Chapter 1
The water encircles me. Darkness grabs me, pulling me down as blackness covers my vision. I try to scream but can't, my throat burning for oxygen, refusing to let my lungs expand. I'm falling, falling, falling, farther and farther down. God, will I hit the bottom? Is there a bottom? My vision, panic turns to numbness and I my eyes flutter close-
Bang Bang Bang
My eyes fly open and I feel my bed beneath me, instead of the watery nothingness of my dream. I glance at the clock by my bed, 12:23. I put my pillow over my head ignoring the knocking at my door. She can wait.
Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang
"Alright, I'm coming, I'm coming," I roll out of my blankets, untangling myself from the sheets wrapped tightly around me, and trudge over to the door of my dorm. I open it ever so slightly.
"...yes?" I ask through the crack.
"God, finally! I've been knocking for hours! Let me in!"
I open the door but block her access inside, leaning against the frame, "Hours, you say? That seems highly unlikely. Someone would have surely reported you after around thirty minutes. If you actually had a patience that lasted that long."
"Well I wouldn't have to use any patience if you knew what an alarm was, Miss Sleeps-till-Noon" She saunters into my room without invitation. "Okay, I'm enlisting you. I need help. I don't understand any academic activities that these sorry excuse for teachers drone about." She glances at my bed in its thrashed-around-state and plops down in my desk chair. "Seriously Sal, what is it with you lately?"
"Just bad dreams, Livia. They happen." I try to cover up the fact that bags are hanging under my eyes, physical proof that I haven't had a good nights sleep in probably months.
She gives me a "really?" look before tossing her Calculus textbook on my desk, grabbing my pencil, and swirls my chair around. "Don't you have your own dorm to go to? That's, you know, not mine?" Despite this, I close my door and start on rearranging the pillows and blankets. She spins around and gives me one of her dazzling smiles that could convince the toughest bachelor to swoon at the knees. She flips her dark hair over her shoulder and bats her shockingly blue sapphire eyes at me.
"I'm sorry, Sali. I thought I would come and see my best friend. I so rarely see her and I feel as her closest friend I should keep her academics in mind and have her help me." Always the most humble mindset. I throw a pillow at her before I actually finish consider helping her. "You're a mess," I mutter with a smile and a roll of my eyes.
She laughs her almost angel like laugh. Honestly, if she really needs help she could get any boy or girl to fall over themselves for her, ready to do anything. She has that power I never understood. Compared to her I'm as charming as a brick wall. She fiddles with the random items on my desk, ADHD taking effect.
"Seriously, I need help. I've supposed to have been studying this entire week, getting ready for terms tomorrow and I started about," she looks at my clock, "twenty minutes ago." I glance at the old, battered hat resting beside her kleptomaniac hands. I pick it up, tracing the fraying NY stitching, then result in hanging in on my lamp.
"You know, there is this really amazing new discovery, called a Library. They have magical things called books that answer questions that intelligible people have," I yawn.
"Shut up, I went there already. Creepy Guy was there staring a hole through my head".'Creepy Guy' has been on her Livia's radar for a while, in all the worst ways. He doesn't say much, mostly just...stares...creepily. She turns to the hat hanging. "Why do you insist on keeping this old hat anyway? It's way past its time."
I sigh, sitting down on my newly made bed, glaring at the stupid ball cap. The only thing left of my real mother and father. The story goes I was found with the stupid, torn thing on my baby head after they left me on the Long Island Sound. My parents either had a terrible sense of humor or they were just crazy Yankee fans. After I was found (and after multiple escapes from foster parents who found some reason to hate me) I got sent to boarding school to boarding school, until finally, I ended up at Yankee Academy. Basically, it's a really old, boring, preppy, rich kid school. The only thing that keeps me here is Livia. She swooped in my first day, another poor kid with no family.
"I don't know. A certain attachment I guess." Looking up, I see she's bounced from my desk to my closet in a flash. She has a habit of this, moving like a shock of lightning has run down her back. Either that or she just has a lot of coffee.
"Put this on and let's go," she declares throwing me a long green sweater that she most likely put in my closet herself and a pair of black leggings. I consider against arguing for my regular T-shirt and jeans as I know she'll find some way to charm or guilt into getting her way.
"Go where?"
"I need to do something else than studying today. I've worked hard, I deserve a break."
I pull the sweater over my head, "You worked about twenty-two minutes."
"Precisely, now get up and help me. I can't concentrate here with you're brooding and Creepy Guy should be gone." And just like that, she gathers her books and saunters out the door. I pull on my sneakers and start out the door before I stop and look up. I hesitate, then grab the fading Yankee ball cap before rushing out to catch up with Livia.
