There was no one in the dark classroom besides Dominic and me. Of course, it was three hours before our final exam was set to begin, but we had no time to waste if we were going to pass the class and keep the talisman in my hands.
It would have made much more sense for the talisman to have clung to an old person who had much more time to dedicate to its every need and desire than college students, but that wasn't any of my business. I just had to roll with what it gave me, and it gave me way more power than I knew what to do with. It certainly had me all figured out, didn't it?
There were plenty of people who knew about the talisman, unfortunately, and that included Dr. Rainier, our substitute ASL professor after I accidentally almost killed the first one, and Harvey, his learning assistant. It would have been stupid of them to mention anything to anyone else in the language department, but I couldn't rule it out. After all, it was stupid of Dr. Reed to trust her colleague with our sensitive information too.
"Psst," Dominic whispered from right next to me.
He did realize that he didn't have to get my attention, right? We were the only two people there. "What's up?"
"Why'd we get here so early?"
I smiled to myself. "I don't know. I'm not sure we have a reason except to be prepared. It's like we have the high ground now."
"Was that a Star Wars prequels reference?"
"I don't know what that is."
Dominic laughed. "Yes, you do. You're a secret nerd."
"Everyone knows it's over, Anakin. I have the high ground."
"That's true, but only nerds say it."
I took in a breath. There was no sense in arguing with him. He would always find a way to be right, and usually, he didn't even have to try that hard.
But before I could change the subject, the door to the classroom swung open, and Dominic and I ducked below a desk before the person turned the light on.
Who the hell showed up for a final so damn early? Well, besides us, of course.
I glanced at the person's shoes, and given that they were a pair of nice men's dress shoes, it sure seemed we were in trouble. If it were a student, they'd probably have boots or sneakers on, not some uncomfortable pair that made it difficult to concentrate on anything other than hurting feet. But a professor didn't have anything to focus on besides the misery of the students.
"Shit," Dominic mumbled, much louder than he probably intended, but still not loud enough to be heard from more than three feet away.
At least we were on the same page.
Dress Shoes slung a briefcase of some kind on top of the desk at the front of the room and cleared his throat, but as soon as he turned around, he was sure to see Dominic and me.
My heart rate sped up as I put my hand over my back pocket where I kept the talisman. It hadn't failed me yet, and that was all I had to hold on to.
You know what you have to do, talisman. We've got to stick together, you and—
A loud crash came from outside, and when my eyes shot over to the window, the sky was much darker than the ten o'clock AM time. It almost reminded me of the latte sky of death that I was most likely responsible for.
"What the hell? Not again, Hughes," Dress Shoes muttered, and I recognized that Brooklyn accent. It was definitely Dr. Rainier.
He rushed out of the room to see what was going on outside.
"Seriously, Lindsay. What the hell?"
I plastered on a smile. "Well, did it work, or did it work?"
"You better pray no one got hurt," Dominic said, and my fake smile fell into a grimace. I hadn't really thought about that. I was too focused on the rush from the fact that I had a little fan club that knew I was responsible for every crazy bad thing that happened at Tillamook College.
"I'll pray later," I said and grabbed his wrist to drag him out from under the desk. "I had to do something before he saw us. The talisman just always chooses the path of most destruction."
"I know that, but—" he trailed off as he looked out the window. There was a gray haze that lingered outside, and the sun was gone. My gaze flitted up to the sky, and just like a few months ago, there were dark blue and gray swirls in what looked like the night sky. But it wasn't night, and it wasn't even a typical Pacific rainy day.
This wasn't just a coincidence. There was no way.
Dominic must have thought the same thing, since he sputtered out a question before I could say anything. "What was happening last time the sky turned dark like this?"
"I don't remember exactly. Weren't we talking about Cheez-Its or something?" I said.
"Why would we ever have a conversation about Cheez-Its? Lindsay, think."
I crossed my arms. "You know I'm not good at thinking."
"You're much more thoughtful and creative than you give yourself credit for. It has to mean something that it's happening again right now. What do the Cheez-Its mean?" Dominic asked himself out loud, and if I weren't just as confused, I would have found it funny.
I was worried about school when we were trying to study and arguing over the appropriateness of eating a family-size box of snacks by oneself when I accidentally started the paranormal shit show. But Dominic and I fixed it easily with just a kiss, and as much as I wanted to try that solution again, there was no way it was going to work. It had to have meant something more than just that. It wasn't only a kiss, it wasn't only a kiss.
"It's about us. It has to be," I said before I could even think anything through. Yeah, no shit, Lindsay. Everyone and their brother already knew that.
"What else?" Dominic asked.
"Well, if I knew that, I would have started with it." I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. I have a moment now to figure this all out. The talisman gave it to me. It wants me to figure out the answer.
I had spent my academic career giving wrong answers but making it through anyway up until college, and now, I refused to give any answers because I was scared it was wrong. But the only person who knew the right answer wasn't a person at all. Instead, it was an object that was much smarter than I could ever hope to be.
How stupid could I look when it was just Dominic and me? He had already seen the worst of me, and he was still there next to me.
The spiraling pattern in the sky made its way onto my eyelids, and even though it could have made me dizzy watching the colors ripple through my mind, the talisman kept me upright.
There was no one to judge me for being stupid. What did I have to lose if I just started saying whatever came into my swirling mind?
"Dominic, do you hate me?" were the first words that slipped out.
"Unfortunately for me, I don't," he replied. Just the snarky honesty I was expecting.
"Did you?"
"Maybe at the beginning. You were kind of really rude about people who actually need ASL."
And I was. I couldn't argue with that one bit. "How much don't you hate me now?"
"Is now really the time to boost your ego?"
I had my eyes closed, but I could see his squinted eyes glaring at me and arms crossed defensively.
"It's not for me. It's for the talisman. It already knows that I'm not sure what I'm gonna do when I flunk out of school and move back to Sherwood to work for Butterfly for the rest of my life without you. You gotta say something too," I said.
He didn't say anything.
Hey talisman, is there any way you can read his mind the same way you read mine? He loves to say whatever he thinks up until I need him to or if it's something nice about me.
"I know that's not gonna be a problem because I won't let it be one," he finally said.
And as those words left his mouth, the brightest light in the room, the fluorescent ceiling lights, was overpowered by the sun through the classroom window. The sound of confused voices outside was replaced with the remaining cold-weather birds chirping.
Maybe reassurance was all I wanted all along. Probably not, but it was a possibility.
"And what are we gonna do when Rainier comes back? He's gotta know you're up to something now," Dominic said.
"Erase his memory of the past few months?" I said, more to myself than to him.
"Because that worked so well last time."
He had a point. I had to come up with something else, and fast.
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Hey everyone! Thank you so much for reading! I really appreciate your support. It keeps me going, to the point where I think—and yes, this is just a thought—we just have the second part of this chapter and one more chapter left! Finally!
So for today's question, if there were suddenly 25 hours in the day, how would you spend the extra hour?
I'd like to say I would be productive somehow, but that's definitely not true. I would sleep. I average maybe four to five hours a night, so I feel like that would fix a lot of my problems. It would definitely make me a more pleasant person to be around sometimes.