Tied

I was still trying to regain my bearings from the earlier fit- if it could be called a fit- when Rhea called.

“Hello?” I asked, startled to hear crying on the other end of the line. “Babe? Shhhh, it’s okay-” Zhenia burst into the room, and I made vague “get out now” gestures, trying to focus on Rhea’s response. She just kept whispering “sorry,” over and over, sounding almost frantic.

“Did you and Raven feel that- thing- too?” I whispered. At the mention of Raven, she paused.

“Yeah, we, uhh, yeah, we felt that umm, thing, and it was uhh, it was-” she took a deep breath. “Bad.”

“Did something happen?” I didn’t want to push, but she was clearly quite upset, and I couldn’t help if I didn’t know what was going on.

“… No. Not- I mean, Chad kissed me on the bus and tried to grab my boobs and that was pretty shitty, and the dream or fit or whatever hurt like crap, and we were unconscious for a really long time, but… That’s all.”

“Chad? Do you want me to punch him because I swear if he-”

Rhea laughed awkwardly. “Umm, no, I took care of that. He has a broken nose. Actually, if your mom doesn’t mind, I need a ride to school the rest of the week. I was suspended from the bus. I shouldn’t have let him kiss me in the first place.”

I rolled my eyes. “First of all, it isn’t your fault he’s a horny idiot. Secondly, I am so freaking proud of you. A broken nose? That’s amazing.”

“You’re the one that taught me all my moves, Ms. Karate.” She sounded much calmer. “Anyways, I should probably let you go. Call me and,” Rhea swallowed. “uhh, you know, Raven, whenever you’re free to make plans for tomorrow.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure nothing happened? Nothing between you and Raven?”

“No.” The word sounded like a gunshot, too quick and short. “Bye.” She hung up, and I was left staring at the cell feeling like I had missed something. What the hell was up with that?

Sighing, I opened the door to talk to Zhenia. He was sitting against the wall, hand covered with orange cheetos dust. I folded myself down beside him. “What is it?”

He bit his cheek and didn’t answer, brow furrowed like he was trying to figure out the right words. Finally he just took off his shoe, which quite frankly left me more than a bit confused, until he rolled up his jeans and revealed a set of words just like mine. I felt my eyes widen, heartbeat quickening. It was happening to him too. Without a word I jerked him into my room and shut the door.
______________________________________________________________________________

We ended up just calling Raven and Rhea on my phone and putting it on speaker so we could both contribute to the conversation. I called Raven first. I kind of wanted to hear her side of things, see if she’d tell me what was going on between her and Rhea.

“Hello?” Raven sounded almost unsure.

“Hey. Zhenia has words and dreams too. He’s tied to Albert Einstein.”

“God, this is so weird.” She sighed into the receiver.

“Yeah.” It was now or never. “Hey, Rhea sounded kind of shaken up earlier, do you know what’s going on?” There was complete silence , and then-

“No. No idea.” Raven was as convincing as a dead whale.

“I mean, if Chad tried to grope me I would be kind of pissed too, but-”

“What? Chad did what?” And now Raven sounded strangely ferocious.

“He kissed her and then tried to touch her chest.” Zhenia made a gagging sound beside me. “But she punched him and broke his nose and now she’s suspended from the bus. Anyways-”

“Did she kiss him back?”

“I don’t know, maybe. You can ask her. We should go ahead and call her to talk about tomorrow.”

“Umm, you do it. I have to go pee. I’ll be back in a second.”

Zhenia and I shared a look. Something was definitely up. They were absolutely horrible at lying. I had known my two friends were in love with each other for a while now, but I wished they would realize it. It was so frustrating seeing them walk circles around each other. Rhea thought Raven would never like her like that, and Raven thought she didn’t deserve Rhea. I loved them, but sometimes they were idiots.

Rhea answered on the second ring. “Hey. What’s up?”

Zhenia answered. “Hi Rhea. I’ve been having the creepy dreams and magic words too. I'm connected to Albert Einstein apparently.”

“Hi Zhenia. We should create a club or something. The Magical Tattoo and Weird-ass Dreams Varsity Club.”

“If we want to make an official school club, we might have to drop the ass part of the name.” I pointed out.

“We should bring snacks to all our meetings. I’ll make us a schedule.” Zhenia offered, grinning at his bag of cheetos like it was the answer to all our problems.

“What’s this about food?” Raven jumped in, confused and obviously very excited about the possibility of snacks.

“We’re making a club for the dreams thing. What did you call it, Rhea?” I tried to think of ways to make them interact. This was way too awkward.

“Uhh, I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter anyways. So umm, what’s the plan for tomorrow?” Rhea’s voice was unusually strained.

“Lady Tatiana isn’t too far from school. We could probably just walk over there. Oh, Rhea, Mom’s home, let me ask her if we can take you to school.” I jumped up, handing the reins over to Zhenia. Mom was in the kitchen, working on dinner. “Hey Mom, Rhea needs a ride to school for the rest of the week. Do you think we could take her?”

“Sorry honey, but her house is too far away for me to take her and still make it to work on time.” Mom waved me away with a dirty spatula, not even glancing up from her cooking hamburger meat.

When I returned to the room, there was an awkward silence hanging over everything. So much freaking awkwardness. I didn’t think I had ever used that word so much in one day. “Sorry Rhea, but Mom can’t take you. You’re too far away.” A thought popped into my head. “Raven, don’t you have a car? Could you take her?”

“I, umm.” Raven sounded slightly horrified. “I mean, yeah, I have a car, but umm, you know my mother uses it to get to work in the morning, and I don’t like driving anyways-”

“Isn’t she on a business trip this week?” I prompted. “You could even drive us over to the psychic too, that would be a lot easier than walking.”

“It’s okay, I’ll find another ride, Raven doesn’t have to take me-” Rhea started.

“Oh come on guys, what’s up with you?” I demanded. Zhenia elbowed me in the ribs, shaking his head. I glared at him.

“Nothing.” They answered at the same time.

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. We need the car.”

“Okay.” Raven actually sounded in pain. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.

“So we’ll meet in the east parking lot right after school and head over to the psychic, then grab dinner after?” Zhenia was desperately trying to get out of the conversation. They both answered in the affirmative. “Okay, umm, see you then.” He called into the phone before fleeing the room.

“Bye guys.” I waited till they responded with extremely enthusiastic and hurried farewells before I hung up. That conversation was, in two words, a train wreck.

Now all we could do was wait and see what the night brought us.