Author's Note: Here it is, chapter two! Sorry it took a few hours longer than I expected (though, how would you know when I expected it to be done?) but here it is. From now on, there will be a quote, whether a random one or from a song, at the beginning of each chapter. If it's a song, I highly recommend listening to it as you read. This one is not.
Anyway, please read, review, and enjoy!
Chapter Two
Panacea and Poison
"If you were my husband, I'd poison your coffee."
"If you were my wife, I'd drink it."
-Lady Nancy Astor and Winston Churchill
Kella woke moments before her alarm went off, breathing too heavily. As she kicked her quilts off of her, she felt the thin layer of sweat that had formed, which couldn't have come from the temperature of her room. It was always cold in there, after all.
As she pushed herself up and rubbed her eyes violently with her knuckles, it all came back to her. After she had returned home, after seeing the boy she would be escorting named Topher and the boy at the tree named Vessa (or had she imagined that he told her his name?), the rest of the night passed by too quickly.
She had dreams of a butterfly. It was gorgeous, with brown and lilac wings, fluttering around what looked like pink clouds. No, they weren't pink clouds. There was some contour to them, something that Kella couldn't pick out immediately. The dream was too much of a blur. Still, the dream was beautiful, though cut short.
"Too beautiful," Kella mumbled to herself. A thick coat of phlegm lined her throat, reminding her of why she had gotten up early in the first place. Kella bolted out of bed and to the bathroom attached to her room, flicked the straightener's switch on and pulled out her newly washed school uniform. The entire process took a good hour, though she was constantly distracted with her eyes drifting toward the cherry tree in the field behind her house.
Five centimeters per second, Kella thought lazily. She forgot where she had heard it, but somewhere, from a movie or something, she had heard that cherry blossom petals fall at five centimeters per second, sort of like her life now. All according to plan.
Watch as she may, Vessa had never returned to the tree. Finally, an hour before school was supposed to start, Kella headed downstairs. Her mother was standing over the stove, cooking something Kella didn't recognize, and smiling as she did so. A feminist's nightmare. Her golden hair was pinned up in a messy bun atop her head, and her gray-blue eyes were squinting happily upon noticing Kella.
"You're up early," Dawn said to her daughter. "Going in for help?"
Kella nodded abruptly. "Sure." She didn't have a good lie set up yet, but Dawn's assumptions would cut it for today. "I've got to head out early. Can I skip breakfast this morning?" Elya, their black rabbit that they let roam freely throughout the house per Kella's brother, Denny's request, hopped over to her and sniffed her foot. She rolled her eyes; damn Elya didn't even realize that he wasn't a canine. Stupid like everyone else in this household.
Dawn didn't even frown. "Sure thing, honey. Try to bring that Advanced Algebra grade up."
Kella smirked, remembering Advanced Algebra, the brush of Porter's fingers, the bathroom, body pressed against body...
And didn't Sister Deirdre say something about Pascal's square or something?
"Sure thing. 'Bye mom."
Kella flung her backpack over her back, which was still on the kitchen table from the day before when she had rushed like a madwoman away from Vessa, and stepped outside. Though still expected, no Vessa sat against the tree.
"Maybe I imagined him altogether."
"Imagined who?" came a voice. Thankfully, this was one she knew. Kella breathed a sigh of relief as her childhood friend, Blair walked up to her, nonchalantly and smiling. "I thought you stopped talking to yourself a long time ago."
Kella smiled at her. "Some things never change. Speaking of, we all still going behind the school?"
But Blair shook her head. "No. They caught us last time, remember? The 7-11 is like, a half block away. We're just going there. Behind it, of course." Blair then wrinkled her pale nose; her brother worked at that 7-11 part-time, and she wasn't quite sure of his hours. Adam didn't usually care when he saw his sister and her friends drinking or doing weed, but if he was angry enough at Blair, he would spill it all to their overprotective father, and Blair knew it.
Kella, however, was just too good to get caught.
"Well, hell, let's hurry," sighed Kella. St. Kiara's was in plain sight now, so the 7-11 would be down the street, just about a minute away. "And if I space out during English today, get me out of it or something. I can't space like I did yesterday in double A. I'm failing English, too."
