Vi Presento a Athea (Introducing Athea)

IV

Athea got home alone that night and only heard Patrick enter through the door around 10 p.m. He climbed the stairs and kissed Athea good night before going into his own room, still a bit frenetic from the rush-y day, hence forgetting to ask how her date was. Which for Athea, was a good thing – she most definitely did not want to talk about it. She lit her bedside table and checked her entry once more before bed. Her eyes stopped on Jason's drawing for a split second and she took a deep breath. She wrote a few last couple of words and finished it with "Love you, Brie", as she always does, and went to bed.

Waking up the next morning was a dread for poor Athea. She did not want to meet with those people again. She felt humiliated and was honestly considering asking Patrick to be home-schooled. Putting a considerable amount of effort to kick her blankets away and actually step down on the floor of her bedroom, she basically crawled over to the showers. Her critical decision then began: should she dress poorly like she didn't care (as her mood), or should she throw on a femme fatale vibe and dress to impress, with a touch of "look-what-you've-wasted" (as, she thought, Brie would've liked)? Sighing in laziness, she ended up going for the in-between, which looked pretty much ordinary.

Arriving at school for her second day turned out to be unsurprising. People were already used to her presence and the "foreign girl news" had already had its 24h time to cool down. Class, however, showed itself to be no different: the nagging continued firm and steady – even though this time, blue eyes wasn't taking part in the fooling around (at least he was fulfilling his part of the deal, Athea thought to herself).

When the bell for lunch break rang, Athea, starved and with a bladder full of oolong tea from breakfast, dashed as quickly as she could out of class. After feeling relieved and tea-free, she made her way to the cafeteria, where she grabbed her lunch and sat at the same oak tree from the day before. She took a deep breath, delighted at the peacefulness of her environment. Reaching out for her diary to start her...

Wait.

Where was her diary?

She desperately looked around her and uselessly tapped the grass beneath her. Her breath started to run quick as she began to panic. No one could ever see that diary; her whole life was in it! It was too personal to be risked, and she would not be able to bear lose it. Her eyes froze on the apple on her lunch tray. Okay, let's try to think rationally. She dashed out of class, so she probably forgot to pick it up from her bag. Yes, okay, this was likely to happen. She took another deep breath, failing miserably in trying to calm down and finished her lunch under a cold sweat.

Her diary had stayed in her bag, indeed. But not for long.

"Ay, O'Connell!" Cyrus shouted to the sleepy jock from across the hall. "Look-y here what I found in little miss Italy's bag!" He teased the boy, with somewhat of a notebook at hand.

"Dude, you were messing through the girl's stuff?" Jason was suddenly awoke. "That's just twisted, man." He gave the tan jock a gross look.

"No, dude, this is called being a genius." He threw his arm over Jason's shoulder, while still shaking the brownish looking book in front of his face. "Look." He turned the notebook around, revealing the initials 'A. S. A.' engraved in its back. "I think what we might be looking at here is miss smarty pants' diary."

"Well, why don't you check it yourself if you're so curious, then." He removed the boy's arms from around him. He couldn't help but still feel bothered about the incidents from last night.

"I could never!" Cyrus looked shocked. "You do the honors, my man." He smiled, handing the diary over. "I mean, the little prick did make a fool out of you, not me."