b r e a k i n g g l a s s
"Well."
I stare up at the ceiling and suck in a deep breath, pulling the striped duvet above my shoulders. I purse my lips. "Well," I echo faintly. There's a pause. A very pregnant one. I pull my arms out from under the covers and rest them by my sides. "Well, it could've been worse."
Zach props himself up on his elbows and stares at me incredulously. "Seriously?" He asks.
"What?"
"You're full of crap," he tells me. He flops back down against the myriad of pillows on the bed. "It could've been worse?" He looks at me expectantly, his eyes wide and gray. I blink. He groans, frustrated, and shakes his head, looking annoyed, although I don't know why he would be. "Morgan, that was mind-blowing."
I sigh, then roll my eyes. "Which is why I said it could've been worse, instead of it could've been better," I explain, even though it should've been self-explanatory. "Duh." I shoot him a patronizing look.
"Unbelievable," he mutters. "You are unbelievable."
"Whatever."
"What're you doing?" He asks, as I pull on my bra, slip on my underwear, button up my blouse, zip up my plaid skirt, tie my tie, and put on my navy blazer. In that order. Even though Zach is looking at the ceiling as this happens, he says, "Your skirt is backwards."
He's right. I turn it around.
"I'm going," I tell him.
"I can see that."
"Where are my shoes?"
"No idea."
Ugh. He was being himself again. I see one penny loafer by his dorm door, but the other one is nowhere in sight. I scan the room three times. Zilch. "Zach," I say.
"What?" I hope he isn't acting bitter over the 'could've been worse' thing.
"Where's my other penny loafer?"
"What the hell is a penny loafer?"
"It's a shoe. It looks like this." I hold up my shoe.
He shrugs, flipping through an abnormal psychology textbook with mild interest. "Check under the bed or something."
"You're such a dick," I tell him.
He shrugs again. "I may have physical attraction to you, but that doesn't mean I have to like you." Which probably made sense in Zachworld, but just made me confused, so I crouched down and peered under the bed. It was there. I put my shoes on. "Where're you going?"
"Liz," I say, fixing my hair. My cheeks still look a little flushed. I could say I had a brisk walk outside, if anybody questioned me about it.
"Why?" He asks.
"Because this" - I gesture around - "has so got to stop."
Once upon a time, before The Incident, I used to hate Zachary Goode without wanting to tear off his clothes. It was a happy time in my life, when he was only a nuisance when I had the displeasure of talking to him, and not every single minute of every single day because he was constantly on my mind. In the worst type of way, too. He'd be doing things when he appeared in my mind, like holding roses or smiling or, god forbid, proposing. I'm a growing girl! I can't have my childhood traumatized by things like that!
Anyway, The Incident, and how I remember the day well - as if it had happened just yesterday. Well, it had actually happened just yesterday, but the events between The Incident and The Present Tense were so great, it seemed like it would've happened eons ago.
Basically, I was innocently talking to Liz in one of the school labs when Zach came in, being all annoying and everything that he is. I chose to ignore him for the most part, because he was only looking for a pencil or something, but he was about to move aside some suspicious looking liquids being held in test tubes, when Liz suddenly gave a yelp, dropped everything on her tray - which contained equally suspicious liquids being held in test tubes - and tried to stop Zach from moving the first set of suspicious looking liquids being held in test tubes.
She was successful, but then there was all this steamy clear stuff on the floor, and Liz was holding her lab coat over her mouth, and looking fearfully between me and Zach and the steamy clear stuff on the floor, and everything was so confusing, and once the cleaning crew had cleaned everything up (they had to enter the lab with Hazmat suits), Liz pushed us outside and checked our eyes, mouth and ears.
Finally, she said, "Erm, I have some awkward news for you two."
This is not the worst part.
She continued to say, "The test tubes I was holding contained a new drug that I was developing for the CIA."
It gets worse, just hang on.