Blair clucked her tongue a few times, the metal of her tongue piercing knocking against her teeth. "So the Simms mother finally gets up your ass. Look, she probably won't even notice that your grade hasn't changed once reports come out. But if it makes you feel any better, math comes naturally to me. English, too. I'll let you cheat on our test today."
Kella could have choked. "Test? We have a test today?" She shook her head so much that her perfectly straightened, light brown hair flew about her. "No. I can't be high during a test." Her hands didn't exactly tremble at the fault, but the last time she was "off" during one of her tests, not only did she fail, but she had to run out of the classroom so she wasn't caught.
"Don't worry," Blair said. "There's a new guy at the scene today. I met with him yesterday, told him that you and I were going and that we've got a test today. He's got some shit that'll fuck you up and help you focus. It's amazing. Never even heard of it, either. He said it's his new mix."
"Who is he?" Kella asked as they rounded the bright 7-11. A group of boys with a couple of girls mixed in were in view immediately upon turning. Kella was so used to seeing them behind the school, but at least the crowd hadn't changed.
"Him," said Blair, pointing forward with one cut-off gloved hand.
A lump formed in Kella's throat.
Topher.
He looked exactly the same as yesterday. The St. Kiara's men's uniform of tan pants, a white shirt and tie didn't make him look any more formal, not with his disheveled hair and speculative eyes, staring not through her, like everyone else at that school seemed to, but straight at her, criticizing her for all that she was.
What am I thinking? I don't even know the guy. Keeping her stride as she had taught herself to do from before she could remember, Kella walked up to Topher. "Aren't you a new convert?" she asked. "So what's going on back here? Weed or alcohol? So soon after becoming Catholic?" While Kella tried to make herself intimidating, make the new boy respect her, it just didn't seem to work. He was only mildly taller than her; height wasn't the problem. It was those eyes, those oak brown eyes, that looked like they could have been warm, sometime years ago, but now were cold and distant.
"And you're preaching," he said in a voice low and husky, coming straight from his throat, not like the Vessa boy that she had imagined the day before, "when you're here in the same place as me, Kella Simms."
"How do you..." Kella paused as Blair patted her on the shoulder.
"I'll leave you two to it." With that, Blair headed over to a circle of the others and immediately began laughing with them.
Kella shook her head. "Father Markson must have told you my name."
"No," said Topher flatly, but nothing more. Kella knew this technique; boys used it to keep her wondering. Well, she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. It was, after all, either that, or he was trying to freak her out. At least the latter had a chance of working.
"What's in the bottle?" Kella asked, purposely redirecting the conversation.
Topher didn't even glance down at the clear, red-tinted bottle, in which a liquid, showing black behind it, seemed to move on its own, lacking any viscosity at all. "A mix I made. It's-"
"It's supposed to make you drunk and keep you focused," Kella finished, trying to look uninterested, "Blair already told me."
To that, Topher raised an eyebrow. Kella couldn't help but to notice that he wasn't half-bad looking, but just because she noticed it didn't mean that it made any difference to her. He was still the source of her problems for the next month, or so she expected. "Then whey did you ask me about it?" he asked.
Kella sighed. "I'm just gonna get a joint. Meet me in front of the building when school starts. I don't want Father Markson to think-"
And as Kella turned away, she felt a hand on her arm. It wasn't harsh and demanding like many of the other boys at St. Kiara, but gentle and firm- surprisingly gentle and firm for someone who seemed so... unholy. "Drink this," he said, "and I guarantee you that you won't need any of your other alcohol or drugs ever again."
That kept Kiara interested. Still, like with any other dealer, she needed to go through the questions. "I don't know. I like my brandy and heroin. What's this mix, anyway?"
But Topher was smarter than that. "If I told you, you could recreate it at home."
"So I suppose that there's a price."
Topher smiled. "No. Consider it a token of friendship, once a week, every week, if you want." He shrugged. "There's so much of this mix lying around my house that I can afford to lose some every week."
This probably should be concerning me, Kella thought, but it's not. She was tired and just wanted to get through the day. Her friends had stopped their weekly meetings for a while after they were caught behind the building, so getting back into the loop was the most important thing for her. Why not start it off with something new?
Kella nodded. "Alright. I'll try it."
