Firestorm | ✎

12. wake up call

     He could literally sense her smirk. "Maman," he groaned.

    "Ah, c'est vrai!" (So it's true!) His mom squealed so loud he had to hold the phone away from him. "It's always a girl with you, n'est-ce pas?"

    "It's not like that this time, Mom. I don't fancy the girl." He rubbed his neck a few times. "In fact, I loathe her."

    "What? How do you mean?"

    "She's rude, insensitive, has anger issues, all over the place..." he just kept going, one bad trait to the next, an endless list of details and knacks that boiled his blood.

    "I see." His mother's two words sounded too uncanny to be normal. 

   "Maman!"

    "Quoi?" (What?)

    "I know you're psychoanalysing this. Arrête, s'il te plaît." (Stop, please.)

    "I'm doing no such thing." But his mother laughed into her sentence, and he groaned. "Just sounds like someone I know."

     He glared at the ceiling. "I'm nothing like her."

    "Okay, sweetheart." 

     On the other hand, he was grateful of one thing, though: there was no mention of his disgraceful video. Elias guessed that even the headmaster didn't want to spread it into an even larger picture—and how it represented the school. And if his parents found out... Elias couldn't handle the shame.

     That, he would admit.

     But he didn't want to admit that Isla's words had stayed with him as he was sprawled in bed, staring at the blank ceiling. His thoughts a whirlwind until only the moonlight became his only company for the night.

     It was like a sudden wake-up call.

     And Elias realised he'd been asleep for far too long.

—

     His next few days felt like multiple slaps in the face.

     Elias wasn't taken aback being the centrepiece of everyone's attention. That was as normal to him as waking up in the morning. But what he didn't expect was the glares, the hostile looks, and the angry whispering that were suddenly directed towards him.

     What kind of alternate dimension was this?

     He knew the old wretched video of his would have some repercussions. So he'd figured that he would deal with it the same way he had with any other rumour that sprang his way since he stepped foot in this bloody Academy: let it slide. Let it play its own course. It was the same thing he told Isla during that first fight in the dining hall—that it was worthless trying to parade your truth or half-truths.

     And it'd worked. It'd always worked.

     Until now.

     Someone bumped into him.

    "Hey, watch it," Elias snapped, knowing full well the Sixth Year lad crashed into him on purpose as the hallway had enough space.

    "What are you going to do, Sabatier?" Sixth Year retorted. "Call your daddy to bail you out? Or donate a generous amount to the Academy again? Hit me with your wad of bills?"