Dear Readers-
I finally got it done! And for those of you who have been waiting thanks. And for those od you who don't like this chapter, I'm sorry that you waited so long and ended up not even liking this.
This chapter is dedicated to:
-TuggyAngel08
-BEEcausexoxo
-and Maggie loves Jensen
Thanks so much for your input and ideas guys! So this one is for you.
-SDSL
Caleb
I was making myself some coffee early in the early morning; probably 3 or 4 o' clock in the morning, to be exact. I just couldn't sleep. I had been lying awake since my head had hit the pillow, countless thoughts running through my head. There was so much to think about. I took my coffee and went into the family room, turning on the lights, and jumping when I did.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." Ana said from her spot on the couch, starring out at the star-studded sky, her legs curled up underneath her.
"No, it's not a big deal. I just didn't expect anyone else to be up so early." I said, brushing it off. "Hey, um, do you mind if I-"
"Not at all. Come, sit." She said, answering my thoughts. I walked to the couch, sitting down beside her as she continued to stare, mystified, out at the night sky. "You couldn't sleep either."
"Um…" I was, once again, startled by her bluntness. Then again, Ana was always quite blunt. "No, I couldn't. It's just… well, the last few days were… eventful, to say the least, Ana." I said honestly, studying her face.
"My fault." She said with a dry humorless laugh, as the corners of her mouth went up for a moment in a small smile. She was reminiscing about the last few, crazy days. She had come home from the hospital; only to be catching multiple things on fire, only succeeding in retreating further into her shell, refusing to tell us what she had meant when she had told Tyler, 'they want me to join them, I don't wanna join them.' Sarah and I had broken up, but at least she was trying to keep us friends. Tyler had punched Reid, and now the two weren't on speaking terms. Plus, Reid had locked himself in hid room, only leaving to go out and get wasted. Unfortunately, Tyler was usually the one who stopped him from getting totally shit-faced, but that obviously wasn't going to happen right now. So Pogue and I had been dragging him home for the past six nights while he rambled on about nothing of any importance to anyone.
"Not your fault." I said, nudging her. "It's mine."
"No, it's not. I mean, you and Sarah… that's my fault." She told me.
"No, Ana, it's my fault. Completely." I told her. "I just couldn't sleep because… well, because sometime's, I just feel like I can't shut my brain off."
"That's alright." She replied. "I can't sleep either. Otherwise, the nightmares come." She told me. Suddenly her eyes locked onto me as she looked at me for the first time since we had started talking. "Can I ask you something?"
"Yea, of course. Go ahead."
"What's wrong with me?" She asked.
"I- I- nothing?" I tried, but she gave me a look. "Okay, so it's not nothing, but you're not that bad. Besides, everyone has problems."
"Caleb… am I crazy?? Do… do you think I am?" She asked me.
"No! Ana, no, I don't think you're crazy."
She studied my eyes and face for a few moments. "Huh." She said, staring back out at the stars.
Ana, please believe me when I say that you are not crazy."
"Sometimes… all the time, I wonder." She told me. She looked at me once again, saying, "Don't all those stars ever leave you thinking that there's got to be something bigger than this? That there's something… more? That you're… insignificant?" She asked me.
I looked at her for a few minutes, and she looked back out at the stars again. I slid my hand into her tiny one as she snapped her attention to me again. "Yea, yea, I do." I told her truthfully. We sat there like
that for a few hours, and watched the sunrise, before we heard someone coming down the steps. I pulled my hand away just before Tyler came trudging down the stairs.
"Hey, Ana, I got your schedule. You wanna look at it?" He asked, bringing it into the room, handing it to her before saying, "Oh hey Caleb."
"Hey." I said absently, looking over her shoulder. The schedule read;
1st Period: AP Calculus
2nd Period: AP European History
3rd Period: AP Chemistry
4th Period: AP Psychology
5th Period: Free Period
6th Period: AP Biology
7th Period: AP English
"Well, geez, Ana. So much for holding back." I said.
--Later That Morning—
Ana, Tyler and I walked into our A.P. Calculus class. She drew all the attention of every guy in the room without even realizing it. Thanks to Kate and Sarah, her normally wild hair was gently curled at the ends and was very neat and normal-looking. The front section that normally hid the side of her face was pinned back by a jeweled pin that matched the color of her eyes. She wore the school uniform, and had a tiny bit of mascara and light purple eye shadow on.
"Hey there, good looking." I heard an annoying voice say as we set our stuff down. I grimaced. Abbott. "Let's say you come and sit with me and get away from boring-as-piss Danvers here and have some real fun."
"Back off, Abbott." I snarled.
