Everywhere was dark and my head felt like it had been hit by a battering ram. Repeatedly. I felt sick to the stomach and I had no idea why. I didn’t drink any alcohol…I hope. And I didn’t remember eating anything when I came home from school or even falling asleep. I only remembered entering the living room to question my mom and meeting both parents and Sara.

Yes. Sara. My head ached dully at the thinking I was doing but I didn’t stop. I remember her stalking round me and I…I think I fainted?

I couldn’t be too sure, it could’ve been food poisoning, or any other faint-inducing reason somehow, I knew for she did something and my parents let her. This was getting too suspicious.

I paused my thinking to roll my eyes at myself.

Of course it was getting too suspicious. I was suspecting each and every random thing that happened and overthinking it. I had only probability to reply on and not the irritating one they teach us in Math. Sara was probably a long-lost relative who was really beautiful with a dash of suspiciously creepy.

I groaned. There I go with the suspiciousness again.

My confusion hadn’t gotten my plan to interrogate my mom off my mind. I stood up, slowly cause my head still felt like it was hit by a freight train. My reached to turn on my lamp when I noticed my arm was shaky. I turned it on and stood. My whole body was shaky, like merely standing was exerting too much energy.

“Mom!” I yelled. “Mommy!” Calling her ‘mommy’ always made her attend to me faster.

I dropped back to my bed once I heard her footsteps nearing my room. Yes, my mother had a particular way of walking, as did my dad.

My door was opened cautiously and she peeped in. Her red hair was let down instead of being tied up in a bun like she usually kept it. “Yes, sweetie? You’re awake?”

“No, mama. I’m sleep talking.”

She just sighed and entered before shutting the door. “How’re you feeling?”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “I’m the asking the questions.”

She raised an eyebrow in amusement like I was a tiny little puppy trying to be fierce. And that irritated me.

“What did she do?” I asked. Question number one.

“What did who do?”

“Oh for God’s sake, mom. That woman, Sara. You know she did something that made me fall unconscious and then I wake up like, what, three hours later feeling like shit.” Normally, she’d reprimand me for swearing but she let it go. “I know she did something. We both know she did something and I know it has to do with my stupid, glow-in-the-dark hair!” I ranted in frustration. I wanted to know what was going on and she kept that from me.

“I heard you and dad talk yesterday.” My voice was calmer, all the frustration squeezed out but still she said nothing, no reaction at all.

“Who’s Kristina?” Question number two.

No reply. Pain flashed in her eye and I knew I’d made a deeper jab.

“Your silence just gives me the confirmation that there is something.” My head was still throbbing but I ignored it. “You and dad know something about my hair. Sara knows something about my hair and there is a Kristina who also has something to do with this whole thing. I deduced that much from you and dad’s conversation so why won’t you just tell me?”

“No, Sam. It’s not time yet.” My mom turned to leave but halted, “I’ve left some pain med on the kitchen counter. Take it to ease the pain.” She opened the door and exits.

And I’m left at a dead end. Again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“And she left it at that.”

“So how does this prove anything?”

“The fact that she didn’t deny anything proves everything, Ciara. ‘It’s not time yet’? What does that even mean?” I started sketching another flower at the back of my Biology notebook, totally paying attention to the teacher.

“Sounds like something those characters from those weird magic movies would say.”

“No—”

“Ciara Adekoya, you and your partner seem to already understand the process of osmosis. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind coming over here to teach us?”

My heart jumped in m chest from being caught.

“Ummm, no, thank you, Mrs Garrett?” Ciara squeaked and I facepalmed internally.

“I insist.” Mrs. Garrett smiled an innocently evil smile and went back to her seat behind her desk.

The embarrassing episode in Biology passed and I had one more class before break. I and Ciara talked about what we could do next, about my mysterious hair situation, of course. We brainstormed in total silence. Actually, in semi-silence since we listened to music from my phone while eating at the same time.

“I have an idea.” Ciara said and paused the music.

“Yeah?”

