Pendulum
Cherry.
Coke.
Cherry.
Coke.
Biggest decision of Y/n's life right now... was deciding what slushie looked like the better option today.
*Then Michael Mell and Jeremy Heere walked into the 7/11, and all calmness ran from the room screaming.*
"Y/n!" Michael smiled nonchalantly.
She turned around to glance at them, and smiled awkwardly, as a kind of greeting.
She turned back around, reaching for the lever on the cherry and dispensing it as high as it would go in her cup.
"What do you want?" She asked, turning around walking past Michael to the counter.
Jeremy immediately jumped into her place with a smile, filling his cup with every flavor.
Michael stared at Jeremy with an expression that said, I... you're useless.
He walked after her.
"I just wanted to talk you." His hands were in his front hoddie pocket, and he shrugged.
"Why?" She asked, putting a $5 on the counter and waving off the cashier.
"Keep it."
When she spun around, Michael was right behind her.
She sighed and leaned back on the counter with her arms crossed and her straw in her mouth.
"I uh..." he trailed off, losing his words as he looked down at her. Michael pushed his glasses up higher with his index finger.
"I just wanted to apologize." He smiled.
Her eyebrows furrowed with confusion.
"Why?" She asked again, sipping her drink.
Not the response he was expecting.
"Uh... abo-about yesterday. I thought, uh... I thought that was why you were mad at me."
She smirked a little bit, still squinting quizzically at him.
He noticed this, and shrugged again, fiddling with his beaded bracelets.
"I-I mean uh, you know Christine said... she said you were mad this morning too so uh... yah I guess it wasn't just, just me."
He stammered through every word uncomfortably and Y/n's face got more and more contorted with confusion as he talked.
Finally they were just standing there, staring at each other in mutual awkwardness.
"Michael?"
"Yah." He sighed, closing his eyes with embarrassment. He wasn't even quite sure what he was talking about.
"I'm not mad at you-"
"Oh thank god." He released a big breath, mumbling to himself.
"And I'm not mad at a Christine either. I have no idea what you're talking about." She had a dead smirk, void of emotion.
Michael frowned.
"Are you sure? You don't seem-"
"I'm fine."
Y/n dismissed herself from the conversation, walking past him and grabbing her skateboard from its spot beside the door.
The bell rung as she swung it open, and Michael watched her walk out.
Jeremy popped in behind him, snacking on the chips laid across his arm.
Michael glanced at him with a frown.
"Enjoying yourself?"
Jeremy's eyebrows furrowed and chips crunched in his mouth.
"What?" He asked defensively.
Michael rolled his eyes.
~*~*~*~*~*~*
It was the last class of the day.
Y/n was staring down at her paper, doodling a little pac-man in the corner.
She glanced up at her teacher, copying notes on the board.
Maybe she should at least look up, the teacher probably could tell she wasn't paying attention.
She stared at the board, with no interest whatsoever.
As the words up there accumulated, so did the feeling that something was wrong.
If she wasn't even writing, the teacher would for sure know that she wasn't doing her work.
She picked up her pencil and started to copy a few words.
It felt like it the pressure to do it correctly was so intense all of a sudden, like everyone in the class was looking at her and if she messed up they would notice.
They would give her that stupid little disappointed look and roll their eyes.
The teacher would stop the class and talk to her about paying attention.
As much as she really wanted to now, she couldn't write notes.
Her hands were shaking too much.
She dropped her pencil and it hit her desk with a dull thud.
To Y/n though it sounded so loud, she thought it might have just gained the attention of the entire world.
She didn't even bother looking up, she knew everyone was staring at her with hateful glares and judgemental thoughts.
A piercing sound rang through her ears, making her jolt from fright.
Everyone else looked up too, and she realized it was the school bell.
The day was finally over.
"I'll take a picture of the notes and upload them on the class feed, if you didn't finish." The teacher announced as everyone packed their things up.
"Have a good weekend."
Y/n shoved her things in her bag and jumped up, making a break for the door.
Her heart was beating at an above average rate, and her shoes squeaked as she practically speed-walked down the hall.
She ran down the stairs and kept going, pushing past people to get to the student parking lot doors.
Little did she know, while she was pushing kids out of her way, she shoved Michael as well.
He stumbled and turned around angrily, pulling his headphones off his head.
He caught a glimpse of Y/n rushing towards the exit, and felt the panic wafting off her.
His anger vanished and he shut his locker to chase after her.
When he got outside to the parking lot, she was pacing back and forth.
"Hey." He called after her.
She caught a glimpse of the kid in the red hoodie, and turned the other way.
She kept pacing down the sidewalk until there was no sidewalk left and she was standing in front of a brick wall.
A brick wall with crumbling cracks in it.
She took her medicine last night, and nothing had happened all day.
Her medicine was wearing off.
"Hey!"
His hand grabbed her shoulder and she spun around, pushing his arm away.
"What?!" She yelled, and a strong wind blew his hair out of his face.
He was frowning.
"What is wrong with you?" He asked, not so polite or nonchalant sounding anymore.
"What's wrong with me?"
"Yah! Yah, what is up with you today? Between your panicking and your psycho mood swings, I can't tell if you're actually mad about something, or... or..."
He trailed off, recalling the night before.
Her medicine.
"Did you take a Zoloft?"
She shouldn't have felt ashamed of that question, but her face burned anyway.
"Last night." She mumbled.
He nodded, sighing irritably.
"Is it because of what I said?" He asked, crossing his arms.
It's what he had been worrying about all day, yet Y/n barely remembered that at all.
"What? No, I... I've just been... I have stuff going on okay!" She yelled.
Her eyes slowly glanced over to the fist sized indent in the wall, luckily hidden from where anyone could see it.
"What? What is going on?" He asked her. "You can tell me."
"No I can't."
"Why not?"
"It sounds crazy."
"More crazy than world-dominating supercomputers?"
She rolled her eyes.
"That's not the same thing."
He scoffed and crossed his arms. "Why not?"
Y/n's breath was getting faster and heavier.
"Ugh!" She yelled. "Because this isn't just a evil problem with a simple solution! This isn't something horrible that happens, and that you can move past and learn from!"
As she yelled her emotion bubbled up inside her, but they miraculously did not catch the attention of the last student vacating the parking lot.
But the pebbles vibrating and shaking around Y/n's feet, caught Michael's attention.
Her hands were over her ears and her eyes were closed as her volume increased.
"This is something inside me, that I can never get rid of, and that I don't understand! I don't know how any of this works and that's fucking terrifying!"
Her weight got lighter and it felt like her feet were hovering just over the ground.
The rubber soles of her toes clinked together.
Michael watched fearfully as her hair miraculously began to stand on end, as it does when one holds a balloon over your head.
"The monster is not inside me... it is me!!"
Her words came out like a powerful punch, and the one car nearly 7 parking spaces away from them, just past the sidewalk, flew off into the tree line like it had been hit by a giant.
They watched as the dented car was lost in sight, and shattered glass spread across the parking lot.
Y/n was breathing heavily from the shouting, and Michael was staring with wide, fearful eyes.
She looked back at him, her feet firmly planted on the ground and her hair dropped at her shoulders.
"I uh... I feel a little better." She mumbled.
Michael's eyebrows rose and he looked back at the sight of the totaled car.
Or where it was at least.