21. Caffeinated Apologies

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"She's alive!" Kimber gasped dramatically when I arrived in Mrs. Hawks classroom Monday morning. It's where we had been meeting every morning to discuss the fashion show. At the moment the room was only occupied by the Twins and me.

Jem's eyes were glued to her phone, her short, thick curls doing a poor job at hiding the red tint on her cheeks. Kimber was at the front of the room writing today's assignment on the board in bubble letters. A task she agreed to do for Mrs. Hawk since we took over her classroom.

"We were starting to worry," Jem added, looking up from her phone. "You didn't reply to any of our texts."

"Sorry," I said, sheepishly.

All communication was cut that weekend. I needed to buckle down and work on the designs. That meant no distractions -- no phone, no laptop. For two days it was just me, my sketch book and an old MP3 player that was on death bed.

During those days of solitude I managed to create a few designs I was semi-proud of. That was as good as it was going to get for me. The doubt I had about my abilities still lingered around, reminding me I was in way over my head.

"I've been working on the designs," I explained, taking a seat at the desk next to Jem.

"Can we see them?" Jem's face brightened up and she actually put down her phone.

"I didn't bring them." That was a lie. They were inside a folder in my bag. She was just too excited to see them and I knew they'd disappoint her. They needed to be trashed. Again.

Jem frowned, lifting her phone from her desk and resumed scrolling through her feed.

"That's fine," Kimber said, snapping the cap back onto the marker she was using. "Just bring them to June's. We need an idea of the theme you're going with so that we know how to decorate the gym."

"The gym?" I blinked. The gymnasium was huge. I figured we'd just use the stage in the cafeteria. Surely we wouldn't need that much room.

"Well, yeah, it's the biggest room in the whole school," she pointed out, hoisting herself up onto the desktop next to me. "And so many people are already excited about the show. We're going to need the room. The bleachers are going to be packed!"

Packed? With judgmental teenagers. The room became warmer at the thought of starting a riot because my design sucked. I'm being dramatic. I needed to calm down. It was hard to catch my breath, though. Was the room getting smaller?

My phone rang, pulling me out of my spiraling thoughts long enough to excuse myself and step out into the hall. My lungs started working properly as I answered the call.

"Hello?"

"Come out to the quad," an all too familiar voice directed.

What happened Friday night still bothered me. His words ran through my head for the rest of the night. "You wouldn't understand." Understand what?

I tried to push my wounded school girl feelings aside. He was obviously going through something that night. Whatever it was, it didn't seem to be bothering him that day.

"Why?" I asked.

"You'll find out when you get out here." I swear I could hear him smirk.

Glancing back into Mrs. Hawk's classroom made my choice easy. The fashion show preparations needed to be put on hold. Also, the fresh air would've been good for me.

I followed his instructions, navigating my way through the students to get to the door that lead outside. It was cold out and the sky was a creepy looking grey. I was glad that I wore my hair down so my ears were at least warm.

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