Blind Ambition | ✓

38 | Teenage Fever Dreams

"You can't hide out here forever, ya know."

I didn't bother looking up at Kaia, who sat at her desk across the room while I buried myself further under her warm, clean-smelling floral comforter.

The weekend had been one long, delusional fever dream, from my fight and ejection from the Diamond Duel, the epic, embarrassing meltdown that night, and all the way to Sunday morning, where I somehow found myself holed up at Kaia's house. I couldn't bear to stay at my own house, and I quickly realized I had nowhere else to go, having left nothing but scorched earth and burnt bridges connecting me to anyone else in my life. She'd let me and my increasingly deteriorating state lay in her bed without asking too many questions, and knowing she was just across the room, glancing over at me every so often in the stoic but thoughtful way I'd gotten used to broke that fever, even just temporarily.

"Says who?" I grumbled, rolling over to face the large bay window on the other side of her room. The dusky, early evening sunset was still warm and sent streaks of light across her plush carpet, and it was only then I'd realized how long I'd actually been there. I had three missed calls from my mother that I was wildly uninterested in returning, and a text message from Chris.

CHRIS THOMPSON: I need to know you're alright. stop being so stubborn

I couldn't bring myself to answer him. It would mean admitting I wasn't alright, and despite everything between us right now, Chris knew me better than anyone - I was a stubborn little shit sometimes. Kaia kept her head turned down into her calculus workbook. "Says my mother, who will absolutely notice the glaringly unsubtle red BMW convertible in front of our house when her and my sister come home from her soccer tournament. She'll want to know why you're here, and I can't lie to her."

"Just tell her we're studying. We have a calc exam tomorrow, that's not even a lie."

I heard her shift in her chair. "I'm studying. You're sleeping."

"Same thing," I groaned. "Besides, I don't need to study. I'll slam a Red Bull or two tomorrow morning and I'll be fine."

"And you wonder why I've detested you all these years," Kaia muttered, more to herself than me.

I sat myself up, rubbing the little stars out of the corners of my eyes. When I glanced across the room at Kaia she was already looking at me, her eyes warm and full of light, and I wondered if that's how she'd always looked at me.

"What?" I asked with a subtle smirk, not bothering to hide the tiredness in my voice.

As we shared an unusually comfortable silence, I wondered if I looked at her the same way.

Finally, she chuckled and shook her head, swiveling back around in her desk chair to turn her attention back to her work. "You sleep more than any other teenage boy I know."

"Oh please," I scoffed. "I'm not like any other teenage boys you know."

She twirled the pen in her hands with the flick of her wrist. "And there he is."

With a dramatic sigh, I collapsed back into her bed. "Come on," I groaned. "Take a break."

"No." She sounded bored. "We can't all be so naturally mathematically gifted."

A ghost of a smile graced my lips, as if my body dared to express some kind of feeling other than despondency for the first time all day. She had that effect on me without even trying.

I pulled her floral comforter up to my chin and rolled back over to face the window, watching clouds stride across the orange sky. The room was quiet, save for the occasional pen scribbling on paper or buttons clicking on a calculator. It was almost soothing. As I let a heavy tiredness ease my eyes shut, I felt the bed shift as Kaia slid under the covers behind me, slipping her arms around my waist and resting her chin on my shoulder.