The Mystery Of Eastbrooks High

Chapter Three: Time For Fun

"BY RESONANCE, THE ORTHO AND PARA POSITIONS ACQUIRE..." The teacher droned on and on about organic chemistry, and Norah rested her head slightly on her palm, her elbow biting into the table's wood, her expression hazy.

Her mind blocked out the unnecessary details of her surroundings, in the current case: organic chemistry, focusing on only one thing: the message written on the school's wall. The fact that the same thing had been written in both the schools, it had to be significant. Her mind had been doing the bare minimum for so long, so now that she has something mysterious to think about, her mind had latched onto it and refused to think about anything else.

"Let the games begin..." she murmured absent-mindedly, her mind clicking at a fast pace to make sense of it. Jace turned to look at her at that, his expression a mix of bewilderment and concern. When he saw the wondering look on her face, he realized. "I was wondering if Jules had been defeating you so badly at video games that you started to think of getting revenge in the middle of an organic chemistry class. But-"

"Revenge..." she whispered thoughtfully now, cutting Jace off mid-sentence. He narrowed his eyes at her, "Okay, now I'm really worried. Are you gonna just repeat the stuff you saw or heard?"

Norah ignored his attempt at humour, drumming her nails on the table as she thought hard. "I don't know why," she started contemplatively, "I feel like this means something. Not a stupid prank or a dare, but I feel like this is gonna turn into something serious. Maybe I'm overthinking, or my mind is cooking up nonsense to do anything to avoid organic chemistry, but yeah," she whispered, looking into his brown eyes, "that sentence does sound revenge-seeking, kind of."

Her eyes lit up and she snapped her fingers. "Baby, let the games begin, let the games begin, let the games begin," she sang gleefully. "Okay, I don't know why that wasn't the first thing I thought of after seeing the sentence. It must be done by someone who's a Swiftie! Mystery solved!" She said with a smile, turning to face their teacher.

The teacher, Norah realized with a pang that she forgot his name suddenly, sipped some water then resume his teaching. "Norah? What's with that look on your face?" She realized a breath when the name came to her mind immediately: Mr. Grayson.

She let out a breath as she turned to face her best friend. Of course, he had seen the flicker of panic on her face when she couldn't recall the teacher's name. He'd read the fear in her eyes if she looked into his eyes. Norah avoided his gaze, "Nothing."

"Bullshit," Jace said flatly, "but, it's your wish if you want to tell it to me or not. I don't want to force you, but I just want you to know, I'm here for you. All of us are here for you," his voice turned gentle and soft, "you don't have to go through it all alone, Norah."

Norah gazed at the blackboard with an unclear gaze, before blinking repeatedly and smiling gratefully at her best friend, who stuck by her side no matter what. "Yeah, I know that." Distantly, the school's bell rang and the surrounding students stood up, gathering their things.

They stayed silent for a while before Norah took in a deep breath and spilt the toxic thoughts out. "You know that one gets slight memory loss from depression, right?" she said solemnly, gazing at Jace from the corner of her eye. "For me, it had been small, really small things. Names of people I had just met, what I wanted to have for dinner, just small blanks in the functioning. As I started feeling better, the memory loss reduced a lot too. But again, these days, I'm starting to feel excessively guilty, just these tides of guilt washing everything over, and- and-" she took a deep breath, "just now, I couldn't remember the teacher's name. And I can't help but feel scared, that it's- it's coming back. I'm just starting to feel better, and it's coming back, and this time, I wouldn't be able to recover. And- and- I'm so tired all the time."