November 29th 2020

Chapter 334
Their Story of Signs

The Day Before

It did not surprise anyone to return to school the next day and still hear teachers and students alike discussing the incident with the fire alarm. Of any number of things they could have been talking about, from the basketball teams' latest games, or the approach of prom season, to what would there'd be for lunch in the cafeteria, or how they'd done on some test or another, it was the alarm, and the evacuation, and then the 'interrogation' in the gym. This especially had settled like a cloud of suspicion over the student body, some of them having leapt from 'who pulled the lever?' to 'I heard this person kissed that person' or any number of other blindsiding accusations.

Maya had never seen anything like it, not even when she'd been a student here, and as soon as she clued into it, her mission became to keep the air clear wherever she sensed trouble brewing. It wasn't what she wanted to be doing, especially today. All she could think was that the previous day's events had really wiped her out. She'd woken up today, having never felt quite so resistant to the idea of getting out of bed, not when she had by all accounts had gotten a perfectly good night's sleep. Lucas had had no notion of it. He had a late start to his classes today, and she had allowed him to go on sleeping as she got ready to head out.

"Mrs. Friar?"

"Huh?" she looked up, blinking, before shaking her head to get back her senses as she found Daphne Brett, Ariel Su, and Phoebe Monroe had come to her class, just after the lunch period had started. "Sorry, yes, hi. What's up?" she asked. The girls shared a brief look, wondering what was up with their teacher, before Daphne addressed her once more.

"Well, us and the rest of the girls' team thought we'd have a sort of no-stakes game against the boys before we went and ate," she explained. "Everyone's kind of weird out there today, so we thought it'd be something for us to do to clear our heads."

"Sounds like a good idea," Maya hummed. Sounded like something her own team would have done, too, back in the day.

"Yeah, well, we're one short today, Becca twisted her ankle a bit. She should be fine for the next game, but she can't be out there today, so we were thinking…" Ariel continued, looking to her teammates.

"You were on the team when you went here, we know that. Everyone says you were one of the best," Phoebe grinned. "So we were wondering if you might go out there with us, help us beat the boys."

"That is always fun," Maya chuckled, making them smile and nod along. She sighed. "I wish I could, today's just not good for it, I'm afraid," she told them, and seeing the slight disappointment on their faces was as good of a challenge to her resolve as there could be. She came so close to changing her mind, but she was really that tired, and she could imagine herself out there, not so much showing the boys off as embarrassing herself and the girls. "Another time, alright?"

"Sure," Daphne smiled.

"You know who you should ask though," Maya smiled now, the thought coming at once.

Soon after, she sat up on the bleachers, eating her packed lunch and watching the girls and the boys out on the court, including one Helena Zimmerman making a brief but nevertheless triumphant return. Maya had never actually seen her play, and for someone who hadn't been on a team in over two years, she had either been playing in secret or she was just that good that she went back out there and absolutely owned the court. In no time, the friendly game started to draw a crowd of spectators, climbing to sit in the bleachers, cheering on one side or the other.

"You looked great out there," Maya smiled as she came down after the game's end and joined Helena. The girls had crushed the boys, halfway between sheer talent and the boys almost crumbling under what felt like the shockwave of Helena's return. She was like a speedster out there, finding ways around obstacles like no one Maya had ever seen.

"Felt pretty great, too," Helena breathed, and Maya could see it on her face. If nothing else, she'd gotten to play one last time in this gym before graduation.

Heading back to the art room now, to prepare for her class with the freshmen, Maya watched the video on her phone. About as soon as it started, she just wanted to be able to show it to Lucas, to the others from the old teams, like 'hey, does this take you back, too, or what?' She didn't know when she'd started focusing on Helena especially, but there was so much of her in there, and looking at her, she could think of only two things.

The first was that, as late as it was in the year to make anything happen, it felt to her as though this was a sign. Someway, somehow, Helena Zimmerman deserved to carry on playing, in college, maybe even beyond, if she so desired, and looking at her out there… She'd never seen the girl so deep in her element. And Maya… well, she knew people out there, didn't she? Former teammates, former coaches, potentially well-placed enough that they could see a player like Helena and recognize what she could become. She'd been out of the game since halfway through sophomore year, no one had seen her that might have said 'you should come and play with us.' But what if they saw her now?

