He woke up reluctantly for a stinging pain was bothering him. He opened his eyes and noticed he was not in his room. He felt a vibration on his pocket.
“Hello, he said with hoarse voice still trying to figure out where he was.
“Where are you?” a voice similar to his said.
“Aaron? where are you?”
“At your room and you´re not here! I’ve been calling you! where are you?”
“At Nic´s” his mouth said before his brain could process. When he heard himself saying that he sat up and looked around.
“What? you´re at...?”
“Shut up, don’t say a thing -Josh said before his twin could finish- I´ll explain later, ok?”
“ok, I guess but that´s …”
“I´ll explain later Aaron” the older twin cut him off.
“Fine, later” Aaron gave up. So I’m at Nicole´s, he said to himself. “Nichole? Nic?” he called twice but there was no answer. He stayed still listening. No noise. He got out of the bed and went to the bathroom, he knocked twice before coming in, in case she was there, but she wasn’t there either. He looked at the clock, 12 o´clock, he sure had slept a lot.
Maybe I should get going, he thought but then he heard the door knob being turned, he moved behind a wall so that he wouldn’t be noticeable in case it was someone else other than Nichole but it was her.
He came out of his hiding place and felt a little ashamed, she looked to a side, she was, too, feeling self-conscious, for different motives though, he for sleeping so much and it didn’t feel right that she was taking care of him. Nichole since she had told him her secret, she had confessed she was a murderer, now it was like she was in his hands, under his mercy, he could go and tell everybody, probably no one would believe him but the rumors would grow and those can be as hurtful as sharp glass, she knew about it quite well.
“I got you lunch -she lifted a paper bag- How are you feeling?”
“Better?” he said unsure. She rolled her eyes.
“If you are worst you should tell me so that I can call Nat to come and check you”.
“Wouldn’t that be problematic for you?” he inquired. She shrugged “no, don’t call her, it hurts but that must be because I rolled over to that side”
“I´ll get you the pain killers” she went to the bathroom to get the medicine “here” she said handing him the pills and a glass of water
“Have you eaten already?”
“I got food for both of us”
They started to eat in silence and for the first time since they had met, even after she had made her stitch her wound, an uncomfortable silence fell over. Neither of them knew what to say. After they ate, rather slow for people that are not talking at all they just remained silent avoiding each other´s eyes.
“I think you should go back to your room for people will start noticing you are not there, your brother for example and I guess you need clean clothes, besides a change of bandages” she spoke first. He said nothing
“I know that -she lowered her head for a moment before continuing- I know that what I am is not an easy thing to get but I intend to look for you until you are recovered and then we could go back to be just classmates. I won´t mind if you join to the rumors, I´d appreciate if you wouldn’t make them bigger though, but …-she shrugged- it´s ok if you don’t want me to help you with the wound as well, I could properly get permission to get you out to a doctor or something, I could ask father...”
“Would you do that? wouldn’t that have consequences for you?” he interrupted her and asked serious “be honest please”
“I´d have to comply to conditions I guess, nothing´s for free, but yes, if it´s necessary then I would do it. I take full responsibility of my mistakes and make them right if I can or try to make it better”
“Do you really think I´d go around spreading rumors?” Josh asked a little hurt
“How would I know? I wouldn’t blame you, I’m a murderer aren’t I? I wouldn’t want to be with me if I was you, specially after last night” She brought a hand to her forehead and rubbed it, then to her neck, it was a motion that signaled she was tired, stressed.
“You´ve had accidents, you´ve saved me twice, this was not something that you wanted, just something you got at some point. You seem to be very careful nowadays, that means you are not a murderer because you didn’t want to kill those people, and the two last night... it was self defense” he said a bit hastily. She lowered her head a bit and smiled bitterly, shaking her head
“You´re stubborn aren´t you?” she said looking at him straight to the eye.
“It´s not the same but somehow I know what´s like to feel like a pariah to your family and to everybody else.
“How´s that?” she inquired curiously.
“Well, I was expelled from my other school and sent to a boarding school right after that...” he said trying to sound nonchalant. Nichole looked at him and couldn’t help to laugh. He was comparing her feelings to him being expelled. It was so not the same but she appreciated the effort. “Why are you laughing?” he asked defensively.
“Ah, Josh, I´m sorry but that´s not the same at all”
“The feeling of being unwanted where you are supposed to belong is the same, no matter if you suddenly became unwanted for a little thing or a big thing” he said looking away, maybe even pouting a little.
