Bridget didn't know how much longer she could survive the grueling math lesson. She had already completed the notes while others snailed their way along. This was take two of precalculus for her since she was notorious for snoozing during take one the year before. She'd found that teachers would rather you at least stay alert than actually retain any information, so willed herself to keep awake. A difficult task indeed. Seconds were closer to hours than even minutes. The clock just told lies about time, that had to be it. There was no possible way that the second hand could move that slow. Ten minutes, rather forever, until the bell would ring. Bridget could only hope that she could survive that long, just long enough to make it to the driver's seat of the orange Rav4 waiting for her at the front of the parking lot. She figured if it could, the Tangerine Terror would've left without her long ago, but there it was, plainly visible from the window beside her. She glanced at the clock once again, but to no avail. Only one minute had passed.
Beside her, Asher's pencil scratched as quickly as he could force it, yet it still dragged along slowly. His glances were quick and sharp at the clock, watching the minute hand move faster than he could. Eight minutes left of class, and his pace was still a full page behind the teacher's. He just couldn't keep up, no matter how he willed his pencil to match the speed of his thoughts. Another peek at the clock warned him that he had six more minutes. By this point the teacher had started passing out the homework, the screen projecting nothing useful. That was when Asher finally gave up, dropping his pencil with exasperation twinging like bile in the back of his throat. With a stretch, the joints in his back crackled. That earned a quiet snicker from Bridget. He raised his eyes to the clock once more, the minute hand three digits away from its destination. He shook his head with the decision that he'd just have to copy Bridget's notes later.
The bell finally buzzed, releasing the students from their personal hell. Bridget tapped her foot faster than the second hand on the stupid clock could keep up with, waiting for Asher to scramble his crumpled notebook and dulled pencil into his backpack. By the time he'd finished, even the teacher had already left. Asher stood quite a bit taller than Bridget, but struggled to match her pace as they walked out of the school building.
"Are you sure you aren't secretly an old man?"
Asher scowled at her for that comment, before adding in his own snide response, "You know, for someone who doesn't talk a lot in class, you sure do have a lot to say afterwards."
"First of all, if I ever tried to talk to you during class we both know you would probably just collapse from being overwhelmed," she earned yet another glower from her friend.
They had reached the orange Rav4 at this point. Asher grumbled something about time being the bane of his existence as he stalked around the Tangerine Terror, smacking the orange cover of the spare tire on the door of the trunk as he passed it, to the passenger side. Bridget shook her head, short azure curls swinging into her face, at his reaction as she settled herself into the grey cloth of the driver's seat. Asher continued his nonsensical muttering as he found his place in the seat next to her.
She continued her statement as she turned the key in the ignition, "Second of all, why say something when you have nothing to say?"
"How philosophical of you."
The Tangerine Terror clanked beneath her as she urged it out of the parking spot. She could tell that the twelve year old car wasn't the biggest fan of her, the way it sputtered and leaked and only caused trouble. It probably hated her for messing with its clock, not that she could control that. The flaming orange car also despised Asher for the same reason, making the trips to and from school somewhat aggravating for all of those involved. Whether it was the breaks being troublesome or the heating system refusing to turn on even in the dead of winter, the Tangerine Terror lived up to its name.
Asher ranted about such grievances as he fumbled with the auxiliary cord. Only static running through the speakers as he plugged it into his phone. Seconds later he gave up, turning on the radio instead. Another win for the Tangerine Terror. Bridget allowed a hearty laugh to escape her at the boy's failed efforts followed by a puff of heat from the vents just above the radio controls.
"I hope you know that I hate your car."
"Oh trust me, I feel that."
The car retracted the lovely gift of heat for that comment.