She ended her explanation with, "It makes people um, amorous, towards um, each other, in um, a way that would be beneficial, um, if it had been properly concocted, but um, we haven't reached that status yet, and um, it has this weird binding property, where um, the people who inhale it at around the same time display um, physical attraction, um, for, um, each other."
That's the worst part.
I said, "Oh."
"I inhaled it," Zach realized, sounding as horrorstruck as I felt.
I stated, "Liz, you had your lab coat over your mouth."
She stares at her feet. "I didn't inhale enough to activate the hormone levels in my body."
"I didn't have a lab coat over my mouth," I said, almost dumbly.
"You inhaled enough to activate the hormone levels in your body," Liz whispered.
"Oh," I said again.
"How long does it take for this stuff to wear off?" Zach asked.
"It attaches to your DNA and clones itself on contact," Liz answered.
"Oh," Zach said.
:::
For the first few hours, it was alright. I didn't see Zach at all, and therefore did not feel any sort of disgusting physical attraction, but I guess the love potion (as Macey had so irritatingly nick-named it) was still cloning itself or whatever. Because during sixth period, which is when I sit directly behind him and usually wonder if I could impale his head with a pencil and make it look like an accident, instead of focusing on how I could put him through slow, painful, death, I was focusing on how his hair fell around his ears!
(It fell very nicely, by the way.)
I shook my head vigorously and concentrated very hard on the notes Mr. Smith always wrote but I had never previously written down.
And then there was the scent.
Usually, everything about Zach made my stomach turn, in the oh-my-god-I-will-throw-up-from-disgust type way, but all of the sudden, when Mr. Smith walked by to check homework and a small breeze blew through Zach's hair and then it hit me all at once: It was fresh, and clean, and kind of earthy, but also minty, and it reminded me of that one time in P&E when the coach was working us particularly hard and Zach took off his shirt like it was no big deal.
I paused at this point, to think about what had just crossed my brain. Minty earth? Really? What did he wash his hair with, peppermint plants from Gallagher's organic, self-sustaining farm behind the mansion, by the lake? What was minty earth, anyway? And why did Zach look so good when he was shirtless?
Then I had to re-pause to re-evaluate what had just crossed brain as I was thinking about what had crossed my brain. Why did Zach look so good shirtless? What? What was going on?
I figured I could allow myself that one, because all the boys who had transferred from Blackthorne were at peak physical shape. Except Jonas, who was like, skinny, but he didn't do P&E, so it was probably okay for him.
I raised my hand.
"Yes, Miss Morgan?" Mr. Smith asked.
"Can I change seats?"
Mr. Smith said, "Why?"
"I'm having visionary problems," I answered.
Mr. Smith frowned, then pointed out, "You sit in the second row."
Quickly, I improvised: "I, um, I see too well. I should move back. Like, waaay back. Maybe to the back row? Or maybe I could take this class next period, with the seventh graders?" I considered asking to transfer schools.
"No, Miss Morgan," Mr. Smith said.
Macey laughed at me all through lunch.
If frustration is money, I'm the richest girl on earth.
"I'm trying, Cam," Liz says, looking flustered and nervous. "I know you hate this, but I hate seeing you upset, too." She looks at me with concern. "Also, are you okay? Your cheeks are a little pink."
"I went for a brisk walk outside," I tell her promptly. "Well, when do you think you could have a solution ready?"
Liz shrugs.
"Awesome," I say. "Really, totally awesome."
"I'm sorry," Liz says apologetically.
"No, it's fine," I reply, even though inside, I'm saying: IT IS SO NOT FINE ELIZABETH SUTTON YOU GET ME A SOLUTION AND YOU GET IT TO ME NOW, but I'm a spy, so I lie and smile. "Just, as soon as possible, okay? Because it's totally starting to annoy me." ACTUALLY IT'S BEEN ANNOYING ME FOR A FULL TWENTY FOUR HOURS BUT YOU KNOW, TAKE YOUR TIME OR WHATEVER LIZ.