“I´m sorry, Josh, you are right” she lowered her head, he had been serious and she had laughed “I´m sorry”
“We should get going” he said standing “How are we getting out?”
“The emergency exit, of course... we just have to avoid getting caught by others while walking in the hall but I think it´ll be fine since it´s lunch time everybody is out but we´ll have to walk fast” she explained while thinking that she had upset him.
***
“Wow! that was close!” he said talking about almost getting caught by some group of girls.
“Well, for the first time in my life I´m happy that they stop to just insult me since that made them oblivious of you...”
“Why don´t they like you?”
“Ah, they are the ones that Kate left behind when I came here”
“Oh, you´d think they´d become mature by now”
“Mh”
They walked in silence for a moment. It was a beautiful day, the sun rays passed through the tree leaves´ making a pattern of light and shadows on the grass. Some birds were singing while the wind carried their notes. They had taken the longest way so that they could avoid people´s eyes.
“Why were you expelled from your last school? you seem to be a good boy” she asked genuinely curious. “Ha! so even you get curious” Josh grinned. She rolled her eyes “well... -he hesitated a little
“It can´t be that bad” she encouraged him, she didn´t want him to be upset.
“We had a fight with this guy, he was huge, and somehow during the fight I guess we got carried away and... -he looked away- he´s in a wheel chair now” he sighed heavily.
“Why were you fighting?” she used her abilities to not show her real emotions.
“Stupid things”
“Why? and specially two against one”
“Cowards, right?” sarcasm tinged his voice, it was weird for Nichole to hear that kind of tone in him
“No, I didn´t mean that but it doesn´t sound as something you´d do”
“Wow, thanks I guess”
“Won´t you tell me why?”
“You´re really insistent, aren’t you?”
“I am”
“You´ve seen my brother.... Josh took his time to start his story- he got into a fight with this guy, apparently this guy´s girlfriend had dumped him and Aaron was, I don´t know, flirting with her or something, the guy got mad and started to bully Aaron... in the end they fought and well, this guy, as I said was huge so he easily beat Aaron to the point that he was on the ground and the guy kept hitting him, so I just had to do something... and eventually Aaron got up and then it was the two of us and the guy, I don´t really know how it was but suddenly the guy fell to the ground and moved no more. Teachers came and took us all to the infirmary. Aaron had a couple of broken ribs, a broken arm and leg, I had only bruises and the guy well, he was paralyzed. His family sued our father and apparently it turned out that we had stabbed him on his back therefore making him unable to walk but that´s not true, we didn´t have anything to stab him with. The school expelled Aaron since he was known for flirting and then getting into fights with the girl´s boyfriends or exes, I, on the other hand, had a clean record and everybody said that I was just defending him. Our parents asked us about it and I said I had also participated and... they believed the fact that we had stabbed the guy, they were so disappointed... our mother stopped talking to us and dad sent us here.”
“He was stabbed?”
“He was”
“With what? a knife?”
“I don’t know, even the doctors couldn´t tell since there was no blood, or really a wound but it was determined that a sharp object had caused that”
“But it had to be very precise and hard... now I know you must be good at street fighting but I don´t think you could cause that much damage, unless you had hit him repeatedly while he was on the ground”
“We never managed to make him fall, until he fainted and stop moving at all”
“It´s really strange how things happened”
“They happened anyways”
“I´m sorry. Your brother must feel really guilty”
“He does”
“Does your mother talk to you now?”
“Yeah, it´s not the same though... she visits the guy quite often and though I think that´s great it makes her distance herself from us since for her we´re guilty and I guess we are” the boy´s voice was sad and sounded tired.
“I don´t think a fight like that is the cause for his paralysis, there must be something else”
“Well, he used to do boxing... maybe he was so beaten already that one more fight was going to cause that and we were the stupid ones to be there to do it”
“Yeah, maybe that was the reason” Nichole said not convinced with that explanation. She had some ideas in her head but they seemed nearly impossible but saying them was not a wise thing to do so she locked them at the back of her mind.
“Open your window ok?” she said once they got to the dorm and ran to the back of the building. He shook his head and walked in.
“This thing stings!” Josh said coming out of the bathroom.
Nic was seated on his bed, he got closer and sat as well, she started to put some ointment and blow a little air when he squinted his eyes in pain. A few minutes later she put the clean bandages over his wound, it looked a bit better but he had many days before he could actually be healed.
“I think you should wear a long sleeved shirt” she said to a shirt-less Josh. Suddenly the door swung open. They had forgotten to lock it.
