Count On Me

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I awoke to my little sister severely shaking my body.

“Chelsea, Chelsea,” she cooed. “Wake up!”

My eyes fluttered open and I instantly regretted it. It took my eyes a while before they adjusted to the sunlight shining through my window and across my bed.

“Meg, why do my eyes feel so heavy?” I asked.

She examined me and gasped, “Whoa baby! Your eyes are all puffy and red and swollen looking! What happened?!”

I knew exactly my eyes were swollen, but I didn’t want her knowing the real reason as to why.

“Oh, wait! I just remembered! I left my contacts on last night. They probably dehydrated my eyes,” I lied, hoping she would buy it.

“Chelsea!” she scolded. “You know you’re not supposed to do that! What are you going to do now?”

“Just replace them with new ones. I’ll just start next month’s pair a week early.”

“Oh, okay. Well get ready now, it’s already 7:15,” she warned, walking out of my room.

I scrambled out of my bed and towards my closet. I instantly grabbed my dark washed skinnies and my Daphne Loves Derby tee and headed to my bathroom. There, I decided it be best that I not shower since it would definitely make myself late, and changed into the outfit I had just picked out. After dressing, I brushed my teeth and then my hair, deciding what would be the best way to cure my eyes. Washing them, putting on a new pair of contacts, and even putting ice on them made my eyes look no different. Giving up, I decided on just hiding them with a pair of aviators.

“Not too shabby,” I said, looking at my reflection.

“Chelsea! It’s 7:40! If we don’t leave now, you’re gonna be late!” my little sister shouted, using very bad grammar.

I rushed to my room, grabbed my bag, raced down the stairs, and out the door.

“Wait for me!” Megan called out, locking the door and running after me.

Once we were both in my car, I put the key in ignition and sped off.

Once Megan was safely in school and I had found a great parking spot in the senior lot, I realized that I didn’t have any time whatsoever to stop by my locker. So I grabbed only my AP book and made a mental note to grab the rest during nutrition. Just as the minute bell rang I breezed into the classroom and into my seat.

“Lucky for you, Ms. Mercado, if you had been a second later, a detention slip would have landed into your hands,” Mr. Parnes said, giving me an odd look. He then turned his attention towards the class. “Now class, is there any sun in here?”

I bit my lower lip, knowing what was about to come.

“No sir,” everyone answered.

“Then, Chelsea,” he said, focusing his attention back on me. “Why feel the need to wear sunglasses in here? Do you consider yourself to be an exception to every rule? First note passing, now this? What’s next?”

“Mr. Parnes, it’s not that,” I defended myself, trying to think of another excuse due to people in my class knowing that contacts wouldn’t cause such a reaction to my eyes.

“Then what is it?”

“Well… I was going to wear eyeliner today, but I guess my eyes weren’t used to it and had an allergic response to it,” I explained, taking the sunglasses off. The whole class gasped.

“Giiiiiiiiirl, I know what you’re going through! Same, exact thing happened to me last summer!” my friend, Chantalle empathized. Some of the other girls also nodded their heads, knowing what I was “going through”.

“Rules are rules,” Mr. Parnes simply said and let us get to our warm up.

Brendon examined me, thinking that I didn’t notice and made a weird face. I let him believe that he was going unnoticed and opened my book to the page that was written on the white board. As I scanned the section, I felt someone tap my shoulder. I looked at Brendon and he pointed to a piece of paper that he had written on at the corner of his desk. I straightened my back and leaned a little to the left to read it.

Are you okay?

I furrowed my eyebrows and wrote on a scratch piece of paper

Of course, why wouldn’t I be?

He read it and scratched out his last message.

Oh, never mind. Can we talk later?

I felt uneasy. I didn’t want to say yes so I pretended to read some of the section while I thought of an excuse.

It depends; I have to make up this test I bombed on a week ago.

He nodded in understandment and we both went back to our work.

Once class ended, Brendon walked with me to our next class. There was no getting out of it so I just stayed silent and looked ahead as he examined me once again.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. My family absolutely loved your brownies. We couldn’t get enough of them. They all wanted me to tell you thank you,” he smiled right at me, trying to get me to look at him.

“It was no big deal, tell them I’m glad they liked it,” I said, still looking forward.

“You don’t look too happy. Chelsea is anything wrong?” Brendon asked his voice laced with concern.

“Well it kind of hurts to smile and no, nothing’s wrong,” I answered.

“Are you sure?”

“Look, Brendon, I don’t want to talk about it!” I bursted, trying to hold back some tears.

I walked ahead of him and right into the classroom. Once inside, I went straight to my desk and breathed in deeply to help relax myself. I closed my eyes and stayed that way for a while.

The nerve of him! How could he just pop into my life and expect me to just open up to him?

“Settle down, class. Today, we will prepare ourselves for our end of the year project. Now I know what you’re all thinking; there’s more than three months left in the school year. But trust me, you’ll need to utilize the time I’m allotting you guys to the best of your ability. Tomorrow I will hand out the packets explaining this assignment in depth. As for today, I’ll assign you guys your partners,” Mrs. Hoffman announced.

Everyone’s head perked up, including mine.

“Michael, you’re with Erica; Stacy’s with Nick; Alex is partnered up with Holly…” She went on and on and my attention deficit disorder was kicking in, that is until I heard my name get called out. “Chelsea,” I turned to look at her. “you’re with Zack, wait, no! I think Brendon might be a better choice. Yes, you are to be partnered up with Mr. Urie.”

My eyes grew wide and my mind went blank. I tuned everyone and everything out as I focused on what she has just said.

How can I not talk to him, if we have to work on this so-called “big assignment” together?