"Well, don't do anything stupid before I get it all sorted out, okay?" Liz says. "Anything you might regret."
Now she tells me.
:::
When I go back to the dorm room, Macey is standing on the coffee table, with a huge group of students around her, all holding little slips of paper, as Bex, also standing on the coffee table, scrawls something down on a clipboard. "Tina bets fifty for tomorrow, five-thirty," Macey yells to Bex over the chatter, and Bex nods and writes it down.
Macey grabs another slip of paper. "Another one for tomorrow, midnight," Macey shouts. She sees me and brightens, hopping off the table and pushing her way through the crowd towards me. "Hey, Cam! Where've you been? You look a little flushed!"
"I went for a brisk walk outside," I tell her, before asking her, "What's going on?"
"We're betting when you and Zach will hook up," Macey said nonchalantly.
"Oh," I shrug. Then, "Wait, what?"
"Tomorrow at midnight is becoming increasingly popular," Macey mused. "I think I'm going to make a loooot of money." She flashes me a grin.
"YOU'RE BETTING ON ME AND ZACH?" I screech.
"I'm not, everybody else is," Macey sighs. She gasps, and puts a manicured hand over her mouth. "Wait, it didn't already happen, right? Because then I'll have to pay Grant twenty bucks, crap."
I'm at loss for words. Macey snaps her fingers in front of my face. I bat her arm away. "No, it hasn't already happened," I mutter, pushing through the crowds towards my bed and burying myself under the covers. "Gosh."
"Aw, honey," Macey says, sitting on the foot of my bed and poking my leg. "You've always been terrible at lying."
"No I'm not, you've just always been good at detecting lies," I tell her.
She laughs. "That's true." She stands. "Well, I have to go collect my winnings, and pay Grant twenty dollars, but we'll talk about this later, okay, Cam?"
"If I haven't killed myself by then," I mumble.
:::
Naturally, since Macey announced bets were closed in the vicinity of Tina, by the end of the hour, the entire school knew. And cared! I'd always figured I'd floated low enough under the radar for nobody to care about my life, but it turns out, the second I got infected by that stupid drug, I (along with Zach, which just made it more terrible) was the only interesting thing at Gallagher.
"This sucks," I say. To Zach. Who, like me, is hiding in the library instead of going to dinner, because the social consequences would just be too great. Or so, Macey claimed. I was a bit blurry on the actual consequences I would have to face and couldn't solve with a punch to the face. "You suck."
"You let this happen," Zach retorts.
"You started it," I argues.
"You told everybody," Zach points out.
"Macey figured it out, Tina told everybody," I sighs. "I'm really only a victim."
"This sucks," Zach mutters.
"I already said that," I tell him.
At dinner yesterday, which I had not avoided because I was pretty sure Liz could figure something out before things got too out of hand (see: above), plus, it's not like I ever saw Zach at dinner anyway, that was when everything began to spiral out of control. Because as it turned out, Zach had decided to seat himself at my table, the table I sat at (with my friends, who were also his friends, but still - I had been there first!) on the worst day possible!
It started like this:
Zach: (sitting down at table) Did anybody else get four D's in a row during the CoveOps test?
Me: (angrily) Go away.
Grant: (obliviously, in between bites of mashed potato) No, but I could've sworn there were two right answers for number fourteen.
Me: (kicks Grant)
Grant: (in pain) Ow.
Me: (frustrated at life) Zach, go away.
Zach: Why? They're my friends too.
Macey: Hardly.
Me: Yeah.
Bex: I think Zach's alright.
Zach: Bex thinks I'm alright.
Liz: Me too.
Zach: Liz too.
Me: Ugh.
Zach: Don't be mean.
Me: No.
Zach: Whatever.
Me: Whatever.
Macey: Bex, Mom and Dad are fighting again.
Zach: Shut up, McHenry.
Me: Go away, Zach.
Zach: No.
Me: Now!
