Unbreakable - Surviving the Truth · (Roswell Fanfiction) ·

NINE

The morning actually went better than I thought it would. The first thirty minutes were hard, with students whispering and staring, but once I decided to let it go and focus on the teacher, things ran relatively smoothly. 

It was actually really nice to be in a classroom again. To take notes. To answer questions. To get back into a comfortable routine. I was aware of Max's presence in my mind the whole time, but he left it up to me to reach out and make contact. To my surprise, I realized that I didn't need to. I was too focused on the teacher to talk to Max.

When I joined Max for biology in the third period, his face looked lighter, his eyes not as black. He gave me a soft smile, pecked a kiss to the corner of my mouth and took a seat next to me. He held my hand under the desk the whole lesson, his thumb gently moving back and forth over the side of my hand. 

At the end of that period, I felt much calmer. I had a newfound belief that things were going to be okay. That it was the right decision to go back to school. At least until we reached the school cafeteria to have lunch. 

I had been aware of the stares and whispers from the students while walking from one class to the next, but I had tried my best to ignore them and had been quite successful at that. 

The cafeteria was different. There was no way I could avoid the people there. Feeling under threat, I briefly met the knowing gaze of the lunch lady (who I didn't recognize and immediately assumed to be one of our protectors in disguise) before I refocused on choosing a club sandwich for lunch and searching out the table already occupied by Maria and Michael.

It was impossible to miss them; Maria rising from her seat and doing a large waving gesture. Michael looked like he wanted to disappear through the ground, partly hiding his face behind his left hand while he was pulling at the bottom of Maria's shirt with his other, trying to get her to sit down.

I tried to make my steps light and unbothered as I concentrated on Maria's normalcy (normal Maria behavior, anyway) and directed my steps towards them. Max was still at the counter, choosing his lunch, when Courtney Green stepped up to me. Seemingly out of nowhere.

Stopping right in front of me, I was an inch away from walking straight into her, blinking rapidly in surprise as her face was suddenly a mere inch from mine. Her warm breath spilled over my face, my lunch tray pressing into her middle, but all I could see was her eyes. Black. Either filled with pupils or lacking irises. I wasn't sure which, but it scared the hell out of me. Her eyes were exactly like the aliens of Sci-Fi movies and I wondered if she purposely did them like that to scare me. 

"I know what you did to Sean," she hissed menacingly, small droplets of her saliva hitting the lower part of my face. Her voice lowered an octave and she added, "Bitch."

Having gotten over my initial shock, I regained some kind of innate strength and matched my hiss to hers when I told her to, "Get away from me."

Her eyes narrowed. She didn't move an inch. "I've heard a lot of fucking shit about you. Makes me gag. Like you are our savior or something."

My body felt hot, my knuckles hurting from my fingers tightening around the edges of the plastic lunch tray. "I don't care what you heard, you're in my space." My voice was cold, barely above a whisper, and to the point. "Move."

Surprisingly - even to myself - my old confident, abrasive self had resurfaced. Maybe it was school that had brought it out in me. Maybe it was the provocation of the situation. Whatever it was, I was relieved that I had the strength to not curl up into a crying, frightened ball of human flesh, but was actually standing up for myself. Considering the apathetic mood I had been in lately, I would never have expected this response from myself.