The Circle

27 | Ghosts

I didn't sleep a minute last night. My mind refused to calm down enough to enter a state of blissful unconsciousness after processing what I heard in the dead quiet of the night.  I drove to school with muddled thoughts and a tense jaw; My brooding was focused on two things, jumping back and forth between Kit and the secretive talk between dad and grandpa.

They were talking about a prophecy concerning light and dark. They were talking about light and dark being people. They were talking about me and Kit.

Even though the exhausted good-girl bad-boy stereotype is getting old, the prophecy can only be about us. Who's as dark as Kit is? He's the embodiment of death, with all the powers that come with that burden. And my own powers generate electricity, and I can control the weather. I can make the sun shine in the middle of a snow storm if I wish to do so. We're light and dark, dark and light. Neither one is perfect, but both of us aren't all good or bad. There are so many tenues to Kit and me.

I need to know more. The lack of concrete information is corrosive, the thoughts it propels toxic and terrible. Worry is sticking to me like a fine coat of sweat, perpetually there to remind me that something's wrong. Prophecies predict great, life-changing things. I'm not ready to discover something morbid about my life, something else to tilt the ground beneath my feet and leave me breathless.

Does it have to do with Cassandra's vision? Is the prophecy bad?

Selene tries to smile at me as I enter homeroom but her expression falls immediately upon noticing the expression plastered on my face. I know that I look terrible – the purple bags under my eyes and pale flesh are unpleasant to look at, and my eyebrows are furrowed above lifeless eyes.  I sense that she wants to talk about something, but I'm in no mood to banter. I sit down and plug my headphones in, trying to ignore the vaguely concerned expression she's exhibiting.

Selene is not as bad as I once thought. In fact, she's not bad at all. The girl has a tough outer shell which is almost impossible to crack, but when you get finally manage to get in, she shows you facets of her personality nobody would expect. She can be compassionate and frighteningly fierce, quiet and then talkative when trying to give advice. She's a girl with various layers and I judged her prematurely.

Once the homeroom period ends my feet hastily get up and leave the class so I can avoid talking to anyone. As I walk out, I hope that Selene recognizes that my attitude isn't animosity towards her, and that it's a product of recent events that happened to me.

I don't have Chemistry today, thank God. I'd be forced to sit next to him otherwise. Fate decided to show me a sliver of luck, a rare smidge of compassion, so that I could manage to avoid seeing him for a while longer. I've succeeded in escaping the corridor that leads to the classroom he's in during mornings, and stayed clear of the coffee shop.

My hands slip and I drop the book I was clutching. With a resigned sigh, I bend down and pick it up from the linoleum floor, my backpack sliding upwards. Once I'm in a standing position again my eyes search around wearily and land on a glass display near the wall. There are championship trophies ranging back from the 70s with state titles exhibited proudly on golden plaques. Framed pictures of past students accompany the trophies, the faces of alumni looking back at the current study body for eternity.

My eyes focus on a picture of three teenagers and I feel them widen. I stare at my father's jovial face and careless grin in wonder. Richard Parker was beautiful. It is strange to look at a picture of your parents when they're your age, doing the same things you're going through but decades apart. He studied at this school and wandered these same halls. It is cathartic in a way, knowing that he experienced these things too, juggling teenage life and demigod duties.