Assigned Partners

Chapter 11

Trigger warning: self harm & suicide mentions, panic attack

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I hadn't even been awake for ten minutes this morning before I found myself kneeling in front of the toilet to throw up. All night I was stressing out about seeing Normani and the girls. I was worrying about Austin cornering me again. I couldn't shake those worries. When I woke up, my stomach was in knots. I wasn't ill, I was just feeling so anxious that I couldn't keep myself from being sick like that.

My stomach didn't feel any better on my car ride to school. In fact, I think it actually got worse. I pulled up into the parking lot and sat in my car for a few minutes before shutting it off. I was not looking forward to going in, but I knew I had to do it.

There was no sign of Austin as I made my way to music class. Much to my surprise, the girls were all sitting by the piano. I hesitantly walked over and sat with them. Ally and Dinah smiled at me, but Normani and Camila glanced at me with their best poker faces on.

"Hi.." I whispered.

"Normani told me, Lauren. About how you thought I told Austin about that thing we talked about," Camila said sternly, but in a rather quiet tone. Ally and Dinah were deep in their own conversation, so they weren't paying any attention to Camila and I. I was sure Normani was listening to us though.

"I'm so sorry."

"Why did you even make that assumption? I thought we were friends."

"We are, Camz. But it didn't make sense for it to be anyone else," I explained. "I was wrong to do that though.."

She stood up and came closer, wrapping her arms around me from behind. She rested her chin on my shoulder and I smiled.

"I forgive you. But you really need to trust people more. Not everyone is out to get you," she said with a chuckle.

If only you knew, I thought.

"Mani," I began, "I.." I didn't know what to say to her. I knew that she was probably made at me.

Her face softened as she looked at Camila and I. "I just wanted you to make it right. I needed to hear you admit that maybe you were being too quick to jump to conclusions."

"Thank you," I said softly as Camila returned to her seat.

Ms. Callahan was giving us time to work on our partnered assignment today, and Normani and I had a lot to work on. Ally, Camila, and Dinah went elsewhere in the room so they could focus. Normani and I ran through the song once, and it was a little rough. It wasn't too bad, but it wasn't great. I had been thinking about it a lot, and I spoke up.

"I'm going to sing with you," I told her.

"Really?

Are you sure?"

"Positive."

Her face seemed to light up and it made me happy to see. We went through the song again without the instruments, trying to work out how to harmonize, splitting verses up. I had a good feeling about how this was going to go. We worked on that for the entire class, and by the time the bell rang, we made a fair amount of progress.

The rest of the day seemed to zoom by. I didn't think it would given how rough my morning was before school, but I was pleasantly surprised. With only one class left of the day, I walked through the hallway with Ally and Dinah. I had completely forgotten about Austin, and the fact that I might see him.

"How was your day?" I asked them.

"It was alright. School is school Lo," Ally said with a chuckle.