"Then, I accidentally blasted myself in my face! Soda got everywhere." I sigh.

Dariyah laughs so hard she sprays her drink out.

"It's not funny!" I playfully push her.

"What is going on here. Am I seeing things, did I finally lose my mind?" Vega walks over to us.

I turn away from her and cross my arms.

Vega raises an eyebrow at me before sitting at the table with us.

"Well, this is awkward." Dariyah snorts as she cleans up her spit-out drink.

"Are you mad at me?" Vega asks.

"Yes! You betrayed me! You let Dariyah take me to torture camp." I pout.

Dariyah laughs.

"Emery, it was for your own good. Cyrene told me about the plan." She pulled me into her arms.

I pout and look away from her.

"I'll make it up to you, promise." She kisses my cheek.

I blush. Curse her and her adorableness.

"Guess who was at tryouts flirting it up with your girlfriend?" Dariyah teases.

"She wasn't!" I quickly defend myself.

"Oh, she was. And you were entertaining it."

"I was not!"

"Who?" Vega asks.

"Remember your old pal, Joni?"

Vega makes a face.

"She was just being nice to me," I say.

"Who would ever be nice to you." Dariyah flicks a tater tot at me.

"Why do you have to be so mean?" I challenge.

She snorts in amusement.

I glare at her.

"Don't talk to her anymore," Vega holds me closer.

I feel my heart skip a beat.

Vega, jealous? Usually, I'm the jealous one. It's kind of refreshing in a sense, I didn't know she could get jealous. It tells me she does care enough about me to get jealous, which makes me feel better. Weirdly.

"She told me she was your friend," I say.

"We aren't friends anymore." Vega clips her words.

"Why?" I ask.

Dariyah snorts and says, "And on that note."

She gets up and quickly leaves the two of us alone.

"It's a long story, I don't really want to get into it. Just, stay away from her. She likes to stick her nose in things that don't pertain to her. That's all I'll say about it." She says.

I turn in her arms to face her, "Why are you so mysterious? You realize you drive me crazy right?" I caress her cheek.

She smirks.

"Half the day I'm wondering how I'll crack you open, the other half I'm trying to survive and trying not to be, as Dariyah likes to call me, a moron."

"I just don't like to bad mouth people, it's not who I am. I was raised better than that. But I do take joy in knowing those wheels in your head turn and turn thinking about me." she rubs her nose against mine.

"Ah, so you do it on purpose, I knew it." I smile.

She giggles.

"As a Star Caster, I feel it is my duty to warn you, I will find out your truths, one way or another. I'm already working on a truth spell." I say.

"Keep on trying, the day you unravel me, is the day pigs fly."

"Considering I've had a chipmunk basically talk to me and seen a snowball dance, I don't think that's out of the realm of possibilities," I say.

She laughs.

I take that chance to kiss her, mid-laugh, I like her face most when it's like that. Mid laugh, full of joy and life.

She stops laughing and smiles against my lips before deepening the kiss.

I get flashes of visions then, of Vega and I kissing just like this, through various times and places. I feel my soul hook deeper into her, holding on to this moment just a little longer. Savoring it.

Because for some reason, I feel like it will be gone all too soon. Like maybe she will be gone, or maybe me. It feels ominous, like a warning. A sad one. When I pull back Vega has that look, that look full of worry and fear, and uncertainty. For once, I'm sure my face mirrors hers.

I don't address it and just crawl into her lap and rest my head on her shoulder.

She holds me and rubs my arm.

What does it mean?

Is this relationship doomed? Is she holding something back from me? I don't understand it. What does that face mean, what do my visions mean? Why can't I just ask her? It's like there is this thing inside of me, preventing me from digging deeper into this. Almost like, subconsciously, I don't want to know the answer. Because I know I won't like it.

"Emery?" she whispers like she's about to tell me something.

"Yes?"

There is a pause, a long and scary one.

"Nothing, never mind." She backs out.

"Tell me," I nuzzle my face into the crook of her neck.

"Just wanted to say I love you."

"Love you too." I hug her and hold her close.

"What are you doing for the day?" she asks.

"Well, I have training with Cyrene. Then training with Lorelei. Reading, and catch-up work. It's a pretty packed day." I sigh.

"Want to skip it all and just hang out with me?" she asks.

I pull back and look into those deep blue eyes.

"Please?" she adds.

I smile and nod before kissing her again, she quickly deepens the kiss.

"Let's go back to your room." She whispers against my lips.

"Mmmk." I peck her on the lips one last time.

Then I grab all my trash from my food and toss it in the garbage can. When I turn around Vega is texting someone, but when she sees me walking back over to her, she quickly puts her phone away.

I frown.

"Ready?" she grabs my hand.

"Yeah," I force a smile before we teleport to my room.

When we get there, I take a quick shower and put on something comfortable, well more comfortable than the spare uniform I had in my gym locker. I snuggle up with Vega in bed, she pulls me into her arms.

"So you are Dariyah are cool now?" she asks.

"Something like that, one minute she's trying to kill me, the next she's kind of being nice to me. It's a love-hate thing." I shrug.

"That's just Dariyah's way of saying she likes you."

"Well, I wished she communicated like a normal person." I pout.

She laughs.

"Hey, give me some credit, that girl is a piece of work, getting under her skin was no easy task."