Asher watched at the clock as it fluctuated faster and slower in a weird cycle. Such an anomaly for others, yet these two see it as normal. Bridget had watched the world slow down before her quite often. It didn't always stay that way, just often. Meanwhile, Asher had witnessed the time speed past him quite often. It wasn't always like that, just often. One would think that the two would cancel each other out, but apparently science isn't that easy. The closer the two were the more time suffered, to the point that a slight touch could change it entirely. One moment it might be October 22nd and the next would be the May 13th they had already lived through that year with just his accidental tap to her arm with his hand, mid gesture. The once red and golden leaves that lay upon the graying grass suddenly nonexistent while healthy green ones clung to the trees. The others who had just shared the road with the Tangerine Terror disappeared while new ones took their places.
No wonder the Rav4 disliked its two passengers. With a sputter and a clunk the car shared this discontentment in the form of completely dying. Bridget muttered something distasteful as Asher's frustrated hand slid through his chocolate colored hair. Bridget managed to force the unresponsive car to the vibrant grass beside the road, grumbling and cursing the whole way. After throwing the gear to park and removing the key from the ignition, she heaved herself out of the Tangerine Terror. Asher followed suit, standing beside her to join in with more distasteful language.
"I repeat, I hate your car."
"Welcome to the club, Asher, welcome to the god damn club."
The two finally turned from glaring at the car to face one another. Bridget had to tilt her chin upwards to meet the gaze of his bluestar eyes, doing so only added to her foul mood. Asher, detecting her hostile attitude, allowed his spine to slouch a bit to decrease the height difference. She swatted at him, making it extremely clear that she wasn't a fan of that either. He rolled his eyes in an obnoxiously dramatic manner as he straightened his aching back. A groan reverberated from the base of her vocal chords after a glance at the sporty wristwatch that hugged her right wrist.
"Now what?"
He received a striking glare from her faded tan eyes before her retort of a response, "We wait."
Dealing with time was never easy for these two. When they wanted it to be normal, it wasn't. When they wished for it to lend them a hand, only then did it decide to be normal. Their parents had always referred to their abilities as time control. Meanwhile, Bridget and Asher just called it time chaos. They'd learned that the extent of their so called "control" was to wait for the clock to boot them back to their present.
"Right, I'll check on Terror then."
He strolled over to the front of the orange car, lifting the hood haphazardly. It was almost unsurprising that the hood proceeded to whack him atop his dark haired head as he attempted to peer in at the engine. It was almost comical.
"Nice one."
Asher turned to stick out a childish tongue at Bridget's mocking before throwing open the hood once more to promptly disappear into the inner workings of the engine. A few moments later he lifted his upper body out of the car, dark oil soaking into his skin and shirt.
"Try it now."
Bridget hefted herself through the orange frame into the seat behind the sleek black steering wheel. Her faded tan eyes peering into her periphery at the stoic Asher in the seat to her right. With a hesitant twist of her key, the engine awoke with a rumble of energy. Heat flowed out of the vents, although at this point it was very much unnecessary seeing as the weather of mid May was warmer than that of late October. The radio sang with no static. Everything worked, which was odd for the Tangerine Terror.
"What did you do to it?"
Asher snorted, "Absolutely nothing."
Bridget pushed the car back to the road with a thin silvery eyebrow raised, "Nothing? Seriously?"
"Nothing looked wrong under the hood, so I figured it was just throwing a temper tantrum. Alas, I was right. Stupid car."
"Shut up, you might make it mad again," Bridget teased with a playful smack to Asher's shoulder.
The leaves returned to their colorful deaths in the graying grass. The temperature dropped from that of mid spring to that of mid autumn as the cars around them switch back to the first group. May 13th had been left behind as they returned to October 22nd. They had finally been, as they say, booted back to their present. The car retracted the now necessary heat once again.
"I feel like I might've said this already, but I really do hate your car."
Something beneath them clunked.
"If you hate it so much you should get your own, then you wouldn't have to ride in the Terror all the time."
Bridget didn't need to see Asher's face, she could feel the exact scowl plastered there. The Tangerine Terror regranted the gift of heat, and the two could only imagine it was amused by their squabbling. Time fluctuated. They didn't mind. All they cared for at this point was getting home to complete mind-numbing homework and copy messy precalculus notes. The so called time chaos was nothing new for these two bizarre teenagers.