One Last Attempt

012

"Coffee?" Baker asks plopping down next to me.

I take it from him and nurse it in my hands. It's warm, much warmer than he is, and I'm just glad I have something to hold. My body is lagging, it's exhausted, but I don't drink any. Caffeine always increases my anxiety.

I always thought that Baker knew pretty much everything that there is to know about me. Once again, I'm proven wrong. We're practically strangers.

"How'd the exam go?" I ask.

He shrugs me off. "Doesn't matter."

It certainly does matter. Everything needs to be perfect. It needs to be ideal and wonderous and magical.

"Tell me," I whisper, so it feels less like a demand. I find myself trying to be smaller around him so that I can fit around his big personality easier. I don't want him to notice my presence; I want to peacefully coexist.

Baker looks at me. He takes a sip of his coffee. "Not good Freds. Really bad."

Maybe it was because I was the one who helped him study and not Ava. Maybe it was because of all of this.

"It'll be okay," I try to tell him. The only thing that keeps me from shaking is the fact that I'm holding a boiling coffee. All of my energy goes into stilling.

He shakes his head back and forth. "No, but that's fine."

Clearly, it isn't. His lip is quivering.

"You'll still pass the class with a fail, right?" I ask.

He looks at me. "I don't know Freds. Depends on how badly I fail."

I want to reach over and grab his hand, but mine are preoccupied. Instead, I sit and try to create a patch of silence. There is no such thing though, at least, not in a hospital. I can hear footsteps and hushed whispers. There is a cough nearby, and the squeaking rolling of a wheelchair down the hall. Perhaps it's a gurney. Everything is becoming louder and louder.

"Where's Jessie?" Baker's voice adds to the noise.

I stand up. The coffee spills a bit on my hand, and I jerk it backwards. It burns, so I wipe it against my pants, then bring my hands to my lips and suck on the burn. Baker walks up to me and puts a hand on my shoulder, but I duck out from beneath him.

From there, I storm outside. It's freezing out, maybe even cold enough to snow, even though it doesn't. It's the middle of the day, and time feels different. This is coming from a time traveller. It still felt like the middle of the night in that hospital. Quite evidently, it is the middle of the day. Everything is wrong.

This attempt is not my best. It'll be used for data collection, I guess. Therefore, I'll have to watch Baker die. Again. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll even get to see him fall this time.

If I hadn't already dry heaved, I would again. Right now, and everything would feel like absolute shit.

"Freddie," it's Jessie, who has walked out of the hospital. "Ava's conscious. Figured that you'd like to know."

"Thanks," I manage, staring out at the empty street. We are completely isolated. I don't know the last time I was alone with Jessie, and I doubt that there will be another time, to be completely honest. Is this our good-bye?

"You good?" he asks. "You've been acting really weird lately. Like, really weird."

"I'm good," I tell him.