And she held out a hand, expecting Topher to put the bottle in. Instead, he took a step closer to her, and pressed the mouth of the bottle to her own. Without even thinking, Kella opened her mouth, like a baby with a bottle. The liquid was brownish, she noticed, not black. It wasn't until after a few swallows that she realized what it tasted like.
The mix had a hint of coke in it. The drink, not cocaine. That was obviously just for flavor. There was some rum and... sake, maybe? There was a taste, however, she couldn't quite pinpoint, one with a zing that reminded her of the city. This must be his secret ingredient, she thought lazily as the last swallow went down her throat.
"That's it?" she asked.
"That's all it takes," he responded.
Surely enough, that was all it took.
In moments, Kella felt like her muscles were on fire. She could have rocketed ten feet in the air if it didn't defy the laws of physics. Although exhilarated, her vision didn't swim like it did when she was drunk. Instead, it seemed as though she was seeing everything in its true color for the first time, from the bright blues of the sky to the shining yellow of the sun, to the fissures of the dirt beneath her feet and the craters in the bricks of the 7-11. Is this what he meant by making someone more focused? Kella didn't feel focused, however; she felt reborn.
"What's this called?" she asked, her eyes widening. "I mean, what do you call it?"
"Panacea," he said simply, though the smallest smile tugged at the corner of her lips. Kella could see it in his eyes, the satisfaction of what he had just done. But Kella, however, still felt the buzz of her drunkenness, but she didn't feel like she was acting on impulse anymore. If a guy were to try and rape me, she thought as an example, I'd know exactly what he was doing and be able to stop him. The drink was empowering, and worked in so little time.
But the name bugged her.
"Isn't a panacea a cure for everything?" she asked.
Topher then looked at the sky and breathed in deeply, "Yes," he said, "but that's not what it comes from. I named it after the Greek goddess of healing." This time, Topher's hands held a slight tremble to them as he lifted the bottle to his own lips, no doubt still wet from when he had put it to Kella, and drank some himself. Well, at least it's not poison, she thought with little humor. I wonder if worshiping the Greek gods or whatever was his religion before this one.
"Not quite," said Topher lowly, looking Kella straight in the eyes now.
Kella stumbled, noticing for the first time how his hair seemed to reflect blue, purple and green all at the same time, though it was simply black under the fluorescent light. "Did I say that out loud?" she asked. It was amazing; her voice wasn't slurring. She was still in shock from the effects of this drink, this Panacea.
"No," he said again, and then looked at the rest of the group, which seemed to be shifting slightly. Before Kella had the chance to open her mouth, he said, "We should get to St. Kiara. You have a lot to show me before school starts."
Kella obeyed without hesitation, though she couldn't figure out for the life of her why.
Topher was quiet throughout the initial tour of the first of the three St. Kiara buildings. She couldn't suppress a smile when she passed by the men's bathroom across from her Advanced Algebra room, which, incidentally, he said he had with her. If this were the case, she would only see him every other day; block scheduling did that. But this wasn't the case- he also had fifth period free with her, and second period U.S. History with her on Day 2s. But this hardly bothered her, because as she walked, she could feel no ground beneath her and barely taste the air around her; everything was intensified to almost the point of Kella feeling as though she were shot with Novocain.
Next week can't come much sooner, she thought happily as she directed him to the library.
And silently, they arrived at Topher's first classroom. "I have to get to English class," she said, "but after U.S. History, we'll go to lunch together." And then, she added silently, because if Father Markson sees me without you during one of my free periods, he's going to expel me for sure. At least for the first week, before Topher had any real friends at the school.
Then again, looking at the fact that he was hanging out with all of Kella's friends, all of the Future Drunk Drivers of America, he probably didn't need much help. But Kella couldn't risk it; she promised herself she would at least graduate from high school.
Kella had to admit. She didn't like Topher very much. His words didn't register half the time, and when they did, they were just confusing. But this Panacea... how did he even mix it? He had to have some skill if he made something like that. And Kella couldn't help but feel mildly empty when she abandoned him to go to English class.
One could only imagine how much worse she felt when her English test had started.
"Sister Danica?" Kella shouted, without raising her hand as she sat down for the test.
Sister Danica nearly leaped out of her habit. She always acted like she was being watched or something. Multiple test papers flew around when she spun to meet Kella, who looked more than confused, at the back of the classroom. "Kella? What?" she asked quickly and worriedly.
