FrAcTuReD (Part One) (Completed continued in Part Two)

Chapter. 02 (Slight Edit)

"It's... not that." Charla said softly before glancing off to the side, her left hand grasping her wrist. "I... well..."

"You like girls?"

"Huh?" Alex's blunt statement surprised her, where the heck did this come from?

"You. Like. Girls." Alex repeated punctuating each word with a jab of her cig in Charla's direction. "And you don't want someone to know right?"

Charla's face turned red. "No!" she snapped. "It's nothing like that,"

Alex tsked in annoyance. "Damn," before she puffed out a bit of smoke. "So then, if that's not the reason for it, what is? It can't be that bad can it?"

Charla hesitated for a moment, recalling something from her old school that she'd rather forget; it made her head throb just remembering it, she wondered if she should even say anything. But then she recalled her father's words from last night.

"Hey now, you're Uncle and I went to St. Helens and it's a good school, besides, it won't be stuck up like the other school you went to."

This place is supposed to be different; her father reassured her that, this place wasn't like her old school.

Screw it. "I have TBI." Charla said to her in a clear unmoving voice, and merely waited to hear for the obvious response that she always got first in regards to this.

"TBI?" Alex repeated as she let out a puff of smoke from her cigarette. "What's that?"

"It's short for "Traumatic Brain Injury," Alex went still, and looked up at her fully for the first time, blue eyes locked on Charla as if thinking she would vanish in that instant from Alex's sight. "It's something that causes me to have blackouts, and I've had them for a few years now."

She was silent for a moment before taking another deep drag and exhaled a stream of smoke. "What caused it?"

Charla crossed her arms, hugging herself; she never liked explaining this part to people. "Car accident, my Mom had a driver pick us up from a local restaurant after school, it was raining mixed with snow and a car drove through a red light and it rammed into us, we rolled off of the freeway and well... that's how it happened."

"Jesus..." Alex frowned then with slight confusion. "What'd you mean by "we"? Were you're parents in the car too?"

She shook her head. "No, my brother was. He died shielding me..."

"Shit..." she muttered.

"But it didn't start then, the blackouts I mean. They began a bit after I turned fourteen."

Alex's frown returned. "That's a bit odd,"

Charla rubbed a spot on the back of her head out of habit. "The doctors say that is was a slow pooling of blood, no one noticed it until later. I had sugary to fix it. But I still get the blackouts from time to time and my Dad would often find me wandering around the house and not remember doing it. The doctors called it Dissociative Fugue."

She arched a brow at this. "What?"

Charla smiled slightly. "I was confused too when they told me, think of it as reversible amnesia, it's something that doesn't last long. My Dad knew that I'd have a tendency to wander around when I was in that state and with a killer on the loose..."

"He didn't want something to happen to you, makes sense." She took another drag and let out a breath. "Well, if I see you wandering around at night again I'll be sure to let you know the next day though it probably won't help much."

"Will you tell anyone?" part of her waited to hear the response from before, but Alex surprised her.

"No," she said as she put out her cigarette. "It's something you have, and you don't want to add more drama then you already need. I can understand, besides, you weren't doing anything after all. In fact you looked kind of lonely." She then offered a half smile. "Tell you what, next time I see you wandering around at night I'll ask you to join me, how's that?"

Charla smiled with relief. "Thank you Alex."

"Nothing to thank me for, now I have to go deal with old Square-tache, he's going to be ticked at me for being late again."

"What?" Charla said in confusion.

Alex merely smiled. "Ah it's noting, just a weird teacher I ended up with this year, anyway you have to go to the student councillor right? Good luck with that, and I'll see you around. Later."

Charla merely watched Alex before smiling in relief, her Dad was right, this place was different from the other school. Maybe things wouldn't be too bad here.

But even then she still had that feeling in the back of her mind that it somehow wasn't going to last, she only hoped it wasn't soon.