And the other thing… The other thing went back to yesterday, and the ever-tardy arrival of her period. Now, today, as she considered this sudden fatigue on top of it… Maybe she wasn't wrong this time? Maybe… No. No, she still didn't believe it, she couldn't.

X

Today

For some reason, she couldn't get Wyatt out of her head as she drove in to school that day. When she and Sam had spoken to him that morning, asked him how he was doing, his response was so different from his sisters Cara and Eliza's. They had to remind themselves, time and again, that he had been four years old when their father had died. And as much as he was aware of what was happening around him, and understood part of it, and was affected by it, before long it was clear that it would never sit with him quite the way it did his older siblings.

Now he was nine years old, which meant he'd lived longer without Kermit than with him. At this point, James Lane had been his father for almost as long as he had memories to remember. He knew that Kermit had been his father first, had some memories of him, but it was just not the same. But now… He was getting just about to a point where even he was aware of the difference, and he was starting to ask more questions about his birth father. Today, he'd asked Maya the question she'd expected would come up sooner or later, just not this soon. He wanted to know about their father when he had been her father. He knew, even if he had been a year old when she'd started seeing them all, even if as far as he recalled she had always been there, that there had been a time when it wasn't that way.

She hadn't known what to tell him on the spot, and certainly it was not a conversation she was able to have with him like this, when they all had to go to school or work. All she'd been able to do was promise that they would have a talk when he and the others came down to Austin for the upcoming Sleepster. Now that she'd promised, she actually had to think about what she'd say, and it was not coming easily.

It consumed her thoughts so much so that she got lost in them, sitting at her desk while her freshmen were coming into the class after lunch. She still felt sort of tired, as she'd been the day before, and given a few minutes more she could easily have dozed off for a nap. She wasn't even aware of the kids coming in until… the smell.

It curved its way around her senses like a slug, nasty and pungent, and even as she blinked and sat up, realizing that the freshmen were arriving, taking their places around the stations, her stomach gave its first sign of distress. Oh, she had smelled some unpleasant things in her life, but they had never been so triggering as to make her feel the way she felt now, like she was going to be sick. She got up now, scanning the room like she might have been a hunter, searching for its prey. What was it? Where was it? Who had it? She almost didn't want to find out, to get closer.

She didn't want to ask the kids, didn't want to draw attention to the situation. Clearly none of them had either smelled it or been so offended by it as she was. Bearing that in mind, she now had to wonder… again, again… if this was possibly one more sign, her body shouting at her. What more is it going to take for you to understand this is real, Friar?

No one looked to have food out in the open, and they knew she didn't mind them eating in class if they hadn't had time to finish over lunch for some reason, so long as they did it quickly and didn't disrupt the class, fall behind the work, or cause spills without cleaning them right away. Maybe they had something in their bags, leftovers or an empty container in their bag? The more exposure she had to the scent, much to her aggravation, she became convinced it wasn't food, almost more like… Oh, no, she knew that smell now, although it had never afflicted her in this way. Dirty gym clothes. Dirty gym boy clothes. How were they not smelling that?

"Who's got their gym stuff with them right now?" she finally had to ask, and the shake in her voice was barely containable. The kids looked at her, even as one of the boys near the open window raised his hand. "Do you mind putting those in your locker?" He reached into his bag, pulled out the smaller one from inside and made his way to grab the hall pass. Just him passing by her, she had to pull back, try to block the smell even as it made her stomach twist.

She had some of the others nearby open the rest of the windows, and for a while she seemed to be able to soldier on well enough, but then all it took was for her to catch some lingering notes of the stench in the air, and it was like she'd hit pause on a big action sequence in a movie, and now they'd hit play again and she was back right in the thick of it. And now… oh now there was no stopping it…

"I'm just… I just need to… to step away for a… minute, uh…" she blinked, trying to keep her composure, really pulling every last thread of self-control left in her. "Khalil, will you… will you go and ask… Mrs. Anderson across the hall to… keep an eye on all of you?"

She barely waited for him to answer, though she was about certain she'd heard him say yes. She was already on her way out the door. When she crossed into the hall, it was like the last shot came and finished her off, as she caught the trail of when the bag had been carried out of here. Right about then, the priority became to find the very nearest bathroom and hope no one was inside when she got there.

Okay, okay, I'll do it, alright? I'll get a test, I'll even get two, so there.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners