I. Can't. Move.

Oh great, hyperventilation. 'Cause that'll help me! Why the hell can't I move?! The alarm keeps going off and I can't see a damn thing. 

"M-mom! MOM!" I yell, or do I think I do? I don't know what's happening to me. My eyes dart everywhere, anywhere for anything at all! That's when the Sun starts to flutter ever-so-slightly through the blinds, and I lay my eyes on Ampah, my teddy bear. Dad gave him to me when I was four, a reminder of the unbreakable trust we share. I start to lose my breath, but little by little, my fingers twitch. In slow motion I reach for Ampah, muttering "please, please.", and before long, I can feel the tufts of his fur and his torn-up red ribbon. In an instant, all the feeling in my body comes back to me, and I swiftly take hold of him close to my chest and breathe the hardest I've ever done. I touch the bottom of my lip, bruised again. 

"Mom?" I whisper, trembling. I had to have said that, right? But what for? She's not even home; she's at work already. 

"D-dad?" I croak. Then it hits me that he's not here either. Ever. No, don't do it. Do not. I breathe in one more time, stroking Ampah for a bit, and then I finally shut my alarm off. A whole 22 minutes went by of it. 

Oh my god, I'm gonna be late.

--------------------------------------------------------

"Wait, so like, you were paralyzed or something?" Mallory asks me, eyes bulging out of her head while gnawing away at a meatball as I describe the vents of the morning

"Yeah. Apparently, it's a thing -- went to search it up in the library," I tell her. "We have a whole book on sleeping techniques in there, it seems."

"Ohhh, that's where you went," Mallory nods. "Why didn't you tell any of this on the bus?" 

"Maybe because I was so tired I would fail the "walk in a straight line" sobriety test in half a heartbeat," I say, conveniently as I yawn and hit my elbow against the wall accidentally, making me flinch in pain and my spaghetti lunch being victim to the Floor of Teen Doom. 

"Oh no!" Mallory gasps. "Here, you wanna share the rest of mine? You can have the applesauce too!"

"Eh, I wasn't hungry anyway," I admit. Mallory looks at me with sympathy hurt in her eyes, like a puppy.

"I'm sorry you didn't get to see your dad," she speaks, the wound on my heart flaring as she says it. "But look at you, Zo -- you're paler than Casper whilst simultaneously giving the sandman and the road runner a, well, run for their money!"

"Gee, thanks," I mumble, snappier than I should have.

"I don't mean anything by it, I just, you know..." Mallory frowns. Oh, I hate when she does this frown; it's like she thinks she's doing something wrong or fears saying the wrong thing.

"Don't worry about it, really," I yawn again. 

"Zo --"

"I don't really want to talk about this anymore," I confess, my head throbbing. "How was the movie?"

"Mmmn..." Mal groans. Either she's hesitating or the movie was that bad.

"You can tell me, seriously," I reassure her, rubbing my eyes.

"Well, it's not that," Mal sighs. "We didn't go."

"What? Why not? You were so excited!"

"Yeah, I was!" Mal folds her arms for this next part. "But then a certain cheerleader had to go to a party the night before and do things with her friends we aren't even legal yet to do!" 

"Wait, like --"

"Let's just say she told our parents it was a 'flu bug' and I had to go along with it as she puked her drunk guts out."

"Gross," I shudder. "Well, that sucks. Sorry, you didn't get to go."

"It's okay. We'll just have to catch it on DVD ... joy!" Mal does these jazz hands to emphasize her "joy". Ugh, I feel so bad. If a part of me ever wondered why my parents had no more children after me, those thoughts are instantly squashed when I remember Mal and Jhene. Ever since we were 12, they've had a riff between them. What caused it, I'm not sure, but they haven't been on each other's team on almost anything. The worst of it all is that Jhene being older means Mallory is beholden to her dictatorship when their parents aren't around. There's a lot we've missed out on (well, things I would be allowed to do under my mom's rule) because of Jhene, ranging from puking to just plain not wanting to. God, if I had stayed in town I would've taken her myself (but I suppose I also need a license). 

"I bet Havana would've taken you," I say, my eyes widening. So, where on Earth did that come from, Zo?!

"Ehhhh... but, like ..." Mal moves her hands in "so-so"s. "Okay, she might be buggin' about this if I told you, but --"

"What, that she doesn't like scary movies? I know," I tell her. I wish I could capture the bewilderment on her sweet lil' face.

"Oh! My fault, I didn't realize y'all became such good friends," Mal smirks in her "I told you so" manner.

"Okay, first of all, no," I rebut. " Sometimes it just gets boring to talk about numbers all the time."

"Uh-huh," Mal nods, stretching the "huh". 

"You're one to talk, Miss Admirer. Tell me that's not the ideal set-up -- you and her, at the movies, maybe in an empty room where the movie becomes background noise as you --" I pause; clearly, I've given this scenario too much thought in the past, but I can't bring myself to say the K word. "Uh, get to know each other better." Yeah, that's better.

"Yeah, I don't know," Mall rubs her neck. "She might've thought it was a babysitting venture." 

"I mean, maybe not." Okay, why is my mouth saying things I would never say?! 

"Meh. What's done is done," Mal takes a swig of her punch, a relieving "ahhh" following. "Didn't you start a new book? What is it?" If I had a quarter for every time someone's avoided furthering a subject with me this last week, I'd have two quarters. That's two whole gumballs but without the satisfaction and potential jaw-breaking involved. One of these days, crazy as it sounds, I hope Mal opens up to me more about her crush on Havana. Maybe when they finally end up together after all the push-and-pull it'll sting a little less by then. But for now, I can read the room.

