Nothing Personal

It was past midnight and Alex was still awake thinking rather loudly. Apparently they had a day off in New York and went on some sort of scavenger hunt. And now, they were drinking. After the kind of day she had, she really wanted to talk to Alex about it, but it looked as if it wasn’t going to happen. He was too wasted to understand what she was saying, let alone focus.

When she was finally able to fall asleep, she finally had some good dreams that she could remember. Lately, she had been finding out, she was either having really bad dreams, like what had happened a while back when she had woken up and found that Alex had been watching her dream. But he never told her what it was about, so she figured it was bad. Or she couldn’t remember her dreams at all, but still figured it was bad.

As her alarm went off the next morning, she woke to realize that she hadn’t had any bad dreams. At least from what she could remember. And Alex was still dead to the world after the night before so she really couldn’t ask him. She got up and stretched as she went to turn off her alarm. When it was off, she could hear little footsteps bounding down the hall and smiled as her door opened and Do poked his head in.

“Morning Zo,” the little boy said as he flopped down on her bed and smiled happily up to her.

“Good morning Do, how did you sleep?” She asked as she started to look through her room for something to wear that day.

The little boy just shrugged in response as she grabbed a pair if skinny’s from the floor along with a random shirt. She made her way down to the bathroom as Do disappeared into Colter’s room to go and bug him. Turning the water as hot as it could go, she stepped under the warm soothing spray and allowed herself a little extra time to work all the built up tension in her body.

Once she was finished, she got dressed and put her hair in pigtails deciding to overdue it a little more on her hair since she usually just let the brown mess of hair hang down her back or pull it into a ponytail when she got annoyed with it.

When she got back to her room, she found both Colter and Do sitting on her bed chatting about something. She just smiled to her brothers as she threw her pajama’s on the floor and then grabbed her bag to head downstairs. The boys followed behind her like little puppy’s and sat at the kitchen table happily, knowing that she was going to cook for them quick before she left for school.

She had a little time before school so she gave in and made them some pancakes quick before grabbing her bag and then heading out the door. Getting in her car, she turned the music up as loud as it could go as she pulled out onto the street and made her way to school.

*Zo, so loud,* Alex grumbled as she sang loudly to the music. She laughed and reached out to turn the music down.

*Good morning to you too. How are you feeling?*

*Ugh, ask me that tomorrow.*

*Go back to sleep Alex. I’ll try to be quiet.*

All he did was hum in response as he let himself fall back asleep. She laughed quietly as she started to pay attention to his dream as he slept. He was dreaming about when he was back in high school with all his friends. Then somehow one of his teachers ended up being a vampire and giving her student’s detentions just so that she could suck their blood.

She rolled her eyes as she pulled into the school and told herself to make sure to tell Alex to stop watching vampire crap all the time. Next thing she knew, she was going to find Alex dreaming about him and Edward making out.

Shivering at the thought as she got out of her car, she pushed the thoughts out of her head and made her way along with the other students inside to get to their classes. Going over to her locker, she laughed as she saw that her locker was already open and Penny was grabbing the books she left in Zo’s locker from the bottom shelf.

“Good morning,” Zo said as she reached up above her friend to grab her own books.

They had almost all the same classes and ended up sharing a locker that year since Penny’s locker was on the other side of the school and all her classes were far away. So without really planning it, Penny basically moved all her things in Zo’s locker. Not that Zo minded, she was hardly at her locker anyway.

“Ugh, no it’s not.” Penny grumbled as she stood and shoved her books in her bag. Zo gave her a look as she continued to search for her notebook. “My mom decided to start a screaming match early this morning and now I’ve got a headache and grounded.”

“What happened?” Zo asked knowing what it was like for Penny and her mom to fight. It was never a pretty picture. They hardly ever got along and thankfully they hardly ever saw each other since her mom worked a lot and was hardly ever home. But whenever they happened to cross paths, it usually ended up in a fight.

