The next week or so was uneventful, and truth be told, Kody was already getting a bit bored with Raresyde. It wasn’t that it was a boring school—in fact, it was actually more fun than his old one, he thought—it was just that he lost interest in things quickly. Kody had been told on more than one occasion that he had a short attention span--one such occasion being that exact moment.

“Hey, Kody...Kody...Foster! Wake up!”

Kody snapped back to reality, looking to the irritated Katarina. “Huh?”

Her eyes nearly rolled into the back of her head. “Huh?” she mocked. “God, with that attention span, how are you passing anything?”

He shrugged. “Lucky guesser?”

“Very funny.”

“I thought so,” he said, turning back to the English assignment he was working on. “Hey, help me here. I can’t remember what the difference between active and passive voice is.”

Katarina paused, thinking. “...Something about the clearness of a statement, I think. I don’t remember. We haven’t studied grammar in awhile.”

“Oh, you’re no help,” Kody said, waving her off.

“Maybe you would know the answer if you had been paying attention in class,” Kat chided.

“Maybe if the teacher was more exciting than a loaf of moldy bread, I wouldn’t have such a hard time with that,” he argued. “Besides, I have English 2nd period. That’s my sleep period.”

“Sleep period?” Kat repeated. “Why don’t you try sleeping, oh, I don’t know, at night.”

“Eh,” Kody replied. “I have better things to do with my nighttime hours.”

Katarina raised an eyebrow. “Like?”

“Things.”

“Like?”

“Like things.”

“What things?!” Kat demanded. Kody ignored her, continuing to scribble revised sentences across his notebook. Katarina stood up straight, folding her arms. “Alright, I get it. What’s her name?”

Kody jerked back from his paper and looked up at her, bewildered. “What?”

She rolled her eyes, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “The girl. What’s her name?”

He just blinked, still confused. “What girl?”

Katarina sighed exasperatedly. “The girl you’re, uh, ‘spending’ your nights with. God you’re dense.”

He continued to stare at her a moment longer before letting out a quiet, “Ohhhh,” of realization. Then his baffled expression returned. “Wait, what? You think I’m—where did you—Kat, there is no girl!”

She raised an eyebrow. “Really now? What else would a teenage boy be doing at night? A guy?”

Kody’s mouth fell open. “What?! Kat, there is no girl! Or guy, for that matter.” He rolled his eyes when he saw the skeptical look still on her face. “Listen, I’m just a bit of an insomniac, alright? Geez. Talk about jumping to conclusions.” She didn’t reply. Kody let out an irritated sigh. “Kat, come on now, look at me. I’m not exactly a catch.”

Katarina still looked skeptical, but she seemed to acknowledge that point, giving a slight sideways nod. “Alright. Fair enough.”

“Thaaaanks.”

“Hey, you said it, I just agreed,” Kat said. “…So what do you do?”

The blonde boy looked her straight in the eye. “Things.”

With a frustrated huff, Katarina finally let it go.

Content with the lack of argument, Kody returned to his homework. Sorry, Kat, he thought to himself. I just don’t think you’d understand.