Dinner ended with Liz nearly in tears, while Macey tried to pry a fork with its prongs buried deep in the hardwood table out of the table, with Bex tending to Grant's bleeding knee. Meanwhile, Zach and I stood off to the side. Both of us were sulking. Unhelpfully, he said, "Well, look on the bright side. You look really cute when you're angry."
I rolled my eyes.
"Just kidding," he shrugged.
:::
The next morning, during first period, I was feeling really sleepy, and I couldn't pay attention to Madame Dabney, because her classroom always smelled like chamomile tea, which just made me sleepier. I hadn't slept well last night because I kept having strange nightmares that involved Zach, and he'd whisper "You look really cute" in my ear and then I'd wake up in a cold sweat. This happened at least five times.
"Morning, beautiful," Zach remarked, sarcastically, his books swinging in one arm as he slid into his seat, which was behind me, to the left.
"Up yours," I yawned.
Madame Dabney began her lesson.
I dozed off nearly immediately, and I dreamed about a meadow that was all green and filled with flowers and sunshine and birds and shit. "Oh," I said. "This again." I flopped down onto the grass and poked a worm with a stick until a shadow crossed me. I sighed. "Fantastic. Just the person I wanted to see."
"You look really cute," Zach said quietly, in my ear.
"Thanks," I said, which was new. I'd never said that before.
Zach smiled.
And I woke up to Macey pulling at my elbow urgently. Her big blue eyes were even wider, and she looked like she was trying her hardest not to laugh, out of courtesy. I rubbed my eyes. Looked around. Still in Dabney's class. I looked at the clock. I had been asleep for fifteen minutes. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Zach concentrating extremely hard on his work.
I looked at Madame Dabney, who looked extremely...pissed off. Which was a strange look on the most grandmotherly old lady I knew. She raised a stern eyebrow and pursed her lips. "I think you and Zachary will need to remove yourselves from this classroom and go to the Headmistress's office immediately."
"What?" I gaped.
"Immediately, Ms. Morgan," Madame Dabney said, sounding unbelievably angry.
"Going," I muttered, picking up my book bag.
In the hallway, Zach and I walked in silence. He was trying his hardest not to look me in the eye. I groaned when I realized what must've happened, and I cut off his path. "What did I say?" I sighed wearily.
Zach didn't look at me. "Nothing," he replied easily, but I didn't know who he thought he was kidding - I'd been training to be a spy for seventeen years, and I could tell when someone was lying. I gave him a look and put a hand on my hip. He looked up at the ceiling.
"What did I say?" I demanded.
"Nothing," he repeated, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
"Shut up, tell me," I said.
"That was an oxymoron," he pointed out vaguely.
"You're an oxymoron, now tell me! Was it something about you? Because really, you should forget everything you learned about Freud and his theory about how dreams are repressing secret desires, because they totally aren't, and it wasn't even a dream, it was a nightmare, and it was probably expressing my secret fears -"
"You said I was cute," Zach said.
"What?"
"'Zach, you look really cute,'" he imitated in a high voice. "Yeah."
I stared. He ducked past me and started to move down the hall. "Wait, wait, but that's not what happened," I protested. "You said that! In my dream! I mean, nightmare, Jesus Christ -" Agitated, I caught up to Zach. "I swear that that was so taken out of context."
"Don't worry about it," Zach said.
"I'm not worrying about it."
He looked me up and down. "You look like you're worrying about it," he said.
"I'm not."
"Don't."
"I'm not."
"You are."
"No."
"Yeah."
"Ugh."
"Whatever."
He started off again, but I kept up with him this time. "Well, just to make sure you understand -"
"I understand," Zach dismissed, shrugging."But if you keep talking about it, I will break your arm." Chauvinism didn't really exist at Gallagher. Thank God. Zach probably knew I would snap his neck before he touched my arm, too.
"Fine," I sighed.
We walked in some more silence.