"Remind me -- are you squeamish around viruses at all?"

---------------------------------

"So, when you carry this over and multiply by eight, you get?"

"Mmmm..." I tap my chin. I know this. I know I know it. 

"It's okay if you don't know it off the top of your dome," Havana tells me in an attempt to encourage me. Sorely appreciated, but one of these days I'll need to wean off the calculator, especially for the SATs. But honestly, my head still hurts from the weekend and I am still incoherent in the brain, so today won't be that day. Tck-tck-tck. Tck-tck. Tck-tck.

"4400?" I answer, not so confidently.

"Mmmm.. almost," Havana nods. "Did you leave out the .5?"

I think extremely hard for a minute, then smack my forehead. "Duh, of course."

"Hey, that's alright! Simple mistake," Havana smiles. 

"I've made a lot of "simple mistakes" lately, don't you think?" I ask.

"That's what the learning process is all about, right?" Havana geeks. Something about that happy-go-lucky attitude pisses me off, but not in an "I can't stand you" way but a "Why are you not annoying me like usual" way. Why... is she not annoying me like usual?

"Wanna take a break?" she asks. "More ice cream perhaps?"

"Save your money and time, I wanna get this down," I decline. 

"I mean, that's cool, but we've been at it for 30 minutes straight," Havana notes. "You sure?"

"Very --" I'm interrupted by a ginormous yawn. "Very sure."

"Tired much?" Havana giggles. 

"What's that supposed to mean?" I dart my eyes at her, now feeling that all-too-familiar feeling.

"It means you've been yawning in and out this whole time," Havana taps the table. "Couldn't sleep last night?"

"You could say that," I gulp, trying to suppress my goosebumps as I remember the sleep paralysis. I didn't tell her about it, or Dad. Not that I'm obligated to, obviously, but I don't know if there's a certain student-tutor cree I'm unaware of or something. 

"I get you," Havana stretches her arms and yawns. Huh, perhaps they are contagious. "I haven't been sleeping all that well, either."

"Why's that?" I ask. 

"Ah, just your typical nightmare or two," Havana shrugs. I didn't take her the type to have nightmares. Alas, I didn't take her to be much of anything at all until recently, and actually, it makes me wonder ...

"So, math decathlons," I start. "What's the deal with those?" Havana cocks her head to the side.

"You mean, like, what they are or...?"

"No duh," I click my tongue. "How did you get roped into them?"

"Ohhh," she understands. "Okay, yeah, so I started doing them when I was 11."

"Wow. Early."

"Think so?" Havana ponders. "Then again, I went to this like, prep school or whatever so --"

"Prep school?" I interrupt. 

"Oh yeah. My grandma wanted my cousin and I to be top of the game, but it didn't last long 'cause we ended up moving here," Havana continues.

"You're not from here?" I'm honestly kind of surprised, the pride and joy of our school, often the town, isn't even from the area. "Where then?"

"Oh, I was born in The Bronx, actually," Havana reveals. 

"No kidding," I nod slowly. In many ways, that pieces together sooooo much of the puzzle. Not that I know too many people from The Bronx, or New York. By that I mean Havana is the first person I've ever known to be from there, but I've seen a lot of movies centered in New York, and me personally? They can keep all that to themselves.

"Yeah, but I ended up with my grandma and my cousin upstate when I was 3, and then after sixth grade I moved here," Havana beams.

"So, you come from money?" That gets a nice hearty snort out of her.

"Far from, trust me!" she laughs. "My grandma just happened to be living with her late husband at the time -- now he had money!" 

I feel pale. "Oh, jeez I'm -- I'm so sorry, I didn't know."

Havana hums. "Okay, truth? He's not physically dead, but rather dead to her, and subsequently us," Havana smiles bittersweetly. 

"Oh..."

"Yeah, my grandma dates a lot," Havana chuckles. "He wasn't a bad guy, but her rue is that once she breaks up with them, no matter how much the love was there, it's in the past. That's why we had to move; she hates running into her exes!" 

"W-well you know, as is her right I suppose," I say, unsure of what to say to that. My parents only ever dated each other, and their parents before them, and their parents before them, and so on. I-I think?

"Yeah, but in a way he was the one who got me into math," Havana reminisces. "Namely because I wanted to calculate how much money he had. Started with some times tables, then eventually it just snowballed from there." 

"I see," I say, yawning. My eyes can barely keep up with me now whilst I rag my brain about the answer to #14. "And they're fun for you?"

"Oh yeah, love 'em!" Havana beams. "Next to football, I'd say math is my second greatest love."

"But like, why? How?" I egg on. "What, are you trying to be an accountant or something?"

"Not really," Havana shrugs. "Well, unless envying Bill Nye the Science Guy comes close?"

Now I'm giggling, even if it comes out as huffs of air.

"Actually, I'm not sure what I want to be," Havana admits.

"Wait, seriously?" I raise an eyebrow. "But like, what about college?"

"Oh I've got a few schools in mind, some I've applied to already," Havana goes on.

"So, why not just go for a math program then?"

Havana stares at me intensely, or it seems that way. A rim of darkness is clouding my vision and my judgment.

"So first I'm a dumb jock, now I'm a human calculator," Havana jokes. "You know I've got other interests, right?" When she says "interests", she doubles and triples in front of me. 

"All of you... you ..." I slur. 

"Uh-u-uh-uhh, are-re y-yy-you okay-ay-ay?" the Havanas ask me simultaneously. 

"Yeah ... just ... five more..."

THUD.