Chapter Nineteen: A New Normal | Part 1
The night before classes resumed, the trio assembled in Rhea’s room to await Seerla’s return.
She never showed.
Benn acted as the voice of reason as he tugged a dejected Thirtyx out the door at the last fraction before curfew. “There’s always a lot of traffic, with all the schools returning from break. I’m sure her family stopped somewhere, and she’ll turn up by morning.”
But when Benn finished his Pfah meditation the next morning, Thirtyx waiting expectantly for any word from Rhea, he shook his head with a sigh.
Thirtyx focused so hard on fighting off his worry that he nearly left his room with mismatched buttons and no tie. He paced his breathing on the way down to breakfast, and in his concentration, he almost missed Seerla, seated at a large table, laughing with her old friends.
He stared. Even as he sat, even as Benn wandered away to get his food, he fought desperately to meet her eye. But by the time Benn returned, Thirtyx had concluded that Seerla was avoiding looking his way.
“Am I in a trance?” Thirtyx grumbled. “Did someone mess with my memory? Seerla hates them, right?”
“Last I heard,” Benn said coolly. “And while it’s nice to see that she hasn’t completely tanked her reputation, a heads-up would have been nice. Rhea was on her way to the gates to scan for her essence, and—”
Rhea appeared then, tossing her things into the free chair with a huff. “And she’s lucky I didn’t get a bunch of twigs in my hair before Benn told me, or she’d have twin hells to pay. Sitting here, eating breakfast with the enemy without so much as a note!”
“There has to be a reasonable explanation.” Thirtyx tried to convince himself as much as anyone. “Maybe they all apologized during the break, and she was too busy making amends to tell us. I’m sure we’ll find out in class.”
Thirtyx spent his first two classes supervising the war in his stomach between raw betrayal and guarded hope. When he and Rhea entered their rhetoric class, they sat together, free of the divide previously imposed by the Law Comp. Rhea tossed her bag onto the chair next to her. But when Seerla slipped in just before the bell, she sat on the other side of the room, in the only other available seat.
As Professor C called the class to attention, Seerla stole a glance at Thirtyx while he was looking straight at her. She averted her eyes quickly.
The guarded hope in Thirtyx’s stomach waved its white flag. He couldn’t deny now that she was avoiding him.
An itch in his mind followed soon after. It wasn’t like he was listening to the lesson anyway. I’m fine, he snapped on impulse, but the thought melted into static as it hit the mental connection.
Beside him, Rhea winced. I wouldn’t have believed you, so spare me the discomfort next time, okay?
Sorry, Thirtyx thought hollowly. She looked right at me, though. Something must have happened over break.
Well then she certainly owes us an explanation about what that something was! I say we corner her after Service Club. Make her talk.
If he could survive until Service Club with the metaphorical knife protruding from his back. He still had to make it through lunch, their study period, and their capstone while feeling her presence across the room. Was there really an explanation, or had she simply changed her mind?
Rhea and Benn gave Thirtyx some healthy space for the rest of the day. It was for the best. An unruly sort of frustration had risen in his veins—one Thirtyx wasn’t sure his friends would understand. One that accompanied watching the small comforts of existence disappear from his grasp again and again and again…
After class, Rhea hustled to the classroom where they had their Service Club meeting so that she’d be there with Thirtyx whenever Seerla arrived. But, as they’d half expected, Seerla was among the last to enter, and she took a seat in the back corner.
Rhea called the meeting to order and droned on for half a bar about the remaining budget, any event ideas, and the fundraising that would be necessary to enact those ideas. Thirtyx simultaneously yearned for the meeting to end and for Rhea to keep talking forever. Did he really want to confront Seerla? Did he really want an answer, or was it less painful to invent one that suited him?
He almost didn’t catch the change in Rhea’s tone and cadence indicating the end of the meeting until notebooks began to close and chairs began to slide.
Calley Jones 