Deep In // Klance AU

Chapter 7: Keith

School was kicking back into the scheme of things. There were certainly long grueling days spent bored in classrooms, yet nothing could quite equate to the even longer nights staying up late with home work or studying. Teenagers were truly a nocturnal species that children and adults couldn't relate to.

I only heard the indistinct chatter of freshman while typing furiously on my laptop. Karma sought out revenge and it thought nothing better than to give me Mr. Iverson as my English professor. It was an effective punishment, yet it still didn't hold me back from my recklessness.

He had overwhelmed me with writing assignments that he seemed to fabricate out of the blue. They came in left and right and I could only keep up with it all by having my fingers fly on my laptop's keyboard. It was the epitome of struggling.

Katie tiptoed her way out my view as I was focused with rereading what I sloppily typed; I would make corrections when I deemed fit. She jolted towards me and I flinched back in surprise. I almost dropped my computer onto the metal bleacher's of the gym, but I was skillful enough to catch it before gravity could take its toll, "Shit-shit-shit-shit," I quietly scolded myself.

Katie found it all to be too humorous, "Watch your profanity, Keith, minors are present," she cocked a sly brow out of pride. I shot her with a glare that indicated only uttermost annoyance. She felt attacked, "Geez, you don't have to look so unpleasant. I know that practically all of us woke up before seven in the morning. We have just as much of a good enough reason to be as distasteful as you, but we're able to pull through. Loosen up, Keith."

I was transported into a chaotic world of fear. I was in a frenzy. A panic attack asked for permission to take over, "I lost the file. My writing prompt is due by seventh period. I'm not going to be able to redo it again, I just don't have the time," my sanity slowly slipped away.

She rolled her hazelnut brown eyes at me. With her physical education uniform shirt, she rubbed off the smudges that found their way on her circular, glass frames, "Give me your computer. I can probably retrieve it for you."

In my situation, the obvious choice was to allow for her to help me recover my lost work, but I couldn't fathom the idea of her going through my computer's software. Now, I wasn't watching porn or illegally selling drugs or playing virtual poker, my computer just had a collection of my thoughts. My deepest darkest secrets were in the depths of its hard drive. It was my substitute for when I didn't have my journal laying around. Anyone who was wise would have accepted her offer, but I wasn't wise, "Thank you and all- I just can't let you touch my laptop. It's kind of special to me."

Like a magician, she was able to slide my computer out from my hands. Once it was snatched and in possession, Katie began to retrace the documentation of my drive, "You really thought I was going to take no as an answer," she scolded me, "I know myself better than that; you know myself better than that. I'm persistent and I'm proud of it, now, is this what you were looking for?" She turned my laptop around to display my writing prompt on the screen.

I gasped in profound shock and solace, "Yeah, it is! Katie, you are great with technology. I swear if my computer could curse me, I would have already walked under three ladders, crossed paths with five black cats, and would have broken two mirrors."

"That sounds like an elementary word problem, but I guess I just have a thing for technology. I get software better than people," there was an unsettling shift in her tone, "Call me, Pidge, Keith."

It took me back, "If you don't mind me asking..."

"Matt would call me Pidge. It was his nickname for me," her sadness was apparent, "I guess I just would miss hearing him call me that- like I'm coping by having everyone address me with Pidge? I was roughly five and we were in New York. We met this nice woman in the park and she let us feed the birds. I, for whatever reason, took a liking to the pigeons. It just stuck from there on."