"Ms. Engel, can you hear me?"
A mumble escaped the girl's lips as the voice rang through her ears. She didn't want to talk, only sleep.
"Ms. Engel, blink twice if you can hear me."
The voice vibrated inside her hear drum, creating a strange sensation for Amelie. It was like her brain was turned off and couldn't process the words as fast as they usually did. She struggled to remember how to blink, feeling for her eyelids as she opened them and closed them twice.
Her body lay still on the nurse's cot, surrounded by bright fluorescents that stung red underneath her eyelids.
"…Bright," she managed with slurred speech.
"Amelie, it is Friday. Do you know where you are right now?" The nurse asked, ignoring Amelie's fruitless attempts to catch more sleep.
The brunette slowly opened her eyes to see a middle aged woman with glasses and a white suit on. Her surroundings looked very sterile and organized. She looked up to the nurse wordlessly. Her thoughts were gone, the never-ending stream of consciousness had halted for once.
"Nurse."
"That's right. You were passed out since yesterday," the nurse said without skipping a beat. It seems she was practiced in giving the just-got-knocked-out-by-a-bully speech.
Her thoughts still fuzzy, Amelie lay her head back on the pillow and lead a heavy breath out. She had recalled some of the events of yesterday (Had it only been a day? she wondered to herself).
The nurse continued without a second glance at Amelie.
"You are very lucky that the prefects arrived when they did. You shouldn't be meddling around with people like that," the woman scolded. "You are liable to get yourself seriously hurt at this school. I see it every day." The nurse nodded to herself, tapping the cap of her pen to her chin thoughtfully. "Now why don't you be a good girl and go down to your dorm? Classes are already out for the day, so you can go home and relax."
Amelie shook her head, wrapping herself more deeply in covers.
"Don't know… dorm… bags" her voice mangled.
The nurse sighed in exasperation. Usually, kids didn't take this long to get their sorry asses out of the office and get into more trouble. With this girl, it was a process, explaining every detail like she was five.
"I have my helper here to guide you to your room. Ask him if you have any more questions, there are plenty of other brats I need to see today," she added the last part under her breath.
Amelie looked at the nurse with a glazed look, cocking her head to the side.
"O-okay."
Without another second to spare, the nurse called loudly out of her office: "Mr. Smith! I need your assistance!"
Amelie looked down at her body, bruises scattered across her suntanned arms and an icepack over her head. She immediately ripped off the blankets and stood to her feet, not wanting to bother the nurse. I thought it was the nurse's job to care more about the students than herself.. Amelie pondered.
As she adjusted her eyes to the light, she saw a shadowed figure standing in the doorway with arms crossed over his chest.
"Mr. Smith, today please. Don't think I won't call the headmaster on you, young man." The nurse snapped as the boy stepped into the light.
The student walked in and immediately caught Amelie's attention. He had deep, chocolate eyes with short yet slightly messy hair to match. His thick eyebrows were knit in an unreadable emotion; Amelie thought either wonder or anger. The boy stood at about six feet tall, wearing a teal colored sweater vest over a starched white dress shirt and gray slacks. His boots were very big and bulky- like they were used for running around a military base. However, the feature that stood out most about the boy was the prominent slash scar over the his left eye. It reached from his forehead, narrowly missing the eyeball, stretching down to his cheek.
A small sneer appeared over his lips as he faced the nurse. "Now, there's no need to do that, is there? I was just taking my time, that's all." His voice was sarcastic and biting towards the woman. Seemingly used to the boy's behavior, the nurse shrugged and threw Amelie's bags at the boy.
"Take her down to her dorm, Mr. Smith. You can handle that, can't you?" she mocked. Turning serious, she faced the teenager dead on. "I don't want to hear anything about a fight, a scuffle, a miscommunication, whatever you want to call it. There will be no dilly-dallying unless you want Dr. Crabblesnitch to-"
"Yeah, I got it, don't worry Marge, I know where the girls dorms are," he said with a wink.
She turned to her desk and began busily writing, ignoring the two teenagers.
"You may go," she prodded Amelie. As Amelie reached the doorway, the nurse handed her a bottle of medication.
