5. Owen
I was surprised hearing that guy was 18. He looked so much older. I thought he'd been held back or something.
I walked off to class, a little startled by the new fact. I mean, the guy looked like he could snap me like a twig. He had to be at least 25. Right?
I shook it off as I walked into science. Mr. Mullbury? Mr. Myers? Mr. Malone? Whatever his name was, he was handing out lots of flyers. I sat down, practically by the front door, and tried to relax myself.
"Okay class, since we are doing biology this year, I thought it would be interesting to do a blood typing for each of you."
I practically puked at his words.
I hate blood. It's so gross, and red, and sticky, and wet. I plain hate it.
In fact, I can't remember the last time I bled.
From the back of the room came the sound of a chair scraping backwards and someone jumping up. "Blood typing?"
It was the pretty girl from the other day.
"Yes Miss Swan, we are blood typing today, now sit down."
"I think I'm gonna puke." she said.
"Sit Down!" Mr. M bellowed.
"We did blood typing at my old school. I puked all over the floor and then I fainted when someone tried to drag me out into the hallway and to the nurse." she said. "Please, please, can I leave?"
A guy sitting next to her stood up. "Let me bring her outside, please, Mr. Miller." He nodded his head at the boy and let him drag the shaking girl outside.
I faced back up front where Mr. Miller was explaining the test.
"I'm going to pair you up with partners. You are each going to prick your finger, then put the blood on the sample card. This is just a practice, tomorrow we will be doing the real thing, so be prepared."
"Now," he said, handing out thick packets to everyone, "Read over the guidlines, the how to type section, and the results section."
We let out a collective groan. "With your pre-assigned partners."
He pulled a clipboard out of his desk and started rattling off names.
"Donnoven with Tate, Malloy and Rosta, you two pair up since your partners aren't here, Zulo and Finnigan, and Hudson and Cooper." I looked around, trying to figure out who my partner, Cooper, was. It didn't take long to find out.
A boy walked over and sat next to me.
"Hi, I'm Owen. You must be the girl who moved in right next to the airport, right?"
"Yeah. My Dad's a pilot. He wanted to move for fresh air or something. Not that you get much of it in the cockpit."
"Yea."
Owen was kinda cute. He had nice sea blue eyes, and wavy chestnut hair that flopped into them. He wasn't too much taller than me, but he was on the muscular side, and had a lovely smile. Why not be a little nice?
"My name's Lizzie. Does he do these labs often?" I asked.
"Uh, yea. They get kind of repetitive. We're spending the whole month on blood, he told us. So get ready to take a lot of notes."
"Oh, gosh. A whole month on blood?"
"Yes. Every type of blood he can possibly think of we'll be studying. At least you got past the week of blood types."
"What's left?"
"Blood tests. A whole week of our lives devoted to studying blood tests. Fun, right?"
I laughed. "Sure, fun."
Owen was nice. I liked him. I could see he liked me a bit. Enough to try and talk to me. No one else had. Except Nessie. I'd been here four days and only two people besides teachers had bothered to talk to me.
Owen opened up his packet all the way to the last page. It was an index.
"Um, if you don't mind me asking, why is there an index in the packet?"
"Oh. Because Mr. Miller likes long packets. That's why he's teaching accelerated. The school can't afford him otherwise."
"How many pages are in that thing?"
"52."
"Wow. How come he doesn't use textbooks?" I asked.
"Because, textbooks don't give you adequate room to write three essays, fill out a bunch of labs, or take notes." His face took on a rather glum expression.
"You have to do all that?" I asked.
"It’s not accelerated for nothing."
"What are we? The only accelerated class?" I asked.
"Yup."
I sat and pondered that.
"And all that reading material is in there?"
"Yes. That's what I'm looking for right now."
"What page is," I peered up at the board, trying to make out Mr. M's small, loopy writing. "Where is guidelines?"
"Right up in the front." he said. I smiled and started flipping through the pages, looking for it.
"Thanks."
When I found it, it was maybe two front and back pages of tiny size seven print with no space between the lines. And it was long.