"Shut up." He sneered, and then turned back to Ana. "Come on, baby, can't you just see how much better I am?" He said in a voice tat he thought to be seductive. I only found it to be irritating and creepy.
Ana blinked a few times, her purely naïve nature showing through. "I can see that you suffer from a massive inferiority complex." She told him. "That, and you're afraid of mimes."
His jaw dropped, shocked, before he pulled himself together. "Bitch." He spat at her, stalking away.
She looked at us as if to say, 'What did I do?' Tyler and I exchanged a look before we burst out laughing.
The bell rang, and I sat down, Ana sitting beside me, and then Tyler sat down on the other side of Ana." The teacher, Mrs. Knott, walked in, saying, "Alright class, take out your textbooks and turn to page 345." She then looked at something on her desk, picking up a piece of paper off of her desk, and then saying, "Class, we have a new student." Everyone looked up as she continued on. "Stand up, dear." She said to Ana, who looked at Tyler, using her telepathy to say to he and I, 'Do I have to?'
"Yes." Tyler whispered, nudging her.
"And no telepathy in class!" I hissed at her under my breath.
She stood up slowly. "Class, this is Ana Simms. She transferred from a magnet school in San Francisco, and will be with us for the rest of the year." She then looked between Tyler and Ana. "Simms… any relation?" She asked Tyler.
"Yes, uh, we're siblings. She's my little sister." He told the teacher.
"Oh, well then, that must make her pretty young." Said the teacher, sounding a bit surprised.
"She's fifteen."
"Fifteen? Oh my, then there must be some kind of mistake, because this class is too difficult for a girl who is so youn-"
"Oh trust me, there's no mistake." I assured her, smirking.
She looked at Ana oddly for a moment, before Ana finally asked, "Can I sit down now?"
"Oh, I, yes dear. Go ahead." Mrs. Knott said, and then began teaching the Binomial Theorem.
About twenty minutes later as Mrs. Knott was writing on the board, Ana said, "That's not right." under her breath. Tyler and I exchanged a look as her hand shot up into the air.
Mrs. Knott said, "Question, Miss Simms."
"Um, no… I… isn't that part of the equation supposed to read 6 choose 4 times 2x squared times negative 5y to the fourth?" She asked.
"I'm afraid that's quite impossible." She said, picking up her calculator to check it. She froze, staring at the board, to the calculator, and then Ana. "I stand corrected." She said, fixing the equation. "And welcome to Spencer's, Miss Simms."
Pogue
Tyler walked Ana to AP Chemistry, which she was taking with me. It had been arranged so that I would be her lab partner. I let her walk in, pointing to the table where I normally sit. She went in and sat, and then I turned back to Tyler. "Dude, she will be absolutely fine. Stop worrying so much." I told him.
He shook his head, saying, "I'm not worried about her- academically, that is. She's been proving to be the genius that they took her away for in the first place. She's already found a mistake in the AP Calculus's textbook, and aced a pop quiz in AP Euro on material that he taught last week- without using her telepathy. What I'm worried about… is the psychological factor." He said, lowering his voice. "She seems to be okay so far, but her telepathy is gonna get her into trouble if she doesn't cut it out. "
At this, I rolled my eyes, interrupting him. "Lemme take a wild guess. Caleb told you that, didn't he?"
"So what if he did?" Tyler said defensively.
I snorted a laugh, saying, "Nothing, never mind. It doesn't matter. Just… go on continue."
He looked at me for a moment before continuing on. "Anyways, she's still having nightmares about the facility, and I'm almost positive that she's still getting visions." He looked around and then leaned in closer. "Then there's the whole 'setting things on fire if she focuses too much' thing. She's still struggling to control it. And, I mean, this is Chemistry. With lots of flammable and corrosive chemicals involved. Plus a couple dozen Bunsen burners. I feel like we're practically asking for her to blow up the entire school."
"Oh I get it now." I said. "Seriously though, Baby boy, don't worry. She'll be fine. I'm taking care of her." I assured him, flashing him a smile.
"Alright. Thanks, Pogue." He said waving to Ana as he made his way down the hall to get to his own class on time.
I walked over to the table, putting my bag down, sliding into the seat beside Ana. "I'm sorry." She finally said, looking at me.
"Huh? What do you… about what, Ana?" I asked, confused.
"About you all having to babysit me. I'm sorry that I make you all worry so much all of the time." She said, looking down at her hands that were folded in her lap.
"Ana." I said, placing my hand on her shoulder and she looked up at me. "Don't worry about it. Really. Look, we don't mind, okay? We're doing all of this for you because we care about you, not because we have to. And eventually, you'll be able to be independent. But for now, you can depend on us until you get there." I told her. "Alright?"
"Alright." She nodded, smiling at me as the bell rang. After the teacher briefed us on our lab for the day, we broke off to do said lab with our partners.