"These are for the panic attacks. You seem to have a hard time relaxing, so if you need them take one."
Clutching the bottle, Amelie thanked the nurse and looked back at the boy. He had a blank expression on his face except for a very slight smile poking the corner of his lips.
"Try not to miss me too much, Marge." He jeered at the nurse as he effortlessly slung the bags over his shoulder.
Walking out of the nurse's office was hard. After being passed out for so long, Amelie had difficulty performing even the simplest of actions like walking. Silently, the boy slowed his pace to match the girl's, looking at her suspiciously.
"Don't die on me," he said jokingly, but with some seriousness in his tone. "You would make the third person this year."
Amelie looked with a shocked look on her face to the boy's scarred face. He chuckled to himself and kept walking.
"Gee, you sure are strung out," the boy commented after walking in silence towards the dorms.
Amelie was looking for words to say that wouldn't betray her or make her look stupid in front of the boy.
"I know," she said.
Wow. "I know"? You are socially inept.
He let it slide, though, as they walked in silence for the rest of the walk.
Amelie thought he had seen him somewhere but that had to be impossible. She could barely even remember the few people she met yesterday, not that she wanted to.
"Do I know you?" she questioned him as they reached the steps of the girls dorm, the sunset looming in the distance.
Abruptly, the boy huffed and dropped the bags on the ground. He bent his knees and swiftly scooped his arms up under the girl.
"This feel familiar?" he said woodenly, almost like he was trying to humiliate her.
Amelie blushed as she felt the familiar feel of arms and tight, comforting grip. She darted her eyes and looked for a way to get down. "I don't need to be carried…" she whined softly as she shoved uselessly against the boy's sweater.
He ignored her requests and kicked the door open, walking down the girl's corridor until he was met by the doom supervisor. The boy continued coddling Amelie as if he didn't trust her ability to walk by herself.
"Special delivery," The boy smirked as the teacher looked crazily at the boy.
"What on Earth-"
"I was told to bring her to the dorms and here she is, signed sealed delivered. Now if you could just point us to her room, I'll be on my way."
"Normally, Smith, I wouldn't trust you carrying a poor battered girl looking for her bedroom, but I have heard rumors that you helped Amelie here at the…" she cleared her throat, "incident."
The boy growled, despite the teacher's deathly glare. Amelie glanced up at his eyes, sparkling with intensity.
"No one trusts me? Tell me something I don't know, teach. Look, I can drop her off here or you can tell me where the room is. And I'm not sure anyone in this building can carry much more than a purse with daddy's money in it," he said scathingly. The teacher rolled her eyes and pointed to the third room on the left.
"Don't get smart Smith, you're on probation. Don't go mucking up a new student now," she warned, the warnings falling deaf on the boy's ears as he glided to the door. With Amelie still in his arms, he entered the room, shut the door with his foot and lay the shivering girl on the bed.
She had still not changed out of her clothes from the previous day and the shorts were exposing her legs to the cold of building.
The boy looked down at her resting body, his eyes travelling from her scuffed up white shoes to her bronzed body covered with summer clothing. The girl's eyes closed, still drowsy from everything that had happened. That made Gary feel a smidge better about staring at her body, but only a smidge- he would have done it even if she was awake.
His intense eyes glazed over the small rounding of her breasts, appreciating the tight shirt that clung to them. When he finally got to her eyes, she opened them slowly and fluttered her eyelashes.
"Who are you?" She said with curiosity. Her brain had turned off again. She wasn't worried that there was a boy much taller and stronger than her sitting on the edge of her bed. Amelie felt content with the emptiness in her head as she regained control of her breathing.
The brunette gave her a crooked smile as he stood up, walking to the door.
"Wait!" she gasped, not wanting to be alone with the thoughts that were sure to come rushing back after the meds wore off.
Looking slightly over his shoulder at the girl, he gave a crooked smile and leaned his hand up against the wall, staring deep into her eyes. She almost flinched from the intensity of the look.
"Gary Smith, a pleasure to be your acquaintance." He bowed deeply and laughed manically to himself as he slammed the door shut.
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