At that morning's assembly, I hardly hear anything my other peers are saying. I would usually put in my earphones at these times - the times when I didn't want to hear the world - but I had left my iPod at home in my disconnected state. Along with half of my books and all of my homework. In fact, it was a miracle I was here fully dressed and made-up (if only to hide the awful look I had woken up with this morning.)

Jou is sitting on the floor with his friends across the room from me, legs crossed and his elbows on his knees. I open my mind to see if he's still angry with me; though I'm not completely sure what I did to tick him off so bad. Somehow, my "impervious to false flattery" comment was insulting to him, I suppose. I notice Kendra is over there with him, too. She says something and he nods, but it seems like he's looking for someone, because his eyes are trailing along the crowd. When they land on me, they stop and he straightens up. I know I should look away, I really should, but I can't. He doesn't seem mad, but he doesn't look really happy. Yet he's not neutral, either.

I listen carefully for his thoughts, but there are so many others in the room that I can't pick his voice out by itself. Finally, he tilts his head to one side and raises his hand in a kind-of wave. I hesitate for a second before nodding back at him. Now Kendra has noticed that he's not paying attention to her, and she follows his gaze to me. Her eyes fix on me with slight disdain. I turn away. Sometimes I just don't have the energy to return the nastiness I receive. And the news I had gotten yesterday alone already drains me of energy, leaving barely enough to keep my heart beating.

Mr. Brian walks forward, the usual seething smile on his weirdly wide face. Today he's holding a big yellow bell, and he swings it in an arc. It makes a rude clanging noise, and everyone stops to look. Once the room is quiet, Mr. Brian laughs and says, "Do you like my new bell? This is the attention bell, and from now on, when you hear it, that means it's time to begin. Okay?"

"Okay." A joker in the back calls out, and some people snigger.

"Who wants to start our meeting?" Mr. Brian calls. Jou raises his hand, but the principal doesn't see him and calls on a guy from the baseball team instead.

"I think we should have a fall dance this year. And it should be a costume party." Mr. Baseball Guy announces. "Also, it should be on Halloween since it falls on a Friday this year."

Mr. Brian raises his eyebrows as if this were the most brilliant idea since Newton discovered gravity.
"Okay, okay! I like it. Are there any counter-suggestions?"

A girl with very long black hair raises her hand and yells, "I think everyone should come as vampires!"

Then the whole room erupts into a million pointless conversations about the stupid dance, and I have to close my mind to stop all the voices from rushing in. Mr. Brian starts ringing his bell as if he were trying to call the entire solar system into order and yells, "Calm down, everyone! If we're cleared by the board to have a fall dance, we'll put suggestions into a ballot box and vote on it, okay?" The chatter dies down. "Does anyone else have anything to share?" Jou raises his hand again, and this time Mr. Brian sees him. Jou stands up, one hand in his pocket and his face turning a light shade of pink from embarrassment.

"There's someone I want to apologize to." Jou says. "Just for…stuff. Maybe we can talk about it later. I just want to say that I didn't act very mature and that I hope it'll go better next time we're together." He sits back down and doesn't exactly look at me, but his eyes definitely dart over in my direction. His thought floats over to me, gently, and the word okay? drops onto me like a fluffy, white feather.

Yes. Okay. He is just too cute for his own good, but he's trying to apologize. I look at him until our eyes find each other, and I give him a little smile. He looks surprised, then smiles dazzlingly back at me.

"Thank you, Mr. Jounouchi." Mr. Brian clears his throat. "Now, I hope everyone has gotten a chance to welcome Valon to our school." With a curl of his wrist, he beckons Valon to the front of the crowd, who sighs and closes his eyes. Valon hates this. Anyone would hate it. Why does Mr. Brian have to single people out? "If you haven't said hello to him, please do. I'm sure he'd like to meet you." He raises his eyebrows to Valon, probably admonishing him for not coming to stand in the middle of the group with him. "Do you have anything you'd like to add?"

"Rock on." Valon says, not making eye contact. I try not to smirk.

Later after school, I'm searching for Jou, but Valon is the one who catches up with me. "Hey, Mai!" He stops next to me. "Want to come hang out at my house?"

