Song: Space Song, by: Beach House
~~~
Wednesday
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Dom's alarm rang from under her pillow, vibrating against her ear. "Anything but that. Noo."
She feels her slightly crusty eyes struggling to open and she reaches for her overheated phone. Her head was pounding, as though her frontal lobe was reaching for the stars and couldn't reach past her forehead.
As her body sits up, she groans, her hand reaching for her forehead and feeling some stray sweaty, knotted curls stuck to it. Sickness wasn't the reason she felt so diseased, rather it was just a sickly feeling in her stomach.
Her stomach was flipping upside down every second, and today just did not feel like her day. The idea of staying home did cross her mind. But she remembered that literature exam that she had stayed up late studying for, which would most likely explain this feeling she had. It's simply nerves. Everyone gets nervous before exams, especially when they're worth half your grade and you only take so many exams per semester, she thought.
She drags herself out of bed, and begins to get ready for the day. She hears distant noise from downstairs, and she assumes it's her brother or Kevin getting ready to leave.
While she changes into her sweatpants and t-shirt, she lays her forehead against the wall of her full-length mirror. "Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, I could kill myself today," she chants to herself.
With a swift motion down the stairs of their home, she threw the keys to her brother. "I cannot drive today. Don't feel good about it, I'd end up crashing that shit. Lord knows we can't afford another car." Tomas didn't question her, he knew she was not messing around, and was also not to be messed with.
Makani had left for her own house yesterday morning after a couple more hours of sleep, and she still hadn't replied to any messages. She must've still felt awful, Dom thought.
They all piled into the car and were on the way to school, where Dom had her head against the window of the passenger side for the entire ride.
~~~
Normal people in high school wouldn't want to socialize so early in the morning, but they wouldn't be so against some friendly conversation with their peers. Dom, however, had ten minutes before the first block and her social battery was lower than the ground. She doesn't think she could stand 5 minutes in any conversation with anybody.
While Dom was trying to fix her bangs in the mirror of her locker, it shut right on her face. "Shit! Shit, shit, shit." While trying to dismantle the stinging pain, she gently rubs her increasingly, aching forehead.
"Well, that kind of language is definitely not appropriate for school, young lady." Ramone had approached her from behind, where Dom immediately turned around and shut the locker. The same locker that had harshfully shut in her face, the same locker that was on her side-which was not the side that Ramone came from, meaning he didn't do it.
"Hi, and bye. Not in the mood." The round glasses hanging just below the bridge of her nose are just aching to be readjusted and she walks away. He goes to reach for her arm and misses, immediately following after her.
"I know we don't have first hour together, but I still wanna talk a little. We have time, right?" He cheekily tries to get her attention, and she makes no attempt to give him any of her attention. Maybe she wasn't sure about it before, but now she was definitely leaving after her exam.
When she doesn't stop to even remotely engage with him in conversation, he jogs ahead and gets in front of her. To her surprise, he wasn't cheeky, flirty, or even trying to be funny. Rather, he was gentle and concerned for her, as if he were her actual friend. "Hey, hey, hey. Is everything okay?"
She stops when his hands reach her shoulders. The light brown, calloused, tremulous hands he possesses reached for her, to comfort her. Where his hands touched her shoulders, where his thumbs pushed slightly on her clavicles, electricity ran through.
What could I possibly do to get him to stop talking to me? To stop touching me?...
The first thing that comes to her head, "Yes. Totally fine. Study tonight?" He lets go and fixes the beanie on his head, the static between them dissipating quickly. "Yes, ma'am. Wouldn't miss it for anything. Wait, are you sure that you are okay? I mean, okay, normally you get annoyed at me but at least you're not so mean to me." As he spoke on, his voice quickly turned to a whine, as though he were a child.
"Jesus Christ, man. I'll see you tonight, 7 PM and don't be late, okay?" Playfully, he smiles and she pushes him away. He continued to walk in her general direction, not knowing where her first class was but wanted to keep her company. She was his only friend and he did care for her, even if she didn't.
Maybe her social battery only needed a recharge.
~~~
Back at home, Dom is cleaning up the kitchen before Ramone is to show up. The guys had left the kitchen a mess after they ate the pasta she made them. She set aside tupperware for Ramone to eat or take home. There were leftovers and she hates eating leftovers, she thought. There wasn't any other reason.
Loud yells came up upstairs as she was finishing up the dishes and was quickly followed by an even louder bang. "Boys! Keep it down plea- What the hell's going on up there?!" Dom wasted no time in going up the stairs and barging into Tomas' room.
"Hey! What's the deal? Is someone dying or already dead?"
"Yeah! Me! In this stupid game cause of genius over here." Tomas lunges at Kevin and wrestles him on the bed, holding him down in a headlock. Dom yells back at them, "You all, are morons. I'm cleaning up after you morons, again, MORONS! And would like to not think there's a triple homicide going on up here, thank you very much!" A loud slam echoed across the house as Dom slammed the door and went downstairs. The TV was on at a moderately loud volume to drown out the screaming teenagers upstairs as she continued to set up.
She brings out her small whiteboard, some blank paper, and the calculus textbook. Her laptop was already open while she finished the study guide that was assigned for their next test, which was the following week.
