Eccedentesiast (Brandon Darrow)

#Partners

[#Partners]
It's not always just the heart. Sometimes your mind breaks as well.
–R.H. Sin
*****

       That night I didn't get any sleep as my mind was plagued by nightmares. I groaned as I tiredly got up and dressed. I looked at my phone seeing no new messages. However I did see the tweet about the blood balloon from yesterday as well as my breakdown in the hall. I sighed and pulled my hair into a ponytail and made my way downstairs. My dad had come home and was making coffee.
     "You want some honey?" He asked holding up a cup. I shook my head and grabbed the toast he had laid out for me. "Are you gonna be okay today?" He asked, eyes filled with concern. I stuck my hand in my pocket feeling the edges of the paper.
     "Yeah I'll be fine," I say giving him a smile. He smiled back and I finished my toast before giving him a kiss on the cheek and leaving. When I got to school people were already pointing and laughing at me. I Kept my head down and found myself walking toward Elisia, Rowan, and Hailey. It looked like elisia was about to leave but I grabbed her just before she did.
     "I have to tell you something," I said as she turned around looking at me. "I got a text from MonkeyMan yesterday," I told her.
    "Yeah I got a video too," Rowan said.
     "That's not possible MonkeyMans dead guys," Hailey said and I flinched.
    "I know, I was there remember," I said looking down at the floor.
     "Can I see the video?" Elisia asked.
      "It was a flash, it's gone," Rowan said. It sounded as though she was trying to hide something.
     "You didn't screen grab it?" Elisia asked. You could hear a hint of anger in her voice.
     "No I wasn't thinking fast enough," after a second she added, "I messaged him back."
     "You what?" Hailey asked fear still evident on her face. My eyes widened slightly as I looked at Rowan.
     "What did he say?" I asked remembering my own message that he sent me.
"He said he wants revenge," Rowan replied. I felt a shiver run up my spine, what he wanted was us dead.
"Guys I have to get to class, I'll talk to you all later okay," I said walking toward my classroom.
"Hey will you come to my place this weekend?" Elisia asked. I nodded walking away from the others. To be honest I didn't want to go, in fact I never wanted to leave my house again. I figured it would be good for me to get out again though. I sat down in my seat just as Rowan walked into the room with my other classmates. She sent me a sad smile that I returned. Brandon sat down beside me and I could feel him stare.
     "Hey, are you okay?" He whispered leaning over the aisle.
    "Fine," I muttered not even bothering to look at him. He sighed before leaning back toward his seat.
    "Okay class I'm going to assign partners for the interview project I mentioned last Friday," Ms. Dawson explained, "You guys can pick any topic under the sun—" she was cut off by Brandon.
      "Can I pick you as a topic Ms. Dawson," he asked with a smirk on his face.
      "Really? That's as good as you can do?" She asked as everyone began to laugh. I looked over at Brandon who's smirk was no longer there. "As I was saying, you can pick any topic under the sun. Obviously, try to keep on the subject of things we've been discussing in class. I want you guys to write long form open-ended questions."
      I sighed scribbling things down in my notebook as she started to rattle off partners. "And uh Carter and Darrow," she said and I snapped my head up looking at Brandon.
     "Hey partner," he said winking and I swear to god I thought I was going to throw up. I ignored him continuing to scribble in my notebook as Ms. Dawson kept saying names. As the bell rang Brandon was the first one out the door and I rushed after him.
    "Hey wait!" I called after him, following him up the stairs.
    "Hey," he said grinning as he turned toward me.
     "When should we work on the project?" I asked him fiddling with the paper in my pocket.
    "Aspen," he said patting my arm and I retracted away from him quickly,"Can't you just do it yourself? Hey, I know how you teachers pets are. Even if I did some work, you wouldn't be happy with it."
    I scoffed at his comment saying, "You're right because even if you used your mouth for something other then drugs and beer, nothing clever would come out of it anyways."
     "Yeah actually I use my mouth in a lot of different ways, I can show you—" he leaned forward and I pushed his face away with my hand.
    "How about only in your dreams, I'll just do it myself," I answered. He put his hand to his heart and threw his head back as if he were hurt.
    "Ouch, but thank you," he said turning and walking up the stairs. At the top of the stairs a notebook fell out of his bag and I grabbed it and opened it. There stuck inside the pages was a article clipping regarding Dunbar's suicide. I furrowed my eyebrows and stared at where Brandon was. I wondered why he would have this as I closed it and stuck it in my bag.
    I would have to speak with Rowan about it later. I sighed before walking back down the stairs and to my other class. At the end of the day I caught up to Rowan just as she was leaving. "Hey this fell out of Brandon's backpack," I told her holding up the book and opening to the page that had the newspaper clipping and numbers.
"Weird,"she said looking closer at the numbers, "you think it might be a locker combination?" She asked
"Brandon's maybe," I said shrugging and putting the book back in my bag. "I just feel like there's something up with him, but I'll try it," I finished. She nodded before saying bye and I finished my walk to my house. My dad was already gone by the time I got there so I locked the doors and went to my room.
I pulled the paper out of my pocket and looked at it one more time. Looking at it I realized I would have to go to Brandon's house to see what he was hiding. "Well what can it hurt," I muttered sticking the paper in my bag. I didn't know when I would go but I knew I had to. I sighed as I crawled under the covers to tired to even get out of my clothes.

—•—•—