We both settled into reading. But after about twenty minutes, my eyes were getting really sore and my head was starting to hurt. That was when I finnally gave up after having enough. I was only midway down the second page.
Owen looked up at me then. "Only one of us has to bleed."
"Oh."
"For the test. We both have to do the practice." he said.
My stomach plummeted.
I have this horrible fear of needles. I always feel sick after getting shots. And I've never had blood drawn before. This would be scary.
"How do we do it?" I squeeked.
"You take a diabetes test strip and prick yourself, then you stamp your finger on this index card. The blood stays, and you're done."
I slowly filled out my index card.
Name. Elizibeth Hudson.
Gender. Female.
Weight. 115.
Partner. Owen Cooper.
Period. 1.
I was shaking as I stabbed my finger. I felt the blood drip down it, warm, and I sucked in a breath. Then I pressed my finger down onto the paper. I pressed really hard and tried to smear it in. I didn’t want to have to do this again. It was too horrible and painful. Of course I’ve gotten bruises before, but breaking open my body’s biggest organ was a bit different. It stung.
I slowly lifted my finger, not daring to look at it, and wiped it off with an alcohol wipe.
Owen looked at my card.
“Uh, Lizzie, you did something wrong.”
I looked over at his card. He had a small red splotch in the center of his. I looked down at mine.
I expected to see a large smear of red there, but what I actually saw surprised me more.
“Why is there nothing on your card?” he asked.
I was speechless. “How is there nothing there? I pricked myself, see?” I pulled up my test strip. There was nothing on it but a tiny drop of some clear fluid.
“How is there no blood on there?” I asked him. I picked up my wipe. Nothing on there either. I peered down at my finger. There was a little prick mark there, large enough for me to see. It looked like it was deep.
“I pricked myself!” I cried.
“Yea, but probably not hard enough.” Owen said.
“Oh.” Was my only response.
Then I started thinking.
“But I pressed really hard!” I said.
“But you didn’t break the skin enough to bleed.” He said. “The blood is key in this experiment.”
“I know.” I said dejectedly.
I brushed away my bangs, when Owen grabbed my hand to look at it.
“It does look like it should have worked. I don’t know why it didn’t.” he said.
“The test strip broke your skin, so maybe we should try to just redo the test.”
I shuddered at the thought of poking myself again.
“I’m sorry Owen, it was probably me. I have this horrible, irrational fear of blood, so me not bleeding was probably all me. I truly can’t remember the last time I bled, so I really hate bleeding and seeing blood.” I felt like a huge weight was lifted off my chest.
“That’s okay. Plenty of people have a fear of blood. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s no big deal.” He paused to pick up a new test strip.
“Do you want to look away while I prick you?” he asked.
“Okay.” I whispered almost in a really squeaky voice. I mentally scolded myself for sounding so nervous, but then I turned around, covered my eyes with the hand that Owen wasn’t holding in his soft, warm, fingers, and waited for the jab.
It was a sharp little pinch, then I could feel the blood oozing out in a little droplet on my finger. It stung. I wanted to shake it around, then stick it in my mouth to suck on it, and when it started to sting again, shake it.
But Owen held it firm.
“Did I bleed this time?” I asked.
“No.” he said, puzzled. He loosened his grip on my hand, and I pulled it away to suck on it.
“Why didn’t it work?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He passed me the test strip to inspect.
It had another little drop of the clear liquid on in. I put the strip down.
“Owen, would you please do my card for me?” I asked. “And the experiment?”
He looked at me. “Why…”
“Please, just do it.” I pleaded.
“Okay.” He took a test strip and gently jabbed the side of his finger. A small drop of red bubbled out, and he pressed it onto my card. “Happy?”
“Yea, thanks.” I said.
“Now why did you make me do that?” he asked.
I slowly whispered, “Look at my strips.”
He picked them up. “See the little drops of liquid?”
He nodded his head. “I think that’s my blood.”
“That can’t be.” He whispered.
“Well, it’s either my blood, or I don’t have any blood.” I whispered back.
“Lizzie, you know that’s not possible.”
“Yea, I know, Owen, but what other explanation do I have?”