"True, you deserve a medal." She teases.

We lay in silence for a moment.

"Want to watch a movie or something?" she asks.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Depends," she turns fully towards me.

"How many relationships have you been in?"

"Hmm, why?"

"Just... curious." I avert my gaze.

"Emery, I thought we were done with this." She pouts and pulls me closer to her.

"I just want a rough estimate, I can't help it!" I say.

She giggles.

"It's just you're pretty and smart, and cool, and I can see why girls would fall for you."

"Emm, when you put it that way. I guess it can't hurt to tell you a little, but for me, the past is the past. I try to never look back."

"Why?"

"If I'm always looking back, I'll miss what's right in front of me." she pushes some of my ginger hair behind my ear.

I blush.

"While it's true, I have always been a very popular person who attracts a lot of attention, I wasn't really into the whole relationship thing for a while. My mom marring Dariyah's dad, divorcing my dad, it was all very... challenging for me back then. Romance was the last thing on my mind. But I did have my first relationship when I was about 13. It was just a test run, we only ever shared one kiss, just to see if I liked it. It lasted all of three months before I broke his heart."

"His?"

"Took me a while to settle on girls actually. I experimented a lot once I was a true teenager. Boys, girls, girls that used to be boys, boys that used to be girls. They were all mostly flings. Never got past first base if you catch my drift." She explains.

"When did you decide you were a lesbian?" I ask.

"After I got into my first serious relationship. Dating was hard for me, my mom never approved of my choices. Always judging me. Dariyah is like weirdly overprotective of me, and has ruined more than one of my relationships. Plus my stepdad couldn't care less. But, I really liked this girl, and she really liked me. I knew it was going to be different from all my other relationships. I knew I wasn't just experimenting anymore, that I actually wanted to be with her, for as long as possible. I was 15 at the time."

"What happened?"

"Life. The longer we were together the harder it all became for both of us. We just started growing apart, getting into different things, and hanging with different people. Soon I realized I was dating a stranger. She had to move away for school, and we agreed to just break up. It started as a blaze but barely went out with even a sizzle. She just grew so cold towards me. I guess she thought she was better than me or something. I wasn't even really heartbroken after she left, more relieved than anything else."

"Hmm."

"After that, I just knew I liked girls. All my relationships after that were of the female gender. My next serious relationship would find me very soon after my first. But that was a total disaster. Dariyah hated her so much, practically wanted to kill the girl. Got so jealous of her and was basically harboring me away from her. Eventually, the girl got fed up and wanted me to pick her or Dariyah, but family is forever and though she annoys the crap out of me sometimes, I went with my sister."

"When did you lose your virginity?" I ask.

"Ah, that wasn't so long ago actually. Maybe a year ago. Another girlfriend Dariyah hated but I was deeply smitten by her. If this girl would have made me choose, I probably would have picked her. She and I just clicked on all cylinders. A well-oiled machine. She liked to call me the peanut butter to her jelly. We were really cute together."

"How did that end?"

"Badly. Very badly, and it was kind of my fault. Well, you met my last nightmare of a girlfriend. She came into the picture while I was still with my previous girlfriend. Things were very saucy and playful between us. Quickly escalating in the worst of ways, I guess I gave her the idea that I was into her, while I was still with someone else."

"Were you?"

"Kind of, but like not in a serious way. In a more playful way. Anyways, she purposely kissed me in front of my girlfriend and basically caused my relationship to blow up. My girlfriend thought I was cheating on her, we got into a fight, it was a whole thing. I got dumped in the end. I was so mad. Me and my current ex got into a big fight, but eventually, she won me over to her side and we started dating. Dariyah hated her too. Said I was stupid for getting with her. I didn't realize how toxic that relationship would become at the time. But like usual, Dariyah was right about her, and I broke up with her. So there, a short, and brief history of my relationships."

"I still don't know any names," I pout.

"Emery," she shakes me by the shoulders. "Let it go." She pleads.

"Fine," I sigh.

"Why you so pressed about this?" she asks.

"It's just... I want to know how I stack up. To the others."

She laughs.

"Don't laugh!"

"You are so adorable sometimes." She says before kissing me.

"You're mean," I pout into the kiss.

She giggles before rolling on top of me to kiss me some more.

I wrap my arms around her neck and close my eyes to really enjoy the kiss. I can feel it when I shift from reality into another vision. When I open my eyes, we are not in my bedroom, in fact, I have no clue where we are. I don't recognize it. But it's surrounded by lights and we are on a blanket, on the ground in some clearing of trees. It looks romantic, festive even.

I can tell I'm not the only one seeing it either.

Vega looks around in surprise.

We both sit up.

Then in a flash, just like that, it's gone.

"That was... a thing." She says.

I eye my room in worry.

What are my visions trying to tell me? Are they even trying to tell me anything or am I reading too far into it? How can I know for sure which is which?

"Hey," Vega grabs my chin and forces me to look into her eyes. "It's okay. It wasn't scary or anything. Just ignore it. Stay here, with me, in this moment. Don't look too much into it." She says.

"But—"

She cuts me off by kissing me.

"Please," she whispers against my lips.

"Okay," I give in.

she pulls me into her arms.

We lay in silence for a moment.

The air thick with something I can't explain.