Crumbling Time

Crumbling Time (Chap. 8)

"And I won't let...you go alone."

The determination in his voice caused me to stare up at him.

"You need...my help...transportation, to be...more specific."

I went back to giving my attention to my hands, deciding not to argue. I just didn't have the strength. "Fine, I guess."

The conversation was ended then-and I was glad I had gotten the last, if unhappy, word-since the bell rang. I flinched each time the sound came back after the freeze.

For the rest of the week, my headache didn't go away. Not once. It kept pounding and pumping in my head, and man it hurt. It hurt like hell. After all that time, you would think it would just become a numb feeling because I would be used to it, right?

Wrong.

To make matters worse, I always saw pity in Cam's eyes when I was around him-which was most of the time, so I was never in a very good mood. But also, beneath the pity, there was something else. Something similar to determination; I couldn't put my finger on it.

Surprisingly, the only thing I didn't have to worry about was school. Cam helped me understand the classes he was in with me, and he all but did the homework I had in my other classes. At first I refused, because that was cheating, and I was absolutely against that, but Cam assured me that it was only until I was cured and he just didn't want the teachers or my parents to wonder why I was suddenly doing so horribly in school. He said it would lead to a lot of questions that we wouldn't want to answer, so I left him to his work.

Home life, on the other hand, was another story altogether. Most of the time I stuffed myself in my room and didn't come down at all except to eat or do a load of laundry. The few moments my parents managed to get near me, I acted like a complete psycho. I could barely understand a sentence they were saying, so at some points if I thought I had an idea what they were saying or asking, I would try to reply. But most times it would turn out I was completely off topic. And because I didn't know that while I spoke-obviously-Mom and Dad's looks said it all.

The times I didn't do that, I would ask them to repeat what they said several times, hoping I would catch different bits and pieces each time. That kind of worked, but I was starting to get the feeling they thought I was going deaf.

That's not even the psycho part though. That was only what happened the next four days. The psycho part was when I was finally fed up with doing all of that. So what I did, to prevent any mishaps, was run away as fast as I could if either of my parents walked into the same room as I was.

This meant that for dinner, I would grab my plate from the table and sprint away. Then at any point I was in my room, I would lock the door, and if my parents wanted to come in, I would pretend to be asleep. Not that they would be able to see my sleeping form-what with the locked door-but silence was enough for them.

In the mornings before school, it was harder to avoid them, yet I managed. I would just stay locked in my room as I changed, then run to the bathroom and lock the door. I would make sure I did all I needed in there-brush my teeth, hair, put on makeup-just kidding there, I had none-and deal with "nature"-before going out to face my parents. For breakfast I would grab my plate and head to the living room. If I heard my mom coming-she was the only person home at that time of day-I'd slip out the other doorway, drop off my breakfast plate in the kitchen, then grab my backpack and leave. I preferred waiting out in the cold for my ride to talking-incoherently-to the 'rents.

Oh, my ride. That brought us to the matter of Daphne. She was still my ride everyday to school, but not home. Cam took over that portion and she just assumed that I had asked him out-which I hadn't-but as long as she thought that instead of thinking I needed him as support during my meltdown, everything was fine.

Why didn't I just have Cam drive me both to and from school, you must wonder? Well, I couldn't just ditch my friend because of a headache that she doesn't know the real reason behind. That would just be rude and I had to make her believe that everything was still normal.

The only problem was that Daphne sometimes had her days when she liked to talk in the mornings. That was easily taken care of, thankfully. Despite my hearing issues, my iPod still came in handy. I used it to pretend that I was listening to music and couldn't hear her if she tried to speak to me. Whenever she saw the ear buds in, she would realize that and just wouldn't talk. Lunch was different. But she usually spoke in fragments, so I got most of what she said to me. That was another situation I could deal with, no problem.

So basically, I had or was able to make up some sort of solution, good or no, to deal with my craziness-minus the headache. No amount of medicine could make that bugger go away, as was mentioned.

"Hey, Lex?" Cam asked one day as he drove me home. I had needed to wait in his car everyday for his practice to end.

I opened my eyes and looked up at his face. I always rested my head on his leg during these drives, not that it ever relaxed me, but it was comforting just to feel his body heat and his strong muscles.

"Hmm?" I replied.

"It's been a week."

"For what?"

He glanced down at me quickly. "Your power problem."

"Okay, so?"

"I think we...should go."

"Where?" But I thought I already had an idea.

"Carnell Laboratories."

My body stiffened. "Do you really...think that's...necessary?"

He nodded sadly. "Nothing's changed."

I closed my eyes again. "Maybe you're right."

"We have...to go soon."

I took a calming breath. Just thinking about going anywhere near a chemical laboratory freaked me out. The option that I was experimented on before going up for adoption had never been eliminated, and so many pictures went through my mind when I thought about it.

"Lexie?"

I didn't realize that I had been silent for so long. "Sorry...umm, well...we should go...over spring break."

"That's in...two days." He sounded relieved.

"Yeah. We have to...tell our parents." Crap, that meant going near my mom and dad. That was going to be interesting. Hmm, maybe I could ask in the morning, when it was only Mom around.

"I can do that," Cam said, more upbeat.

I grunted, not quite being on a road to agree.