open my eyelids for lack of oxygen or energy.

 

There was a scuffling sound, as though people were wrestling.

 

Driven by curiosity rather than the need to conserve my energy, my eyelids opened.

What a strange sight. Rich, Julia, and an unfamiliar girl were all sitting on Abbie, whose eyes were still focused solely on mine, thirsting still for my lips. Winnie stood beside the jumbled heap, a look of amused indifference on her face. An issue far more pressing came to my realization. How did we end up on the other side of the cafeteria?

 

I hadn’t given it two moments’ worth of though before it hit me. My cheeks burned as I realized the truth- we’d been so caught up in one another that we’d rolled over the entire cafeteria floor, without even realizing it. I didn’t even remember myself rolling on top of her.

 

Something that obvious could only mean… Tearing my eyes away from Abbie, I felt paranoia sweeping across my body as it dawned on me that every single pair of eyes in the whole space was focused on us. This was beyond embarrassing- the guys would never let me live it down.

 

The unfamiliar girl spoke, causing my eyes to dart back and forth from her and the watching crowd. “So, I take it you’re Dyer, right? Sorry ‘bout that. For some reason, Abbie’s been acting sort of strange. She felt the need to wear the most provocative clothes she had in her wardrobe, and then coated her lips with like, 7 layers of lip gloss… I’m not even going to go into all the detail about how much makeup she put on. And she wouldn’t shut up about some dude named Dyer. Guess that’s you. Sounded a bit like she really wanted you, but she sounded pretty angry with you, de facto . I dunno what’s going on between you two, but…”

 

I blinked once in blatant confusion as I sat up.

 

“Oh sorry… You don’t even know who I am, do you? I’m Lucy, her younger sister.”

 

I nodded; the use of English hadn’t come back to me yet.

 

“Do you know what’s going on with her? She’s been like this to everybody… Should’ve seen her on the bus! But she seems to have a particular liking for you.” Lucy didn’t sound particularly fazed, but winked subtly, so faintly that I wasn’t sure if she had actually winked at all.

 

“No idea… I've never even met her before.” That was a lie, of course, but until Abbie and I could get together and get our story straight, I couldn’t say anything that could be used against me later.

 

At that, the circumstances seemed to be too much for Abbie, and in a fit of aggression, she got up, bucking everyone on her back off, and tackled me once more.

 

“You liar,” she growled; it still sounded seductive. “Now, what’d you do to me? I told you to try to make me kiss you, not make me want to make out with every male in sight.”

 

“We have to get our stories straight,” I gasped. “Or else, it'll be obvious we're telling two different stories. And I might’ve overshot a little when I messed with your head.”

 

“You think?” How in the world could she sound so inciting and sexy, and be so sickeningly sarcastic at the same time?

 

She didn’t give me any time to reply as her lips came down onto mine again.

 

“Turn me back to normal. Now.”

 

I nodded. “Tonight.”

 

Abbie slapped me, leaving a stinging imprint of her hand on my cheek. “Tonight?! Can’t you see what kinds of trouble I could get myself into if you let me act like this for the rest of the day?! If I didn’t want you so badly, I’d strangle you!”

 

With that, she tried to kiss me again, but Lucy, who’d been watching disinterestedly, like we were a bad sitcom, grabbed Abbie’s arm then, and pulled her off of me once more, handing her off to Julia and Rich, who dragged her away…

 

“Don’t worry about Abbie,” Lucy said conversationally. “Julia and Rich are going to take her to the office and tell her that she’s had a nervous breakdown and has to go home.”

 

“Speaking of nervous breakdowns,” a guttural voice behind me growled, “you’re going home too, Dyer.”

 

I gulped audibly as Mr. Hamilton strode up toward us. Now, not only was he pissed at me, but I had seriously breached school rules, and I knew it.

 

“I don't know what it is exactly today that’s making you kids act this crazy, but get to the office! Honestly! That sort of inappropriate behavior, right in the middle of the lunchroom! Normally, you’re a good kid, but lately… I let you off easy yesterday, because I thought you might be having a bad day, but this! Act like this one more time, and I think I’ll be very tempted indeed, to suspend you for an extended period of time. I believe you have enough friends for you to be able to ask one to drive you home…”

 

And with that, Mr. Hamilton stormed off towards the sound of Abbie’s shouting, down the hallway leading to the office. It sounded like she was pleading with Julia to let her free, so that she could kiss me again, and then punch my face in.

 

Mr. Hamilton must’ve been in an exceptionally good mood.

 

I don’t exactly remember Lucy taking me by the arm to the office, checking out of school, being driven home, or the great fuss Rich had to make to force Abbie off of me in the confined space of the car, and I don’t even remember coming home to fall asleep to change Abbie back to normal…

 

All I wanted to do was get home and change Abbie back before she had reason to throttle me.