Today, Flora and Wren were hanging out at his house. It was a school day, not the weekend, but Flora had been spending more time with Wren lately, and less with Elsa and Nanami. She sighed.
Wren nudged her shoulder. “Still thinking about your friends?”
She nodded. “It’s just gotten so awkward, and I feel really guilty. I don’t want to have any secrets - I already felt bad about not telling them about you, but they would always talk so badly about you even after I told them to stop.”
She thought about it. “They weren’t really great friends, but I still feel like I should be a good friend. Even if they don’t deserve it. But now I have to pick, I can either be a good friend to Elsa or a good friend to Nanami, when neither of them have really been good friends to me.”
Wren wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You know I’ll support you no matter what you decide to do, right?”
She smiled at him. “You’re so good to me. But yeah… we’re almost done with school, and I don’t think I’m gonna stay friends with them afterwards. I could just get through graduation and then distance myself, but I want to finish high school with a clear conscience. I think I’m going to tell Elsa everything.”
He nodded. “I think that’s a good idea. Speaking of finishing high school…”
“What about finishing high school?”
“There’s one very important thing we have to do before high school is over. Flora Doe, will you go to prom with me?”
Flora laughed. “Of course I will!” She grinned. “I want to celebrate the end of our teen years with you, nobody else.”
Wren smiled down at her. “Me too.”
-------
“You look great tonight.”
Skye smiled teasingly at Michael. “Thanks! Just because I normally wear sweatshirts doesn’t mean I can’t dress up, you know.”
He laughed. “That’s not what I meant! You look great all the time, it’s just a different look than I’m used to.”
“You look good too.”
He rolled his eyes. “I get a pity compliment for satisfying your ego, I see how it is.”
“It’s not pity!” Skye scratched at the back of her hand. It was kind of itchy all of a sudden.
Michael took a drink, letting it go. “Are you feeling okay? I know you’ve been sick lately.”
“I’m feeling much better. I don’t know what it is, but I woke up feeling super energized this morning.” She scratched her hand again. “I still have a little bit of a rash, so probably don’t hold my hand or anything. I don’t want you to get sick.”
He laughed. “I’m good just to talk to you. I can’t believe you fixed that bug for the whole computer lab while you were sick. I swear, the whole computer club wanted to kiss you after that one.”
Skye pouted. “Meanwhile, I couldn’t even kiss you, because I’m sick! But you’re welcome. Future software engineer Skye Doe is always at your service.”
“Why did you decide you want to be an engineer? You’ll be great at it, obviously, but what made you want to do that?”
Skye frowned. She didn’t really like thinking about it, but… she did really like Michael. She felt bad about the deception that had started their relationship, so she tried to be honest about anything else she could. She couldn’t bring herself to come clean about why she had approached him, but anything else was fair game. “My dad is an archaeologist. I absolutely idolized him when I was a kid.”
“You’ve said your dad isn’t really in your life, though.”
She smiled bitterly. “Yeah. He never really was. He never wanted custody or even visitation, so I only saw him on the occasional weekend day. Now I know that my mom really had to push to get him to see me at all. Still, that just made me want to be like him even more. I thought if I showed him I could do things he cared about, he would care about me. But… I never really understood the appeal of archaeology. I thought the technology of the ancient peoples was cool, but the focus on preserving it over figuring out how it worked frustrated me. Once I realized that no matter how much I pretended to care, he wasn’t even gonna bother to pretend, I gave up and started paying attention to things I thought were interesting. Software engineering lets me see how things work, and make them happen.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry about your dad.”
She shrugged somewhat awkwardly. Her neck was itchy too now. “It’s alright. My daddy issues make me interesting.”
“You know I’m adopted, right? I love my family, but sometimes I wonder…”
Skye was paying attention to Michael, she really was, but suddenly the itching was everywhere, and intense. She felt hot. She wanted to take off her jacket, but when she moved her arms, her plate flew off the table.
“Skye? Are you okay?”
“I’m…” She couldn’t quite shape the words the way she wanted. Her gums hurt, badly, like all her teeth were coming in all at once. Her tongue felt too big for her mouth, and her throat was scratchy. She felt like she should know what was happening, but her head was blurry, and she was so scared.
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