What is swirling around Emmie and I is a curiosity, maybe a desire to explore. I let my mind wander a bit, then shake my head to look at the field.
Our class is not the only one having sports as the first course today. From the bleachers, I watch my classmates. Under the rays of the sun, the vitality of youth is contagious.
I smile inwardly at that thought. The echoes of the past have apparently not just changed my mind and my way of going about life. They have made my heart a little older too. But that is not bad. I can avoid being uncertain about what I want, or rather, about how to find what I want in life and how to pursue it. I can avoid sole regrets.
Maybe those regrets in later years in life are why novels with reincarnation tropes have come into being and gained in popularity. Most people have them, looking back at the past and thinking 'if only'. As the saying goes, if only youth knew, because, unfortunately, by the time the hair is greying, it is already too late.
"Max!"
I shake those thoughts out of my head and wave back at Emmie. Then I shoo her away to have her focus and stop jumping. The boys' gazes on her jumping chest make me uncomfortable. Their gazes have become a greater discomfort for me after my life has changed.
Even without lust within, the way they can't stop themselves from letting their descend on the chests of us girls, on our bodies, I don't like how we have to stand that.
Emmie grin brightly, but at least gets my message. She returns to focusing on her run.
I shake my head, and lower it to the book I have brought with me to keep myself occupied. It is about data analysis. Ever since the ease of learning has made science broaden the path I can take in this life, I have made it a higher priority than management's knowledge for which I can rely in past life for now. However, the focus I tried to find eludes me.
I look at the dark writing on the pages of the book, but the dark, hollow feeling that comes from the field stops my brain from processing the words. It is a hollow feeling of numbness, compounded with disgust, but the latter compressed, made small, and buried under a quiet despair that seems to find suicide better.
The emotional thought I captured has no light. It is not even depression, because that notion seems to be a luxury, an affordable luxury.
I squeeze my fingers over the book I'm not even managing to read.
The state of the Latina senior has worsened compared to before. I can feel despite myself the substance she has been ordered to keep inside to go about the rest of the day, to run amidst a crowd of ignorant classmates and schoolmates, to risk humiliation, social death.
My heart falls, but not deep enough. It remains hanging in the middle, just between its home and the pit that has opened in my stomach. It is suffocating.
Tyne is a masochist, I know, but feeling the pain over the disgust and self-loathing inside the senior classmate, I feel the desire to puke. The pain is the lingering shadow from the torture her genitalia, primary and secondary, have been through earlier. And beyond that, it is also for the despairing inability to end it all.
The Latina senior is so numb that she can't feel anything from the more lustful stares without any respect from the older boys of her grade.
I exhale, and cut off the inadvertent connection. I don't raise my head to look at her. I already know that her usually quiet expression has become her facade, the facade she has to keep to hide her battered self, more for herself and those she holds dear than for the beastly monster in her life.
I stop trying to focus on my book. I look up at Emmie. She is running while energetically interacting with our classmates, joking with some, dissing some like Josh's younger brother, and scolding others whose eyes were wandering too much.
Her appearance brings a smile to my face as I force myself to forget about the stuffy feeling in my chest. I envy her a little. I gained some things after the accident that took my parents, but I also lost some things. It is a true tradeoff, and I don't really know how to take it. I just know that the aftertaste it left in my mouth is something I can't describe even if I try.
I miss Liz. I miss our small world where everything is simple.
The classes of the day pass fast. I wish they had been faster, but also slower. At the end of the school day, everyone leaves either for home or for other activities, like the preparations for clubs' opening this year.
"Max, let's go."
"Wait."
I put the rest of my books in the bag before I look up at Emmie who is already standing and ready to go.
"I asked professor Tyne if he can start tutoring us sooner and he agreed to start today."
My red-haired friend is surprised, but pleasantly so. I don't doubt it is only because of who the teacher is, not because of any motivation to be a good student.
I shake my head with a smile, before the smile becomes a facade.
Hunting a human like Tyne is more difficult and dangerous than hunting a carnivore in the jungle. My heart can't remain steady at all.
"Come, let's go."
I abruptly stand up and pull Emmie out by the hand. She is surprised, but she does not resist. I look around, and instead of going to that monster's office, I pull Emmie toward more deserted parts of the school building.
When we arrive somewhere that has already been vacated, I pull Emmie before me and push her against the wall, and I do what I have found as the answer to counterbalance my anxiety.
Before Emmie can understand anything, I step into her personal space, and I claim her lips for myself.
Chest against chest, both soft, just like our embrace. For a second, the world stops.