“Why don’t we re-dye your hair, but get it on video this time, so when we show your mom, she’s got no way of denying it.”

That was a semi-good plan but there was still a flaw. “I told you. She didn’t deny it. She just said nothing, so showing her a video of my hair lighting up like this year’s Christmas tree would do nothing.”

“Your dad then. Your mom wouldn’t answer, we push your dad hard enough and he would definitely break.”

“You’re right, I guess. It’s the only plan we have for now. And it has to be done this Friday. I got away with a midweek sleepover once, I don’t think it can happen again.”

Ciara nodded in agreement and we fell back into silence.

“Yes.” Ciara said suddenly, dragging the ‘s’ and I fought the urge to stand up and leave. Why? She was using the tone she used whenever she was about to get hyper about something, and that something was stupid one hundred percent of the time.

“What is it this time? Did Ariana get married to Justin Bieber?” She was a huge fan of Ariana Grande but I wasn’t. I didn’t hate her or anything. I just didn’t listen to her music, but that didn’t stop Ciara from pumping my already exhausted brain with Ariana-Grande-based info.

“What?” she frowned like she was wondering if I really lived in a house, or under a rock with no wi-fi, like she was suspecting.

“No, Sam. It’s your birthday.” she added, trying to hide her obvious smile.

“Today?”

“No, exactly one week from now.”

“Are you being sarcastic?” she just rolled her eyes while I checked the calendar on my phone for confirmation. She wasn’t kidding.

“Oh.” I sound depressed but my birthday was never a big deal to me. Not because I didn’t care about it but because I had no one to celebrate it with. Except for one birthday party when I was nine, my birthday consisted of gifts from my parents, aunts and sometimes uncles, no party or anything because growing up, I had very few friends. Too few to hold a party with. That number decreased to zero before climbing up to one when I met Ciara.

It wasn’t because I wanted to be lonely and preferred being by myself. I was absolute shit interacting with people in general, or socializing. I was timid. Too timid. People made me feel awkward as hell and with that fact came my lack of friends. I had a lot of acquaintances. People who I’d known since elementary, but even the familiarity couldn’t put my withdrawnness to rest.

Yeah, it sounds pathetic and it used to bother me. It used to bother me so much, I cried about it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want friends, or I didn’t want to be able to sit with other students and argue about stuff we see on social media, or I wanted to be the only I girl in my grade who didn’t belong to a group of any sort. I desperately wanted it all. It was something that pained me. The fact that I couldn’t.

Good part was that nobody bullied me. Actually, nobody really bullied anybody in our grade, no. They just dumped it all on their juniors.

“You’re turning eighteen.” Ciara squealed.

“How the hell is it that you’re excited for my own birthday when I couldn’t give half a shit?” I asked.

She looked at me in disbelief like she couldn’t believe her own ears. I wondered if most of the things that came out my mouth were always as shocking as Ciara made them seem—except for my hair of course, that was downright unbelievable.

“Your eighteenth birthday, Sam. You’re not at all excited?”

“I thought it was sixteenth birthdays that had parties as a mandatory feature?” I asked feigning confusion, like, I could really do without any of this shit.

“Did you celebrate yours?”

“Nope.”

“Why have you never celebrated your birthday?”

“I have. I had one when I was eleven.” I fingered the peeling strips of red paint on the cafeteria table.

“And?” she leaned forward but I knew she expected a negative answer.

“None other.” I murmured and she launched into a long lecture about the importance of birthdays for a person’s social life but might as well as been talking to an ancient stone wall and I had no pressing need to remind her that I had no social life.

She stopped talking after noticing my relative quietness and knew she couldn’t persuade me to celebrate my birthday. Not because I didn’t want to but because I had nobody to do it with.

School was over soon and Ciara’s dad dropped me off at home. My lazy ass decided to overlook his scary face and accept the fact that I had my own personal school bus. Yay.

I greeted my parents and went straight to my room to bury myself in homework while struggling not to relapse into one of my endless daydreams about Destiny.

Was a real struggle though.