Escaped

Chapter Eight

"Damn, someone got lonely last night!" Jacob nudged Luke with his shoulder the next morning in the kitchen, where we were all gathered. Luke shook his head.

"Nothing happened. She had a nightmare is all," he explained.

"I did not want to be alone, so I moved into his room," I added. 

"You aren't hungry, Blake?" Luke noticed Blake had pushed his bowl of cereal away, an uncharacteristic scowl on his face. He glared up at Luke.

"No," he replied bluntly, stood, and went outside. We stared after him, confused. I'd only been there two days, and even I knew that was not typical Blake behavior. I looked over at Luke.

"Did you do something to make him angry with you?" I wondered curiously. He furrowed his brow, as if he were concentrating, and I realized he was trying to discern Blake's mood.

Suddenly, his face loosened and took on an expression of... perhaps sympathetic regret?

"Yeah. I guess I did," he nodded slowly.

"What'd you do?" I asked. He looked at me, and cleared his throat sheepishly.

"Uh, I don't think he'd want me to share that," he shook his head. "Come on- let's get going. You don't wanna be late, huh?" he winked. I  suppressed a grin, and went with him and Jacob. Blake had already gotten in the car, ready to go. I almost felt bad that he was in such a foul mood, but I figured- why feel bad if I did nothing wrong?

So I simply sat next to Luke as Jacob drove to the college, smiling. When we arrived, Blake pulled ahead of us, walking at a quicker pace. I caught up with him. 

"Hey, Blake. Do you mind me asking what's the matter?" I touched his elbow. He looked down at me.

"Ask away. But I won't answer."

"Why not?" He simply looked at me.

"You probably wouldn't like the answer."

"Why would I not? Have I done something wrong?" I wondered as we headed down Hall Two for Calculus.

"No, no- trust me, you've done nothing wrong, Aurelie. You could never do anything wrong. You just wouldn't like the answer," he responded as we entered the classroom. He went and took his seat near the back, and I let it go.

I was, after all, hiding my own secrets. 

"Hello, Mr. Dang," I handed my schedule to the teacher. He looked over from the whiteboard and took my schedule to check it over, then handed it back. 

"Nice to meet you, Miss D'Artois. Please, take any open seat," he gestured to the desks. I quickly spotted one between Blake and Luke, and happily took it.

"Good choice," Luke smiled at me.

"Alright, guys, hush hush now. Hey! Shut it!" the teacher called. The class quieted down and settled into their seats. "Thanks. So today we're gonna begin lessons on Asymptotic and Unbounded Behavior of Graphs. So pull out your textbooks and turn to page 394. I'll walk you through the first two problems, then you will finish the 10 practice questions. After that, I'll teach you what you don't know, and you will re-do the ones you missed. Homework will be assigned at the end of class. Now, Problem One..."  he wrote the problem on the board and began to narrate how he worked it out. I grabbed a sheet of paper and pen from Luke, and began writing the problems down from my mind. I'd gone through the 5 textbooks last night before bed- before the nightmare- and had skimmed through, committing every bit of information to memory.

I loved having photographic memory. I pitied the humans for their inability to retain information for more than a day or so. 

By the time Mr. Dang had finished Problem 3 on the board and had instructed us to begin on our own, I'd already finished them all.