"Computing limits, implicit derivatives, chain rules..." Dom mumbles under her breath as she makes a list of topics that she has to study, as well as teach someone else. On the bright side, teaching someone else is one of the most effective ways of studying, especially for math courses.
A soft knock on her door interrupts and she gets up but proceeds to finish writing, "... between two curves. Okay, perfect. I'm comin'!"
When the door opens, she's met with a casually dressed Ramone. Normally for school, he dressed rather nicely. Coordinating his colors well and changing up his style everyday. Well, for the two days that she knew him.
He wore a beige sweater with a quarter zipper along with green army sweatpants. The usual black beanie adorned his buzzed head and he had changed his lip and eyebrow piercing to match with a black stone.
He takes a look around just in her entryway and is more than surprised by the home she lived in. There wasn't much to personalize the home that the twins lived in. They had furniture, appliances, and a few knick-knacks-but besides that-the home was bare. The only pictures of the family were the senior picture of the twins on the fridge. He absolutely loved it.
She lets him in and points to the shoe rack on the left, along with the bin of slippers in it. "We should have your size in there." He stood there for a moment, confused, but noticed that she wasn't wearing shoes either, and immediately removed his, leaving them on the rack. The fuzzy slippers were like heaven on his feet, even if they were a little small on him.
Ramone followed her to the kitchen and stomping footsteps came from upstairs, "Hey, who's here? Oh! My favorite stingray!" Kevin slid down the railing of the stairs and he threw an arm around Ramone's shoulder. "I didn't know you were joining us tonight?" Ramone laughed at him and held him back by the waist. They only knew each other for two days.
Tomas and Eli were at the top of the stairs coming down to greet whoever had come by. The twins had instilled the habit into Eli, Kevin, and everyone else to always greet people when you come into their homes or when they come into yours. It's only polite.
"No. He's here to study. We have a calc test next week, and I'm the sorry sap that's assigned to tutor him." Dom had her arms crossed as she leaned against the wall of the kitchen, she allowed them to mingle for a few minutes before she fries Ray's brain with math. He would get an A in the class, even if it was the last thing she did.
She watched all the guys give each other handshakes and talk to one another as though they have been best friends since birth. Tomas introduced himself to Ramone, "Hey, I'm Tomas. Or Tomi, whatever you like. Dom's brother."
"Yeah, Kev mentioned you yesterday. Great to meet you, man. Perdón, cuñado." (Sorry, brother-in-law.) A perplexed look made its way to Tomas' face as he took in what Ramone said.
"My sister? Pfft, she should be so lucky." Tomas jokes about his sister and can't help but laugh with Ramone. Of course, any guy who was going to seriously date his sister needed to deal with him first, but Ramone was no threat. He's just one of Dom's students. A cheeky student, but only that.
They laughed together as Dom rolled her eyes at him, "I cannot believe all of you think Mamon is too good for me." (Douchebag.)
Tomas and Ramone were laughing and joking with one another while Dom went over to the barstools. She put her glasses on and started to write some stuff down before she forgot, "You know if you ever wanna get to genius level like me, we should get started. Before you know it, you might infect yourself with stupidity syndrome from those three," her pen making way to point at the boys in front of her, before Eli attacks her, knuckle rubbing on her head. "Take that back, Quasimodo!" Her hands shot up to tickle him and shoots back, "I'll give you a hunchback if you don't stop messing up my hair!.. Yeah, that's what I thought."
They all left and Tomas gave him a friendly smack on the back as he walked up the stairs, not before signaling to Dom that there will be no funny business. Her eyes practically rolled out of their sockets as she waited for Ramone. "Just letting you know, I cooked earlier. There's some leftover for you if you want it now or to take home later. It's in the fridge on the second shelf." She didn't look at him as she spoke, hiding the red tint that stained her cheeks.
Ramone sat down in front of her and put his head in his hands as he looked at her, "You're so sweet to me. It's almost like you want me too."
The purple pen lightly smacks Ramone's elbow, "No sea fre'co." (Don't be fresh.) Before any other smart responses could leave his mouth, she gave him a pencil and she began with the study guide.
~~~
"So, when you have two terms to derive you have to use the product rule. I usually format it like-" There was a sudden knocking on the door. Unwarranted knocking as Dom didn't expect anybody else this evening. It was getting late and it had been a few hours already. Who could be at her door?
She furrows her brows as she slowly caps her pen. "I'm sorry, g-give me a second." Dom hopped off the bar stool and jogs over to the front door,
"Just letting you know, if any other boys come over, I'm going to be a little upset!" She rolled her eyes from behind the wall, hoping that the sarcastic look on her face emanated over to him in the kitchen space.
Her smirking face soon turned to one of confusion when Monet and Makani were at her door. "Guys? Did I invite you over and I forgot? I really hope that's not the case," she awkwardly drawls.
They took their shoes off at the door and were allowed in. Makani looked more pale than she ever did the day before. Her under eyes looked close to purple and her hair was sticking to her forehead, looking as though she was dying of fever. "Honey, do you need something? You look awful. I have medicine or food or water or whatever you might need." Makani waves Dom off and proceeds to the living room, raising a hand to greet Ray who's still sitting at the kitchen table. A pencil tapped against his temple as he tried to figure out how to determine whether or not a limit would exist.
Makani's raspy voice starts, "Where's Tomi?"
~~~
<3