The Girl Who Chased Stars

VII

ONE MONTH LATER

"You're in love with her!"

"What? No way."

Wolfe runs after me, and papers fall out of his school books as he tries to keep up.

"Dude, I can see it in your eyes. You're completely infatuated with Skai Mitchell!"

He laughs, as if he'd just discovered the key to ending world hunger.

The school hallway is crowded with smelly and awkward teenagers. I look down the right hall for my class.

"I can't believe they switched me!" I rant to Wolfe. "They switched my Creative Writing class to...to...." I look down at my second semester schedule. "Cardio!? What the Hell?"

Second semester begins today, and while re-assigning classes to everyone, the school board realized that my creative writing class was over booked, so they pulled some students out of the class at random. Oh, and lucky Me. I was one of them.

"Oh, Cardio isn't all that bad. Running's good for you." Wolfe mumbles into his schedule, with his head buried in his school work. "Hey, I've got to find the visual Art's class. I'll see you at lunch."

And with that, he stumbles off into the crowds of other equally confused students looking for their new classes.

"Cardio." I mumble. "The one thing worse than Gym."

__________________________

"Alright! Welcome to Cardiovascular exercise! Today you'll be assigned Gym uniforms according the size that I assume you are. If you're uncomfortable with me judging your size, shape, and performance in this class, then you better get used to it!"

The teacher has the whole class lined up on the football field. She's screaming at us and I find it strange. There's no reason to yell. She spits a little as she looks us all dead in the eye and explains that we will call her Coach, and Coach only. No name, I guess.

"There will be a lot of judging in this class. I will push you all to your limit! I will scream at you to keep running even after you've coughed up both kidneys and a lung!"

Kill me now. Kill me now. Kill me now.

"Now. In this class we will often be pairing up with Cardio Core Proficient. This means that both classes will be paired together. We won't be doing this every day, but we will be doing it often, starting today."

As if on cue, another class comes sprinting on the field. They're all sweaty and tired and clad in tank tops and shorts. They weren't in uniforms.

Probably too good for school uniforms.

I look down at the grass, and then I hear someone shout my name.

"Amy!"

It's Skai. She's glistening with sweat and wearing shorts that would seem to short if they were on anyone else. On her, they're like a gift from the Universe.

"Oh my fucking-"

My inaudible mumbling is cut short as some guy in my class catcalls to her.

"Damn baby! Save some of that energy for me!"

Skai winks at him, much to my displeasure, and continues her sprint towards me.

She smiles once she reaches me. "I didn't know you were athletic,"she says. I start laughing, even though it's honestly not that funny. "I'm never athletic. I'm not in this class by choice."

"Well it's cool that you're here. Now I can talk to somebody who doesn't act like a hormonal bozo."

She says the last part loudly, so that the guy who catcalled her earlier could hear.

"When it comes to you, I am a hormonal bozo." I only mean it half-jokingly.

She laughs, and bites her lip. "Good," she says. "Good."

_________________________________

The school day is finally over. My muscles are killing me, thanks to cardio, and the day in general has just been exhausting. On the way into the house, I make sure to slam the door extra hard so that my Mom will know I'm home. I groan my way up the stairs and into my room, cursing my coaches name as I go.

My room has been so clean since Paris left. It was like the mess that became my room was basically just her clothes thrown all over my floor.

I grin, suddenly remembering Skai today, and push open the door to my mom's office. "Hey Mom. What's for dinner?"

My bag slips from my hand, and I can feel my heart drop from my chest.

"Mom?"

My mother lays on the ground, twitching and flailing like she can't control her body. I want to cry, and scream, and just sit there in fear, but my brain isn't letting me.

I know what's happening. It's a seizure, obviously, but my mind is still freaking out about her convulsions. "On your side, on your side." I shift into hyper drive, and roll my mom onto her side. I learned this in class. You roll the victim over so that she doesn't choke on her own saliva, and then... and then what?!

I dial 911 into my phone, and practically scream at the phone to come to my address. I tell the operator the situation, and then I look down. The convulsions have stopped but I don't know if that's a good thing.

"Mom. It's okay, yeah? It's fine. You're going to be fine."

She looks up at me with hazed eyes and I try my best to smile, but it comes out all crooked and broken. "It's alright."

"You're fine."

"You have to be fine."