Out of the Loop

Chapter Four

Derek rushed down the hallway, skidding to a halt outside Maz’s locker.  She was still shivering, hours later, and the loaned clothes from the nurse’s office and gym shoes did nothing to help.  Her damp hair was pulled back into a sloppy ponytail, tendrils escaping to frame her face.  

She looked at Derek with a tiny, dejected smile.  

“Hey.”

“Hi, Maz.  Are you all right?”

“Yeah.”

“You do know your lips are blue, right?”

Maz put a hand up to her mouth. “So they are-“

Her words were cut off my Derek pulling her into a warm hug.  She breathed in his woodsy smell.  He must spend a lot of time outdoors, she thought as she detected pine and wood smoke.

“Thanks, Derek,” she said faintly into his sweatshirt.  ”You’re the best.”

He grinned. “You know it!”

—————————————————————————

Sleigh bells. Red noses and kisses.

Sun, sand, fun.  S’mores and sunburns.

Rose petals.  A ring. “I do.”

Maz’s small scrawl filled the pages of her notebook.  Six-word stories were her focus du jour. Inspired by the original six word story by Ernest Hemingway, she had holed herself up in her room to write.  Her mother had received a call from the school about the accident just after it happened, but Maz had brushed her off by telling her she needed to take a shower and warm up. Maz didn’t want to talk with her mother.  Mrs. Reynolds thought Maz had a stadium full of friends, and didn’t understand why she never met any of them.  Maz felt she would disappoint her mother if she told her the truth.

She was still scribbling away an hour later when Mrs. Reynolds knocked gently on the door.

“Madison? Maaaz? You have a phone call!”

She rolled her eyes at her full name and at her mother’s child-like enthusiasm, then wondered at who would call her.  She cautiously padded to the door in her socks.  

“He sounds so cute!” Maz’s mother whispered as she covered the phone with a slender hand.  Maz and her mother shared the same straight, dark hair, although Sarah Reynolds had cropped her hair to earlobe length.  Maz looked at her mother’s uniform of a bathrobe, pajama pants, and fuzzy slippers.  

Although not an agoraphobic, Mrs. Reynolds rarely left the small house she and Maz shared.  She ran a successful internet business from her home, only dressing more than extremely casually when she had a web conference with her partners.  Every so often, Maz could coax her mother to a movie, or to their favorite sushi bar downtown.  

He sounds cute? It must be Derek. Maz pondered as she took the phone with her trademark small smile and closed the door.  

“H-hello?” she said as she sunk down onto her bed.

“Hey Maz!” said Derek’s familiar voice.  ”I was just wondering how you were doing. I mean, you looked freezing earlier, and I was, um, worried . . . .” He trailed off.  

Maz grinned. “Yeah, I took a shower and I’m all set now.  I’ll have a bunch of make-up work from the two classes I missed when I was in the nurse’s office, though.  Ugh. At least I didn’t have to go to the hospital.  It was such a mild acid that the nurse just threw out the clothes that got splashed.  Nothing hit my skin, either.” Holy crap, I’m babbling, Maz thought.

“I’m sure that they’ll let you off the hook.  You did accidentally have dangerous chemicals spilled all over you, after all!” Maz could hear Derek’s smile through his teasing tone.  ”No one will want to make you do anything!”

“Well, that’s the thing.  I . . . I don’t think it was an accident.”

There was silence on the line for a moment. “Maz, you said the acid didn’t even hit your skin.  Even if it did, it wouldn’t have done much more than give you a rash, right?”

She frowned.  “Well yeah, like I said, it was very mild.  But even with her high grades in science, Shannon is shallow enough to think it would hurt me and mean enough to try.”

“Woah, woah, back up.  It was Shannon? The cheer captain? Why would she do that?  She should at least have desperate pledges for this sort of thing.”

“No.  I saw her expression when she tripped.  She wasn’t shocked in the least that she had fallen.  She was looking straight at me with a Cheshire cat smile.  Besides, she prefers to do things herself.  More fun, I suppose.”

Silence again.  

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Maz mumbled grimly.  ”Welcome to Creek High School, Derek.”