Unbroken

Chapter 2: Plans

Phoenix:

"You okay, Nix?" Rook sat down next to me. He pulled his glucose meter out of his bag and quickly pricked his finger to test his blood sugar. We'd become so use to it that we usually didn't even notice it anymore.

Kace had a drumstick in his fingers, twirling it in the air. He joined us, but his attention was on someone across the quad. I followed his line of sight. He was watching a girl sitting in front of a tree, eating by herself. She was small with long, dark blonde hair. The black sweatshirt she was wearing practically swallowed her. She nibbled on her sandwich and seemed lost in thought. I narrowed my eyes at her, trying to figure out where I'd seen her before. "I'm fine, Rook. I think the real question is, are you okay, Kace?"

Kace blinked once and took his eyes off the girl. "Yeah. I'm g-good. That's the same g-girl that ran into me after first period." He continued spinning his drumstick. While he'd been speaking he'd been tapping out a rhythm with it on the wall behind us.

"Clumsy?" I inquired as Rook pulled a peach out of his bag, taking a bite.

Kace shook his head, banging out another rhythm with his sticks. "Think she t-tripped."

Rook licked his fingers, cleaning the peach juice off. "What do you want to do, Kace? Your call."

He shrugged a shoulder and looked indecisive. After another few moments of silence, I spoke up, "We can't read your mind, Kace. We'll trust you on this one."

Kace turned his gaze towards her, watching her carefully. It didn't seem like she'd eaten much. She was now sitting with her knees against her chest and looking out at the parking lot. I did have to admit, she was really cute.

Kace finally sighed, "I th-th-think she's l-l-like us-s-"

Before he could continue, Rook reminded him, "Drumsticks, K." It's not that his stutter was annoying, but he'd only recently discovered that pounding out a beat greatly reduced it.

Kace went back to tapping the cement behind him with the sticks, and once he'd found a rhythm he liked, he continued, "I think-k she look-ks like she c-could use a friend."

Rook watched the girl thoughtfully as he packed up his lunch. "I guess we'll see if we can learn anything about her today. Tomorrow we'll try talking to her."

"Fuck!" I shouted, causing both Rook and Kace to look at me in surprise. "I just realized why she looks familiar," I admitted sheepishly.

"And?" Rook asked with a raised brow.

"We have history together."

Emma:

I sat down in the back of psychology, but couldn't stop my eyes from wandering around the room, glancing at all the green and glitter on the walls. It looked like Tinker Bell went crazy with the decorations in here.

Someone sat down in the seat in front of me and my gaze jumped to them. I blinked in surprise. It wasn't like we had assigned seating, but the guy with short blond hair sat in front of me again. I averted my eyes and hoped this would be just like last time where he didn't even glance in my direction.

Unfortunately, my luck had run out.

"Hi."

My eyes widened and I froze. Maybe if I pretended I hadn't heard him... My gaze slowly slid to his as I slouched further into my seat. He was still looking at me. What should I do? Talk to him? But why would he talk to me? My eyes slid up once more, just to see if maybe I'd misunderstood the situation. He was still looking at me, although this time, he had raised an eyebrow.