Instead of meeting Cyrene for our usual lunch meetings, I grab a bucket and some soap and chemicals, plus a scrubber from a janitor I hunted down in the academic building. Then I go over to the tapped-off building and start scrubbing.

People eye me as they walk past to classes or lunch, but no one stops to help. It’s freezing outside, it’s supposed to snow this week. If I was smart, I would have grabbed some gloves too. If I was smart. Instead, my hand feels like a wet block of ice. My teeth are chartering after the first ten minutes.

“There you are, what are you doing?” Cyrene marches over to me.

“W-what’s it l-look like.” I chatter.

“You’re freezing your butt off,” she says in a smart alec tone.

“I’m helping Asherah, by cleaning this mess. She’s very stressed out right now and overworked, but you would know that if you stopped being an idiot and just talked to her.” I keep scrubbing.

“You went to see her!” she hisses.

“She came to get me out of class, to find out what happened because apparently, no one told her but some security guard.”

She huffs, her breath fogging the air.

“Do you have gloves, my hands are numb.” I pout.

“Move,” she says.

I step aside as she cast a spell and shoots a laser out of her hands. The laser burns off the paint from the building, cleaning it in seconds flat.

“Okay, you have to show me that one,” I say.

“Come on,” she grabs my freezing hand and drags me away.

“She is my headmaster you know, I will have to talk to her. It’s inevitable.”

She huffs again.

“You don’t have to make it a war. I like you both.” I say.

“You’re my student, not hers.” She snaps at me.

I frown at her.

She drags me to her office and sits me down.

I sigh.

She sits in front of me and crosses her arms in defiance.

“How long are you going to throw a fit?” I ask.

“I’m not!”

I raise an eyebrow.

She sighs and sits right.

“Look, I didn’t tell her anything about what we are working on or any of that stuff. Trust me, she has enough on her plate without me. She’s going through a lot right now, and I know you don’t want to, but I think it would mean a lot to her if you stopped being a big baby and just talked to her.”

“Why am I always the one who has to say sorry first! She called me a puppet! Me! She always thinks she’s right and it’s just so infuriating. For once, once, I wish she would just act her age. She doesn’t have to be so grown up and mature all the time. She used to be fun, and happy, she used to be… my friend.” She says sadly.

“You two just need to talk it out,” I suggest.

“No. No more talking it out. It’s always like this between us. Every time I do something, it’s always the wrong thing to do. Nothing I do is ever good enough for her. I’m always the stupid one, the wrong one, the bad guy. I worked so hard for her, so, so hard and she just threw it all away. Like it didn’t even matter. Like it was nothing. But it was something, to me it was.” She says as her eyes water.

I sigh.

“I wasted so much time and energy on trying to make her happy. I’m done. I don’t want anything to do with her no more. She’s not the boss of me.” she says as tears slide down her cheeks.

How can two people who love each other so much, continue to hurt each other? Especially when it’s obvious all they want is each other’s approval. I hope I never get into a relationship like this one. That sounds very painful and complicated.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I won’t bring it up anymore.” I relent.

She sniffles and wipes her face.

We use the rest of our session to go over that last spell I was struggling with to prepare me for my test. The day goes by in a blur after that. I’m the last to take my test in Professor Wiggins's spellcasting class.

I perform the five basic spells for her. Halt spell, move spell, levitation spell, path spell, and lastly the turning spell.

“I’m impressed, well done Ms. Ellison.” She says.

“Does that mean I pass?” I ask.

“Well I still need to grade the written portion but these results look promising.” She says.

“Yes!” I cheer.

She smiles at me before handing me a new book

“No!” I whine.

“Go on,” she says.

I sigh and walk out of class.

After P.E. instead of meeting Cyrene, I tell Cyrene I’m going to meet with Vega to study for Professor Puck's exam. Vega meets me in my room.

“Okay, I got the review and some snacks to help keep you motivated as we study.” She says.

