Aquatic Ties

School hits me and it hits me hard. I have no time to see Xavier, hell I hardly see my friends, other than class and if we are studying then and even then, we are to busy to really talk about anything outside of homework.

I would talk to Xavier through the shell, but it wasn't the same. "It's been so long since I have seen you," he whispers.

"Blame life," I say half asleep.

"Are you falling asleep on me?"

"No," I say drifting further into sleep.

"Why have you been so busy?" he asks truly wondering.

"Test week, they want to know what we have learned in bulk. I'm not even sure if they really check our work," I say into the shell.

"That sounds horrible and I thought it was bad, when we had to go through our history of our people,"

"You have school?"

He laughs softly. "Well due, there is more than a school of fish down here," he says and I think he is waiting for me to laugh, but I really don’t have it in me to laugh. "Well don't bust a gut on my account,"

Rubbing my face into the pillow, my hair sprawls over my pillow. "Sorry, I'm just really tired,"

"How about you come by this weekend?"

"We will see, night," flipping the shell on my nightstand so the crack is facing down, I roll over and fall asleep like there is no tomorrow. Which right now, I really wish there wasn't.

~~~~~

Sitting in class the next day Mark passes me over a note, that I hide behind my coffee. With our big test week, they allow us food and drinks in class. {You think Mr. Fun has slept since this week has started?}

Looking up front our teacher Mr. Fun is falling asleep behind his desk. {Have you? This week is the worst out of the hole year and everyone knows it. I think they just make us do all this, to drive us into the ground and make us behave.} passing the note over, I can feel eyes on us.

Glancing back it's Olivia clearly not amused, so I stick my tong out at her as a joking matter, but she doesn’t take it like that. She sticks her nose up and goes back to what she was doing.

Mark passes the note back, this time has a small picture of a stick man fallen over the desk with big Z's coming from his head.

Turning my head, I shake my head in agreement with a smile.

The bell goes off, so we scoop up our stuff and dump it off at Mr. Fun desk and he is so out of it, that he doesn’t even move, when his bird Karma screeches in his ear. "Demon bird," Mark whispers to me, making me laugh.

"He says that bird will outlive him," I tell him as we join the kids in the hallway.

"At this right, I think he is right," he laughs out.

Olivia runs and joins us, latching on to mark like a snake. "What you guys talking about?" she asks only Mark.

"Karma is most likely going to out live Mr. Fun," he tells her.

Olivia shakes her head. "Of course, that bird has to be," she tilts her head back. "What, like forty already?"

We shrug our shoulders.

My necklace with the shell on it, starts to scratch my skin, like there is a crab in it. "I'm going to get more coffee, I'll see you guys in class," vering off to where the coffee carts are at, I pull out my shell and whisper into it. "I'm busy, what?"

"This weekend, how do you feel about watching me play skie shell?" Xavier asks.

"I don't know, I have to stay focused, I'll talk to you later," tucking the shell under my shirt again, I get more coffee and join the crowd and head to class.

~~~~~

Just a day left and then the weekend and the weekend couldn’t get here fast enough. Not even staring at the clock makes time fly by faster. But when does it ever?

Sitting in my Bio class the clouds are dark and it's already raining, but it looks like more is about to come, so we haven't seen the worst of the storm yet. Mark passes me a note, like he has been for the past couple of days. It's as if he wants to be connected to my hip, it's sort of weird I was always the one with the crush on him, not the other way around. And even with Xavier in my life, I can't see a real future with him, because of who he is. I could maybe see a future with Mark, but that is still years away if anything comes of this.

{What do you get with a storm and Mrs. Chomp none stop talking?}

Tapping my pencil on my desk, I act as if I am paying more mind to my homework then the note. But when Mrs. Chomp turns the other way, I quickly write a reply. {Good times?}

Handing it back, the windows shatter, getting a lot of screams and some of us fall over in are desks and hit the floor. With Mark sitting next to me, he scoops me up and pulls me away from the shattered glass. The classroom door is thrown open. "Everyone get into the basement!" Mr. Tooth yells out.

We grab our bags and scramble to get out of the classroom.

Down the hallway to one of the main EXIT's flies open with a gust of mind, that pushes us forward. Glancing back at the door, I see a figure dressed as I always see him dressed as him. But why would he be here? "Brook we have to get to safety!" Mark grabs my hand and starts to pull me passed everyone.

We get to the basement and as we do, my necklace starts to scratch again and like always I hear his voice clear. "My parents found out about you somehow. The storm is my dad doing, he doesn’t like leggers. I'll hold the storm off as best as I can," Xavier tells me, then soon as we are all the way down in the basement, it feels as if we have been cut off from one another.

-How did his parents find out about me?-