Rising Shards

I leaned my head against the window. Going to the mall was fun but it did wear me out. Mat ball was...something, mostly tiring. Also learning that my teacher was now maybe kind of dating my sister and that whole news took it out of me as well. The latter in a better way than the former. Like a happy, relieved amount of burnt out energy, like the energy of a sunset taking the day into night. Stella dropped me off on her own, not wanting to make Dr. Diast drive us around anymore and in case anyone saw me get dropped off by Diast and Stella together. I could have been a snot and asked why they picked me up together, but I already put Stella through enough with my running away prank. When she stopped at the school parking lot, I could tell she had a bit more to say.

“I’m sorry again I didn’t tell you,” Stella said. “Like Evy said, we’re still both figuring this out. I was going to tell you, but…well, you’re pretty observant so you beat me to it.”

“And I had the help of a magic marble thing that tells when people are hiding something that a wizard gave me.” I said.

“Right. That’s…let’s just say you’re observant, I like that better.” Stella said. “Evy’s told me enough about Marne that he’s basically my enemy too.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I said. I didn’t like Razmus much either, but I didn’t share the sheer disdain Diast and now Stella had for him.

“I know I trust you, but I do really want to make it clear to keep this quiet.” Stella said.

“I won’t say anything.” I said.

“You can tell Oka only if you get her to promise not to tell her dad.” Stella said, intepreting through my words to hear an underlying “I’ll maybe tell my girlfriend.”

“Sure, sure.” I said.

“I know you’re probably gonna tell her first chance you get, right?” Stella asked. I shrugged, not wanting to make her think she was completely right. “But please don’t tell Kalei, I’m sorry but I don’t trust her with this knowledge. Her joke-per-minute ratio has me worried she'd let the info out almost immediately through her comedy or whatever.”

“I won’t…” I said. I gave her a hug and quietly said, “I’m really happy for you, you know.”

Stella made a heaving sound, so I quickly backed up, wondering if she was throwing up or something. But she was just trying not to ugly cry. Trying and failing, as my whispered words struck a chord with her. It was a happy ugly cry at least, because she was probably harboring a lot of emotions about her blossoming thing with Dr. Diast so having my support brought at least some relief. I think she tried to say thank you, but it came out as a croak while nervously smiling and nodding, so I just hugged her one more time and got out of the car to spare her having to go through those emotions with someone else around. I waved as she drove off, then headed back to the dorms.

Kalei was practically jumping around our room when I got back. When she saw me, she stopped and held her arm out. It took me a while to figure out she just wanted a high five.

“So it went well?” I said after she smacked my hand really hard.

“I’m in!” Kalei said. “In just a month or so, I’m gonna kick every other beam chasers’ team’s collective ass so bad they’ll all…something, I’m just really pumped, dude!”

“Awesome!” I said.

Once I was settled in bed (Kalei needed to burn out some energy jumping from her top bunk bed to mine on the other side, which miraculously didn’t obliterate the frame once she landed), my mind was buzzing thinking about the day. I realized I hadn’t checked my phone in a bit, and that Oka still hadn’t written back yet.

“how did your rehearsal go?” I texted.

Fortunately, she responded to that right away. “It was…a LOT. But I feel pretty dang good right now! Thank you for writing back earlier, sorry I was too busy to respond! I am ‘digging’ the new apartment! You went to Twin Wolves today?”

“Yep!”

I giggled for a second at her needlessly putting apostrophes around digging like that, then sent another message before Oka could respond.

“hey, I kinda need you right now.”

“Lillia’s not in my room, wanna come over?”