AEGIS ↠ EMBRY CALL [R.U]

18| BAD MESSAGES

When Monday rolled round, Callas was looking forward to seeing Henry again, she would finally have someone to sit through and survive yet another one of Mr Hanson's lessons with. That, and it would mean that he wasn't the teenager brought into the hospital with the delirious and violent man on Thursday. She still blamed herself, even if he wasn't hurt, that it could have been him that was injured and brought to hospital. Henry still wasn't answering his phone and Callas couldn't help but think of the worst, her leg bounced up and down with nerves as she looked out the Jeep window as Reed drove her to school.

"Cal?" Reed spoke up, glancing to the side at her.

But she didn't respond. Her mind bounced around with the possible thoughts of Henry being hurt. He was her first friend in La Push, and she cared about him, even if it had only been about a week since they had first met. If anything was to happen to Henry, Callas felt like it was her duty to do something about it, she should have made him stay a little while longer on Thursday and have Reed drop him back off. If she had known about the man that they found in Forks before Henry walked out of the house, maybe things would have been a bit different.

"Cal?"

Again, nothing. But then again, the more she thought about it, what difference would it have really made? Henry was probably fine. She should have just taken his word for it that it was just food poisoning, she was clearly over thinking things. Henry would have told her if things weren't okay. As far as she knew he didn't keep any secrets from her. Unless Mr Blanchard told him to keep quiet. She didn't know Henry's father, she hadn't even met him before, but—

"Callas!" He spoke louder.

"Hmm?" Callas hummed out as she bit her lower lip. Her right arm was resting on the small arm rest on the door, her fingers messing with her lips as her jaw tightened.

"Why do you look like you're going to implode?"

"Hmm?"

"Did something happen?"

"Hmm?"

He knew she wasn't listening. "Is it Embry? Is he the problem?"

"What?" Callas's attention was drawn from the window.

She wouldn't like admit that she wasn't actually paying much attention to what Reed was talking about, she couldn't help it. But the sudden name drop of Embry managed to finally engage her in a normal—hopefully normal—conversation. If it were any other time, Reed would have made a comment on how quickly she responded after hearing Embry's name, but seeing the distress on Callas's face, he thought against it. Instead, he let out a small sigh and opened his mouth to repeat himself:

"I asked if you were okay. You look like you're going to explode into a thousand mini Callas pieces or something."

"Oh." Callas rubbed her forehead. "It's, uh, it's Henry."

"You guys have a fight or something?"

Callas shook her head. "No, but he hasn't really been answering my texts. I mean, he does, but he avoids certain topics."

"Maybe he has a crush on you," Reed suggested. "He might not want to be obvious about it."

"Reed," Callas started with the roll of her eyes. "I very much doubt that."

"Why?"

"He doesn't act like he would like me that way. Besides, what does our History project have anything to do with Henry possibly having a crush on me?"