for another ten or eleven years before we completely lost touch, Nadine and I had a shelf life set to expire in two and a half weeks.
She stared at me for a long moment and then rolled her eyes. “Anyway, Phoebe thinks I should get together with Sebastian. You know, the tall Trekkie geek.”
I sat up a bit straighter at the mention of his name. “Isn’t he a bit tame for you?”
“Yeah, well, he’s odd in a way I doubt he could hide from my folks. Then again, I don’t think I could take listening to him go on about which Star Trek series is the best.”
“Is he really into that?” I enjoyed the newer movies with Chris Pine, but the older ones were a bit too much for me.
“Girl, he and Owen debated for an hour about the scientific probability of zombies versus aliens. Notice I said probability and not possibility. They had percentages and shit.”
“There’s always the hope he’s an amazing kisser.” I laughed as her eyes brightened.
“Good point. Which, of course, leads nicely to the turning point I believe you were going for. How was the date with Andrew?”
“Good.”
One of her eyebrows lifted. “Seriously? Good? You have nothing further to add?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want details! I want to hear that he stripped off the nasty green shirt he always wears and showed you his rippling abs. Then you slathered him with tanning oil as he lay on the beach under the hot sun. That boy has got a body to die for.”
“Did you bother going outside over the weekend? It was cold and windy. And how do you know what his abs look like?”
“Uh, hello? Don’t you remember when we went to the pool this summer and you practically drooled over him the entire day.”
“I vaguely remember.”
“So? Details! Come on! There has to be something.”
“Nothing to tell. We had fun. We ate lunch, went to the beach, and then a matinee. Then he had to go to work.”
Bianca rolled her eyes and tilted her head back. “Ugh, you’re so boring! Nadine is wearing off on you. She’s so goody-goody.”
“And you’re starting to sound like Phoebe.” I pointed my half-eaten granola bar at her.
“I know. You really should stop ditching me for Nadine and Andrew. When I’m left with limited company to communicate with I get a little tense.” She grabbed her backpack from the floor and her breakfast tray with the other hand. “I gotta get to class. Ms. Garcia totally spazzed on me last week about being late.”
“I’ll catch you at lunch.”
“Ugh. I can’t. I’m meeting Karin for my Mandarin tutoring. If I fail my final, my parents said they were going to enroll me in some online program to do on the weekends.” She waved and took off.
I dumped my granola bar wrapper in the trash and went to biology class. While bio did make my list of top five classed, I normally didn’t dread it. Not that I felt dread. No, it was more like anxious. Sebastian was in the same bio class. I’d tried hard to put the vision of his future into a little compartment I liked to call delusions, but I couldn’t. Not completely. Today I would check it out again.
The room was empty when I walked in and smiled at Mrs. Booth when she looked up from her computer screen. My seat was in the perfect spot. In the front corner closest to the door, I could simply stick out my foot and it would pass right through Sebastian’s future.
The warning bell rang and students started trickling in. I kept my eyes focused on the doorway, concentrating on keeping myself from being dragged into the puffy hazes surrounding the people walking by. Finally, Sebastian came through. I didn’t even need to stick my foot out. The haze he carried had spread and thickened. The instant he passed through the doorway, images flashed before me.
Blood everywhere, soaking into the grass. Micah on the ground, Lily crying over him. Nadine and Andrew glazed eyes. Phoebe screaming, blood running down her face. Sebastian standing a few feet away. A gun
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