Find Me

Troublemaker

It was the third time this week that it happened.

Gaige stared at his reflection before him, holding a cotton ball underneath one of his nostrils. The cotton had already lost its white as it soaked up the trickling blood from his nose, a sight that made his blood slightly boil. If the people around him didn't know better, they'd say that he'd been in another fight.

But the truth was that he hadn't even gotten into a single fight since the week began. Even if the bruises on his cheek and leg, the cuts on his arms, and, now, his bleeding nose said otherwise.

The truth was that this was all of his soulmate's fault.

       — ❦  

It began on Monday morning.

Gaige had always thought of Monday as a synonym for hell. He hated having to get up to hit the alarm before it woke up the whole house. He hated having to drag his ass out of bed when there was no other place he'd rather be. But there was that thing they called school and that person he called his mother, who would storm to his room if she realized that he was prolonging his stay in bed.

So he dragged his ass out of bed and did his best to keep his balance while he made a beeline for the bathroom. His reflection had never been a pretty sight during Monday mornings so he wasn't really surprised of the bruise he spotted on his left leg when he dressed out of his clothes to get in the shower. What the bruise actually meant didn't really occur to him until his third class, during Physical Education, when he and the other boys in his class were required to do yoga separately from the girls.

He recalled going to bed early during the previous night. He hit the hay at exactly nine o'clock, when he decided that he'd rather not have any regrets in the morning when Dennis had asked him to join him in watching one last movie. He recalled that the last time he had stayed up late was last month, when he had a Drafting project that had to be passed the next day. He didn't recall having any iron deficiency diseases, or whatever you called them, that could be the reason behind the coin-sized bruise on his leg.

"It's gotta be your soulmate," Tristan told him after their P.E. class. He realized that the thought had never occurred to him until now.

He pressed the bruise and was actually surprised when it hurt. "Idiot," Tristan muttered. Gaige shook it off as his soulmate simply either being the one with the iron deficiency disease or getting hit by something hard in the leg.

       — ❦  

He caused a commotion on Tuesday afternoon.

Gaige and his class had been taking an exam in Math when it happened. He let out a yelp of pain before he dropped the scientific calculator he held in one hand.

He wasn't sure what stung more — the stares he garnered from each and every one of his classmates, or the three scratches he not-so-mysteriously gained on his right arm.

He quickly excused himself to use the restroom after that. In a rare occurrence, his teacher actually let him go without letting him hand in his test paper first. When he reached the restroom, Gaige was horrified when he saw the angry scratches marring his skin.

Luckily, the incident occurred during his last class. He didn't have to bear any of the looks and questions he'd get from his schoolmates when they'd see the new wounds, as he had rushed to get home the moment his Math teacher ended their class.

Arriving home became another matter, however. Gaige swore his mother could've fainted at the sight of the red scratches on her son's arm, until she began to scold him for his stupidity for messing with a cat.