"Uh…" I look through the crowd just in time to see that Jou has just rushed out of the doors. I hear his skateboard slap the sidewalk and he speeds away. I try to reach out and get my mind to catch up with him, but he and his thoughts are too far. I missed him.

"Ground control to Major Mai." I look around and see that Valon is looking at me with a dopey smile. "Do you want to hang out or not?"

I feel my chin tense up the way it does when I'm about to cry. But why, I didn't know.
"I can't today." I tell him. "I have to work. If you're willing, you can walk there with me."

"No problem." He replies. I turn and walk fast, forcing Jou and his weird apology out of my head. I don't need to think about it or him because he doesn't matter to me. He doesn't.

It's late September now, and the sun feels further away. The wind ebbs and flows, and already some leaves are collecting on the edge of the school lawn. As we walk, Valon has one hand crammed into the hip pocket of his jeans. The way he moves reminds me of a coiled spring, as if a light touch could send him bouncing out of control. I like this about him because I feel the same spring inside myself.

Maybe it's better to be with Valon. He doesn't think nasty things about my body. He doesn't think me sick like Jou does. I have no reason to keep holding onto Jou. I have no reason to think about him. Especially about the way he left without talking to me. Unless… Of course! I'm so stupid. He wasn't talking about me during the assembly at all. Jou's not the brightest, so he could have easily offended someone besides me. How could I be so dense?

But he had smiled at me right after, right? He smiled as if we had understood each other.

But… he left without talking to me.

I'm not going to think about this. That's it. I'm through with it. I mean it this time.
"So…I guess Kendra is your project partner?" I say, trying to avoid my thoughts.

"Yeah. You jealous?" He teased. I rolled my eyes and he laughed. "But seriously, she's not so bad. Seems cool to me."

"Just wait. " I tell him. "She has a nasty streak."

"Really?" He raises his eyebrows. "She's really sweet to me."

"Everyone thinks she's so nice because they can't hear her thoughts."

"And you can?"

Shit. I clamped my lips together tightly. "No. No - I mean - she's just said her thoughts about me out loud before - right to my face, even. So I know deep down what she's really thinking. She's not as cute as everyone believes." I glance at him. "Never mind." I kick an empty can on the sidewalk. "Maybe it's just girl shit."

"Nah, guys have that problem, too." Valon nods. I relax a little and watch the jogger ahead of us. "You know the whole he-said-this and they-said-this…that kind of thing. Miscommunication a lot of times, though. Wish more guys had the self-control women do. It takes a lot for chicks to start fighting, usually, but guys just…start swinging."

Another gust of wind picks up, and I hold my hair back.
"Yeah. I guess I can understand."

"Oh!" We hear someone cry, and I look at the jogger in front of us again. She stumbles over her own feet and falls hard against the pavement. She's hurt.

"Oh, no." I say. I rush forward to help her. When I get closer, I see that a layer of skin has been peeled from her knee, leaving an oozing red patch. It's so brutal that I have to take a deep breath to steady myself. She blows on the wound as a few tears slip from her eyes. From the back she looked my age, but now I could see slight wrinkles around her eyes.

"Are you okay?" I ask, kneeling next to her.

"I think so." She answers, but her voice sounds tight. "It happened so fast. I was jogging and the wind blew sand into my face." Her eyes are watering like crazy, but I can tell her knee hurts so bad that she could care less about her eyes.

I reach out my hand.
"Can you stand up?"

"Give me a minute."

While I wait for her to catch her breath, I watch as Valon stands behind me, shifting his weight. I listen to his thoughts, expecting him to be laughing at her deep inside, but instead I feel uncertainty from him. He wants to help but he doesn't know what to do or say. When the woman is breathing regularly again, she nods at me and I take her hand. I pull her up and she wobbles a little bit, putting a light amount of weight on her knee before standing normally.

"It's okay." She says. "Just hurts."

"Can you make it home?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thank you, uh…"

"Mai."

"Mai. Thank you for checking on me."

"Don't worry about it."

She limps away, and Valon comes up to me. "You handled that really well. That was super cool of you." He says. I can't help but feel a bit happy that Valon thought I was such a good person. Then it occurs to me that Jou wouldn't have laughed at the woman falling down, either. Jou would've immediately gone to help her, like I had.

But I'm not thinking about Jounouchi anymore.