I go over to her and embrace her before kissing her passionately.

“Whoa, what was that for.” She giggles as we pull apart.

“I’ve had a stressful day,” I sigh.

“Do tell.”

I shake my head no before kissing her again. She deepens the kiss.

“Promise me that if we ever have any issues, you’ll just talk to me,” I say.

“Why would we have issues?” she says almost defensively.

“Just promise.”

“What’s this about? Are you upset with me?”

“No, just stressed out from having to deal with Cyrene and Asherah all day. I don’t want to be like them. They keep things from each other and argue all the time, even though anyone with eyes can see they still love each other. It’s all so complicated. I don’t want that. I just want the truth, and trust, and compassion. Promise me we won’t get like them.” I say.

“We are nothing like them,” she assures me before kissing me again.

When we pull apart I rest my head on her chest and let her hold me.

“I’m tired,” I pout.

“Maybe if you hadn’t stayed up all night.” She says.

I sigh.

“I brought snacks,” she says again.

I giggle.

“The cheesy kind.” She adds.

“You know me so well,” I pull back and grab the bag of chips from her.

“Okay, so back on topic. Review time baby.” She waves the packet of papers around.

I pout but pull mine out of my bag.

“Let me see,” she uses her finger to make a come here motion.

I hand it to her so she can grade it. While she does that I pop open the bag of chips.

“Your sister tried to murder me in P.E. again,” I complain as I rub my bruised shoulder and munch on chips.

“I’ll get her later,” she says as she compares my answers to the key.

I watch her mark up my review and snort in amusement at some of my answers. I pout and add my new book to the pile. I have three stacks of books. Needs to be read. Already read. Want to read. The smallest pile is the already-read one. It depressing to look at compared to the other stacks.

“Okay,” she says once she’s done.

“How bad?” I ask.

“Not as bad as I was expecting.” She says optimistically.

“if it were the actual test?”

“Err, you still need some work.”

I sigh.

“For starters, a lingual caster doesn’t mean they speak a foreign language, nice try though.” She chuckles.

“How the heck was I supposed to know?” I pout and shove more chips into my mouth.

“It’s not bad, really, you just need like three more right and you’d be passing.”

“Okay, three more. I can do that.”

“Let’s start with the easy ones and work our way up from there.” She says.

We work on it all the way until dinner before I am too tired to go on. My brain feels like it’s going to melt. And she didn’t even use her powers on me.

We walk hand in hand in silence for a moment before Vega says,

“So, you think not telling someone something can end a relationship?”

I turn to her, the comment coming out of nowhere.

“Like say if I was keeping something from you, wouldn’t you want to know? And if I purposely lied and didn’t tell you, wouldn’t it bother you?”

“Yeah…” I eye her wondering where this is going.

“I’m just wondering, I’ve been thinking about what you said. The whole truth, trust, and compassion thing.”

“Are you trying to hint that you’re hiding something from me?” I ask.

“More like you’re hiding things from me,” she says.

“I am?”

“My mom doesn’t go out of her way to get some nonimportant paper.”

Oh.

I guess I have been keeping things from her. Important, serious things.

We pause our walk.

“Well?” she lets go of my hand to cross her arms.

“It’s… classified.” I avert my eyes from her.

“Classified, really. She’s my mom, I’m your girlfriend. I think you can tell me. I’m not going to go blabbing to the whole world.”

“Look,” I step closer to her and lower my voice. “Can we do this later? People might be watching.” I say.

She narrows her eyes at me.

“Fine! She’s going to go into my head to investigate the visions. There, happy now?”

“What!? You’re going to do what!?”

“It’s like not even a big deal. I’ll be asleep through the whole thing. Like hypnosis or something. She said I won’t feel a thing.”

“Emery!”

“What! It’s like whatever. Just to get to the bottom of my visions.”

“You should have told me! You argh! If my mom goes in your head, she’s going to see I’ve been in there before and I’m going to get in a lot of freaking trouble!”