After we had gathered all of the materials, and put on our safety goggles, I went to light the Bunsen burner as Ana went to tell the teacher that he had written the steps down on the board wrong. About five minutes later, I still could not get the infernal thing lit. "Okay, I give up." I said, throwing down the lighter. I looked at Ana and got an idea. "Ana, since you need to start learning to control it… alright, don't tell Caleb, but I want you to try and light the Bunsen burner." She went to grab for the lighter, but I took it from her, shaking my head. "With your powers, Ana." I whispered.
She hesitated for a moment and then nodded. I stood blocking her from view as she turned to the Bunsen burner. She looked around, making sure that no one was watching, and she then slowly touched her finger to the unlit burner. She narrowed her eyes, concentrating on the burner, and suddenly, a thin stream of fire shot from her finger and lit the burner.
She pulled her hand back fast, recoiling as she rubbed her hand a little, staring at it and then looking at me. "I did it." She said softly.
"Yea, you did." I said, staring at it, but then tearing my eyes away to look at her. "Ana, we need to keep this between us, okay? It'll be our little secret." I told her, and she nodded.
Reid
I watched her across the room of my AP Psych class as she described Dementia, as requested by the teacher. She was phenomenal. She looked phenomenal. But she was wedged in between Tight-ass ex-girlfriend #1 and Tight-ass girlfriend #2 (A.k.a. Sarah and Kate a.k.a. the 'no fun police'). Both of them glared at me every time I stared at Ana for too long, which prompted me to use this class period to my advantage for once and found multiple different ways to flick two people off at the same time… or even just one at a time. It was fucking priceless.
Finally, when the bell rang, I got out of the room before them and then waited by the door. Before Kate and Sarah could yank her too far down the hall, I grabbed her loosely by the wrist, pulling her back to me, letting Kate and Sarah get carried away by the hustle and bustle of the crowd. Ha. Suckers. I was so gonna pay for that one later, but I could care less. I pulled her into an alcove, pushing her lightly up against the wall.
"Ana." I breathed. "Look, before you say anything, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I really didn't."
"But you did, Reid." She said. "You hurt me a lot."
"Look, I screwed up, really badly."
"You're right. You did." She said, crossing her arms.
" And I'm sorry for that, I really am. Please, believe me. I just want you as my friend again." I said.
She looked at me for a long while, staring at me in a way that made me feel as if she was staring at me innards (yes, odd, I know… then again, I always was a weird child), and then slowly nodded her head. "Okay, Reid. I believe you." She finally said.
"Thank you, Ana. So much." I said, giving her a huge hug.
"So, should we go to lunch?" She asked me, smiling.
"Yes we should." I said, smiling back at her.
Tyler
I sat at the normal lunch table with Caleb and Pogue as Sarah and Kate were hyperventilating over Reid taking Ana to the side. I would be more worried if it weren't for the fact that it just wasn't Abbott, or some other perv… okay, yes, Reid was a perv, but he was a perv who I had a semi-amount of control over.
Suddenly, the two of them came into lunch, arm in arm, and all of us gapped at the sight. "Okay, did I miss something?" Kate finally spoke for all of us.
They came over, sitting beside me. "Hey all." He said, greeting us as if nothing were odd about this at all.
"Reid…" Caleb said, looking totally confused, alarmed, and irritated.
"Oh, Baby boy, can I talk to you for a second?" Reid said, standing up.
"I-uh… yea. Okay." I said finally. We walked out of the cafeteria, and I turned to face him. "Well? What do you want?" I asked, crossing my arms.
"I realized I was wrong." He finally said.
"Okay." I said.
"And I'm sorry?"
"You should be."
"I apologized to Ana."
"Good."
"And I'm apologizing to you?"
"As you should be."
He shifted from foot to foot, obviously getting frustrated. "Look, Tyler, I'm trying to do the right thing here-"
"Well, you should have thought about that before your careless behavior landed my little sister in the hospital!" I shouted at him.
"I made a mistake, Tyler! You know, a mistake! It was an accident and I'm sorry!!" He shouted, finally loosing his cool.
"Reid, I understand you. And I forgive you." I said, finally, exasperated. "I just need some time."
"Why?" He said as I turned to leave. I paused, looking back at him.
"Because, Reid, I trusted you. For once, I trusted you. I trusted you with the single, most important person in my life. My baby sister, Reid. And you hurt her. And until you can prove to me that you don't only care about yourself, I'm gonna need some space from you. Do you understand now?" I said, turning away, leaving him there to stand in shock.
So, what do you think? R&R, lemme know! BTW, I'm going to update asap. A lot sooner than before, mind you. Thanks so much!!
-SDSL