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The boy who’d been sitting next to Franklin Marsters is in this class too. I notice that he’s sitting right behind me. He came in with another boy with pale blond hair and ice blue eyes. Funnily enough, this boy has the same fiery aura as the other two. I wonder why their energy is all so similar. Perhaps they’re related, they can’t possibly be
brothers because they’re all the same age, but maybe they’re first cousins or something.
On my way to my locker during the mid-morning break I pass by Josh and his friends, he shouts over, “Hey, it’s stutter girl!” but I hurry on before they can bother me further. I really hate teenagers, even though I am one, with their stupid social hierarchies and need to ostracise the weak.
I dig in my bag to make sure I put my Xanax in this morning before I left Gran’s. My doctor back home prescribed it to me six months ago because apparently I’ve got an anxiety disorder that’s related to my speech impediment. But I try to only take the pills when I really need them. Growing up with my dad, I came to hate any kind of drugs, even prescription ones.
Unfortunately, this first day of school thing has my chest seizing up, and I need something to calm me down. I open my locker and switch my books for the ones I need for my next three classes before lunch. Then I take one of the pills from the bottle and swallow it down, making an effort to do it discretely so that the passing students can’t see. But I sense I’m being observed, I look quickly to my left and find Franklin Marsters had been watching the whole time. Shit.
I shouldn’t be ashamed, but I am. I don’t like people knowing I’m so screwed up in the head that I have to take pills because I become so anxious I can barely function sometimes. I shove the bottle back in my bag and zip it up. It could have just been a headache tablet. He can’t know that it’s anything else. I look in his direction again, he’s still watching me. His locker is about six or seven down from mine. His blue eyes seem to see right into my soul, it’s unsettling. Just because I can see people’s auras and am often preoccupied with studying them, it doesn’t mean that I like it when I become the subject of analysis.
Franklin doesn’t smile. He doesn’t do anything for a minute, but above his head the orange fire has sparks of turquoise in it. Compassion? Is he feeling sorry for me? That makes me even more self-conscious, but I can’t stop staring at the turquoise, it’s too lovely.
He looks up above his head for a minute, probably wondering again what the hell I’m staring at. If only he could see the fireworks display, I muse. I look away, people must really think I’m special needs the way I stare at things that aren’t there. I hitch my bag up on my shoulder and almost walk right into Caroline. She links her arm through mine and shows me the way to my next class. Her yellow aura soothing me more than any silly pills ever could.