“What! Why didn’t you tell me!” I say.

She facepalms.

“She’s your mom, maybe she won’t say anything,” I say.

“Oh she’ll say something, maybe not to everyone else but she’ll definitely say something to me, personally.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” I say.

She sighs.

“Don’t be mad at me.” I plead.

“You are a freaking dingus!” she shakes me by the shoulders.

“I know!” I whine.

She sighs and looks down.

“I’m sorry,” I pull her closer.

“Just, please tell me stuff like this from now on. Please.”

“I will, promise,” I say.

“Okay, then I forgive you. I just have to figure out how I’m going to deal with my mom now,” she sighs.

“It will be okay,” I peck her on the lips to reassure her.

“It better be,” she pinches my cheek.

“Ow, sorry.” I pout.

She sighs before retaking my hand and walking me to the dining hall.

We walk over to the salad bar and grab ourselves a couple of pita wraps. Then we join everyone at the table.

“How are the tests coming along?” Darko asks me.

“My brain is melting,” I pout.

He chuckles.

Nerissa eyes me.

Okay, what is her deal? If she wants to say something, just say it. Ugh. Is she still mad at me for the whole election thing, because like that wasn’t even my fault.

“Think fast!” Dariyah acts like she’s going to hit me. I yelp and duck.

Vega punches her in the arm.

“Ow! I was just kidding,” she grumbles and sits down.

“Leave her alone, for the hundredth time.” Vega chastises her.

Dariyah huffs.

I smirk and stick my tongue out at her.

She glares at me.

“Don’t antagonize her,” Vega says to me.

“I’m not,” I relent.

“Jeez, you two are something else.” Gunner laughs.

“She started it,” Dariyah and I say in unison.

Everyone laughs.

Dinner is uneventful, other than the fact that I can feel Nerissa staring daggers into me, nothing out of the ordinary happens. Weird. Out of the ordinary. Wasn’t that long ago where everything here was out of the ordinary to me.

We all walk outside as the first snow begins to fall. I stare up at the sky, watching the little flakes rain down. My brother and I used to try and see who could catch one on their tongue first. The loser had to make the hot chocolate.

The loud murmuring of people draws my attention away from the sky to the gathering crowd.

“What’s going on?” Ro asks.

We all walk over to look.

I feel my heart skip a beat.

Hanging by a noose from the tree is a mannequin made to look like me. In a fake uniform with a star mark and everything. Slathered in red paint across the chest is the word traitor. I step forward to investigate and people let me through and hush down as they watch me approach the dummy of me.

Did Darius do this?

I touch the paint, it’s very fresh.

“What is going on here!?” Asherah pushes through the crowd, people quickly disperse.

She pauses when she sees it.

I look down and away from the horrific sight.

“Whoever did this is so dead,” Vega says.

Asherah sighs and looks at me.

“Emery,” she reaches for me.

I turn away from her and teleport away.

How could he do that? Does he really hate me that much now? Is it because I told on him? Why now?

I run into my bathroom and wash the red paint off, but suddenly I’m having another vision.

The paint isn’t paint at all, it’s blood. And I’m frantically scrubbing it from my hands while sobbing uncontrollably. When I look up into the mirror, I am covered chest down in blood, not my blood, but someone's.

I jolt back and I’m back in reality. The red paint dying my sink red temporarily. Just like blood.

I run to the toilet and I upchuck my dinner and then some.

A knock on the door startles me.

“Emery let me in,” Vega says.

I sigh and rest my head against the sink cabinet.

I don’t even know what problem to tackle first. The dummy of me. The visions, all the other 999 problems I have.

I get up, flush the toilet, finish washing my hands and wash out my mouth before letting Vega in. She engulfs me in a hug and I just whimper into her. I’ve been trying desperately not to think about all this stuff for the past few months. Because when I do think about them…

I get overwhelmed.