“The same old shit. It never ends. She doesn’t like my clothes, she doesn’t like my hair. She always finds something to fight about.” Penny took a deep breath and slammed their locker door and closed her eyes for a few moments to compose herself. “You know what? Whatever, I’m letting it go. I’m not allowing my mother to ruin my last few weeks of high school over what she thinks I should wear.”

Zo just smiled in response as they both quietly made their way down the hall to their math class. Finding their usual seats, they sat and started to copy the problems that were already on the board. Penny didn’t say anything more about the fight, but Zo could tell that it was still bugging her. Even though Penny said she was going to let it go, Zo knew that she was still fuming about it. She just wasn’t saying anything because she didn’t want to annoy Zo.

Their class seemed to take longer that it actually was. When 45 minutes were up, both girls stood to follow the other students out to the hall and down to get to their next class. As Zo sat down for her science class, she heard Alex mumbling something to himself. She opened her notebook and started to doodle and see what was going on inside Alex’s head.

He was dreaming again. This time, it was about the scavenger hunt the night before. She really didn’t know why or how that it had been started but before she knew, he was doing all these crazy things around New York City and asking her if it would be ok to use her number. She didn’t even know that he had saved her number. But it made her feel a little better since she saved his number too. She really didn’t even know why.

All she knew was that after that phone call to Do, she was beginning to realize that she might be feeling something for Alex. How strange was that? She hadn’t even met him in real life yet. All she did was talk to him in her head and she was falling for the guy. Ok, maybe that was going a little too far. But something was defiantly stirring in her emotions and she was starting to wonder if he was feeling something too.

Alex suddenly started yelling as he dreamt and she focused back on the movie like picture to see that as he was helping the old lady cross the road, a bus was coming at them. Fast. He yelled at the lady and pushed her out of the way just as the bus came in contact with him and flung him across the road. There was a sense of falling and then when he came into contact with the hard road, he jerked awake breathing heavily.

*What the hell was that?* He asked himself as he tried to get his breathing back to normal. Zo couldn’t help but agree with him. What was that? She was even breathing heavy and her eyes must have been wide since Penny was giving her a weird look. She just shook her head and shrugged it off to show Penny she was ok.

*I could ask you the same thing,* Zo replied as Alex chuckled to himself.

*Figures you would be listening to my dream instead of paying attention to school.* He teased and she just snorted in response.

They fell back into silence as Alex tried to coax himself back to sleep but they both knew that it wasn’t going to happen.

*So how’s school?* Alex asked once he gave up on the whole sleeping thing.

Zo laughed, *you really have to ask? It’s school. Nothing has changed since you were in high school. Annoying teachers, obnoxious children that you call peers, and the feeling of doom.*

*Drama queen,*

*Which is more than I can say for you.* She replied. *So how are you feeling now? Are you still in New York?*

He mumbled a yes as he began to go through some of his stuff getting ready to go back on the bus. As he was, Zo went back to doodling and not paying attention to her class. She was barely listening to what Alex was saying in the back of her mind when he gasped and started to freak out.

*Wait! What about Do? I completely forgot to ask you! I’m so sorry! I was a little too drunk last night to function!*

Zo couldn’t help but laugh at his outburst, *it’s fine don’t worry about it. Do’s doing really well, the doctor’s appointment went very well and he said that the chemo is helping him. So we’re going to set him up for another round. They said that hopefully after one or two more rounds they can get him into remission.*

*That’s so great Zo, I’m glad he’s doing so well! Tell him hi for me and give him a huge hug. Or, I could actually just call him tonight once you get done with school. How’s he taking everything?*

*I think he would love to hear from you again, and he’s doing pretty well. I still don’t know if he fully understands what’s going on but how can he? He’s so little.*

*He’ll be fine, I know it. Make sure to remind me to call him once you get home. And I don’t care how busy I am, I need to talk to him.*

She agreed and once her class ended, she continued on though her classes and keeping up small talk with Alex as she did. At the end of the day when she got home, he kept his promise and called and Do and him talked for a hour about basically everything. Then when he got bored sitting still for so long, he passed the phone to Zo and then disappeared out of her room and they ended up talking for basically the whole night until Alex had to go so he could be a rock star once more.