And I don't know how what happened next happened, but it did, and I didn't do much to stop it. Because Zach was kissing me, and it felt really good, and then, I suddenly didn't know what happened to his shirt, but it suddenly didn't matter, and then we were spontaneously and conveniently in his dorm room, and then -
:::
Later.
"Well."
I stared up at the ceiling and sucked in a deep breath, pulling the striped duvet above my shoulders. I pursed my lips. "Well," I echoed faintly. There was a pause. A very pregnant one. I pulled my arms out from under the covers and rested them by my sides. "Well, it could've been worse."
"This appears to be a terrible idea," Zach says, as I pull him along by the wrist towards the huge, oak, French double doors of the Dining Hall, where most of Gallagher's population is currently sitting. Specifically, a very petite blonde nerd, who shares a dorm with me and gets sunburnt easily. "Macey kept talking about social repercussions, and I don't know what that means, but it sounds like something bad -"
"Shut up," I tell him. I kick open the door and walk quickly inside, scanning the room for the aforementioned petite blonde. I spot her. "There she is."
In four seconds, I've basically sprinted across the room, and I'm leaning over Liz.
"I'm not associated with her," Zach says, reaching for one of Macey's roasted potatoes.
"Solution. Get one. Now." I demand, through clenched teeth.
"Should I tell them?" Liz asks the rest of the table. Grant shrugs, his mouth full of chicken. Bex nods vigorously. Macey is swatting Zach's hand away from her potatoes, but he manages to get one, and he stuffs it in his mouth.
Macey joins in with Bex's nodding. "It's fine now. We're in a public place. They can't kill us," she says.
"What are you talking about?" I ask.
Liz presses her lips together, before shaking her head. "No, I can't do it," she confesses. "Somebody else. Grant, you do it."
"No way, man," Grant says. "Bex, sweetie, you can hold your own."
"Not against both of them, I can't," Bex replies.
"What the hell is going on?" I demand.
"Together, then?" Liz suggests. The table nods collectively. "Okay, 1...2...3...It wasn't real." She's the only one who says anything. She looks around the table, betrayed. Sarcastically, "Thanks, guys!"
"What wasn't real," I say.
Liz, whose cheeks are red, gives one last blazing look at Macey, Bex, and Grant, before turning back to me and Zach. Then, with a surprising amount of confidence, "The drug. Not real. Doesn't exist." She pauses and looks down. "I mean, when you think about it, it's kind of a weird drug to have just laying around, isn't it?"
I can't speak.
Behind me, Zach appears to be choking on his potato.
"There's no solution," Liz continues.
"Then - then what was - all of that -" I'm gesturing aimlessly at nothing, trying to encompass everything. My mind is going haywire. I don't know what's going on.
Macey says, helpfully, but not really, "That was all you guys."
"No," Zach says.
"Yeah," Macey nods.
"We were getting kinda sick of your arguing that was actually just a shit ton of sexual tension in disguise," Bex explains, bored. "So we decided to pretend that you two were all doped up on some weird gas so you could act out your feelings accordingly."
"I mean, you aren't going to deny your feelings if you have something to blame them on, right?" Liz smiles.
"So what spilled? On the floor? With the hazmat suits?"
"Boiling water," Liz admits. "We stole the hazmats from Dr. Fibs' lab and paid some freshman to act really official."
"But...I...hate Zach," I say slowly. "And he hates me."
"No," Grant says. "You don't. And he doesn't."
"You suck," I tell them. "You all suck. You will wake up tomorrow and you will be dead."
"That doesn't -" Zach begins.
"Shut up," I order him. "You're wrong. We hate each other. And no matter what you do, we'll always hate each other. Obviously, there was a small lapse of judgement -"
"Hey," Zach protests.
"- but you're wrong," I finish.
Macey's eyes flick towards my hand. I look at it. It's holding Zach's. I drop it.
"Let's not talk about that ever again," Zach muttered, wiping his hand on his trousers.
"You guys would look really cute together," Bex says.
I turn on my heel and march away in a small rage. "Whatever."
a/n: hi! how is everybody?