Kella put up her hands in mock surrender. "I was just wondering if we could open the windows. It's hot in here." The class murmured in agreement. While Panacea had made her relatively numb, she still felt ultrasensitive to the temperature. I suppose every drink has its downsides, mutely thought Kella. Sister Danica, who looked like she had almost been run over by a bus, nodded. Thank God we're not related.
With two clicks, Kella had pulled open the window. Immediately, however, once she sat down, a wind blew in the classroom. Its whistling and moaning almost seemed to make words to Kella, broken off and half unheard.
Don't... bad... come... tree...
Kella couldn't have looked jumpier than Sister Danica, but she felt it at that moment. That voice was so similar to Vessa's... but she had made him up, hadn't she? It must be the Panacea, she thought to herself, and laughed it off. A few of her classmates were staring at her; very seldom did anybody approach Sister Danica's level of strangeness in that classroom.
So Kella regained her cool and stared down at her tests. The words did not blur together or jumble in her mind, rather, they stood out as clear as a bell in front of her. Kella, however focused, could not get herself to ignore Vessa's words through the window, which seemed clearer the further she went on through the test, more distinct.
Come to the tree! He called.
His shouting continued, but Kella couldn't bother to leave the school until her lunch hour. After U.S. History (in which Topher seemed unnervingly polite, never speaking out despite how outrageous and annoying Sister Martha was), when Topher and Kella left the room, Kella thought up ways to explain why they had to go to the tree, but she could come up with nothing more than a pathetic little excuse.
"I dropped my calculator over there yesterday when I was running home," she told him. People passed them by in the hallway, all of them stopping for at least a moment to glance at Kella. She could practically feel their thoughts burning holes into her, thoughts about whether or not they've fucked yet or if they're related, like Kella was related to just about every nun in the school.
Topher looked at her speculatively again, but eventually, nodded. "I believe it," he said, "after all, you ran out of Father Markson's office so fast the other day, I thought maybe I had a disease." He laughed lightly to himself as Kella directed him towards the exit.
"Well-" Kella stopped herself and, in turn, stopped in the middle of the hallway. She hadn't actually been running when she was in Father Markson's office, but when she was out of it, out of plain view. She tried to think... were there any windows in the office? No, there weren't. Again, Kella's mind became jumbled.
It's the Panacea, she thought to herself, a reassurance. The Panacea.
In only minutes they had approached the beautifully blooming cherry tree. As Kella found herself- and Topher- trapped in a cloud of pink, she thought briefly about the dream she had had the night before. Yes... those were the pink clouds that the brown-and-lilac butterfly had been flying through. Cherry blossom petals. Five centimeters per second.
Even as they reached the distance of only a foot away from the tree, she saw no Vessa. "I guess... I just imagined it," she said dumbly to herself, but Topher just happened to hear, who was standing, looking critically at the tree, as if it weren't quite large enough, as if it weren't quite full of enough life. And there may have even been some jealousy in his facial expression, as well, but Kella would never be able to pick out the giveaway on that one.
"Your... calculator must have gone missing," he said lightly. After a moments silence, Topher spoke again, more loudly, more clearly. "Kella. I don't want you coming near this tree anymore. It's not safe."
"What do you-" Kella began immediately, but then stopped. Could Vessa really exist, or was Topher just being an ass like half of the other boys at St. Kiara? But why would he want her to stay away from a tree? It must have been something important. Though, Kella had been going to that tree since she was a little girl... what could be dangerous about it?
Despite her growing protests, she could only feel the Panacea coursing through her veins, she could only hear Topher's words, and she could only see the clear, distinct lines of the cherry tree, and she could only sense its aura, which gave off an eerie calm that she wasn't sure she wanted to approach. Without thinking, she nodded.
"Okay."
Author's Note: Well, once I really introduced Topher, my story took a completely different turn, so the storyline is going to be edited a little bit, but don't worry, because Kella's growth is going to stay the same. And expect some love... complications as the story progresses. I'm sorry this was mildly slow, and I'm sorry for any incorrect grammar/spelling, etc. I'm so tired right now, and shouldn't be allowed to type anytime in the morning. Dx'
Please review!
