Hello! Yes, I have been basically dead for like a week now. There was snow and laziness involved. Also, I enjoy procrastinating. But thank you to all you awesome people who read and reviewed, and I hope you like this chapter.
Chapter Twenty-One
The fire is crackling. The room is all hushed whispers and Grease. There's a mug of hot chocolate cradled in Zola's hands, and the weight of Hattie's head in her lap where the other girl has fallen asleep.
About twenty or so students in total are in the common room, watching the movie. The rest have gone upstairs, chaperoned by a few of the teachers.
Ms. Robbins is by the door, whispering about something with Ms. Murphy. Sloan and Montgomery – predictably together, although they surprised all their shippers at lunch by sitting at completely different tables – are sat in the window-seat, which is narrow, so she's basically sitting on his lap.
It was cute watching them for a little while, but only for a little while, and then Zola got bored of that too very quickly.
"I'm hungry," she whispers to Sam, beside her, not really hungry so much as unable to concentrate.
"Me too," he replies, which isn't a surprise.
His face brightens, and he scrambles to his feet. "Hang on! I'll be back in a sec."
"Shhhh!" Somebody at the back of the room hisses. Sam rolls his eye and leaves.
He's back quickly, holding a half-full bin bag of something, looking around covertly like some kind of spy.
"What's that?" She asks, presuming it's food.
Checking once more that no one is looking, Sam opens the bag wide so that Zola can see all the treasures stashed inside.
And boy, is it a stash.
"Damn," Zola tells Sam. "How did you fit all that in your bag?"
"Well, I figured, we're mostly wearing our skiing stuff, right? So it doesn't matter what clothes I bring, or wear."
"You didn't bring any clothes," Zola guesses, eyebrows raised.
"I did," Sam replies. "Technically. I brought, y'know, underwear and stuff. And two t-shirts under my sweatshirt, on the plane. And I had my pajamas."
Zola mulls over the idea. "Smort," she decides, finally, and grabs a bag of Cheetos.
—
It's very late and very dark, and as Zola approaches the kitchen for a glass of water she hopes she will not trip over Whatshername from The Ring movies.
The coast is clear when she reaches the kitchen. She sets her torch down on the counter, fills her water bottle from the tap. She picks her torch back up and sets about returning.
Before she can reach the doorway, her torch flickers and then the light fizzles out.
Zola swears – this is just how they get killed in the movies – but finally gives up on shaking her torch, deciding to just hope for the best, and starts feeling her way over to the door.
She makes her way to the hallway, where the the corridor splits off. One set of stairs to the boys' dorms, another for the girls'.
The only reason she doesn't scream when she feels something warm and solid bump into her back is because she's too scared to gather the necessary air.
The something warm and solid releases a very impressive string of curse words and then they're both panicking, and Zola's fumbling for light switch, and there it is! And- oh, that's Ms. Montgomery.
She must have been very frazzled by bumping into Zola, because she looks kind of flushed, and her hair's messy, and isn't- oh. Oh. Oh-ho-ho.
"Aunt Addie," Zola says, feeling very smug.
Ms. Montgomery's coming from the boys' set of stairs.
Wait till Hattie hears about this.
"Zola!" Ms. Montgomery says brightly, only a little awkward.
There's a pause, and Zola's looking at Ms. Montgomery, and Ms. Montgomery's looking at Zola, and they're glancing between the sets of stairs.
"I wasn't-" Ms. Montgomery blurts.
"I was just getting-" Zola starts at the same time.
She feels a little like the roles in this situation are reversed.
"Me too," Ms. Montgomery says, stealing Zola's excuse.
"And… you got lost?"
"It… was… is… very dark," Ms. Montgomery decides.
"Right," Zola says, deciding to take it easy on the adult. "Of course."
"It's past curfew," Ms. Montgomery says hastily, probably sensing Zola's disbelief, "you should be in bed. Come on."
She turns the lights back off and leads Zola upstairs, parting ways with embarrassed goodbyes.
—
"The logistics of that are all wrong," Sam informs them all on the plane very early (too early) the next morning. "There are other teachers in the male teacher's dorm. And all the beds are those really creaky twin beds. And I know you girls and the teachers have those too, because I heard Ms. Torres complaining about them. So in conclusion, people would know so the two of them wouldn't be able to do it."
"They could have met up in the bathroom or something!" Zola insists. "I know what I saw. You don't get to write me off as crazy just because you don't like my story."
"That's disgusting," Sam tells her. "You have seen those bathrooms, right?"
"Can we please not talk about this?" Sofia begs. "For some reason, I really don't like the idea of thinking about my dad doing it with my teacher. Oh ew. It's stuck in my head now. I legit feel so sick. Does anybody have a pill for that?"
Sam hands her a Dramamine pill.
Hattie, who is sat directly across from Sofia in the aisle seat, shrugs. "I dunno. It can't be that bad to think about. They're both pretty hot." She pauses for a second, then grimaces. "Never mind. It's weird. They're parents. I once accidentally called her 'mom' in freshman year!"
"That was an easy mistake," Sam comforts her. "They're both redheads with literally no other physical similarities whatsoever."
Zola squeaks, making all eyes turn on her.
"If they didn't do anything – and I'm not saying they did it," Zola says. "Then why does Vice Principal Sloan have that on his neck?"
It's so, so obviously a hickey.
Or a bruise. On his neck.
A very large mosquito bite.
A localised allergic reaction.
Definitely a hickey.