Page 2 of Psync
Ah. Looked like today was his lucky day after all. New school, new situation, new people? With his brain, panic was inevitable, and it was hilarious for him to have thought otherwise. No, the luck came from him losing it near the right people when it finally happened.
And with that thought, the rest of the attack drained away, leaving him shaky and giddy in its wake.
“Then thank you. Imagine the embarrassment of snuffing it like that on the first day.”
“Oh, I imagine there are worse ways to go,” Alice said, busily putting the finishing touches on her new fan.
“Like falling down the stairs during a fire drill because you were trying to put on pants?” Nate laughed and elbowed Alice, causing her to drop her fan.
“I didn’t fall down the stairs! And my pants were mostly on. And I didn’t die, thank you very much.” Alice scooped her fan off the floor and hit Nate’s shoulder.
“Sure, sure. And I’ll bet it happened to your friend, not you, right?” Nate snatched the fan out of Alice’s hands and began fanning himself.
“My sister told you that story, didn’t she? I swear . . .” Alice noticed Eli as he did his best to hold back mounting laughter. “I’m sorry, you don’t even know us, and here we are raving like lunatics.”
“Don’t worry about me, I like lunatics. My name’s Eli, by the way.” He nodded in lieu of reaching out a hand to shake, causing a lock of wavy black hair to fall into his face. It made a nice little curtain to put between him and the world, so he let it stay. “So, I take it you two know each other?”
Good. This was good. Instead of translating his favorite songs into Japanese to stay calm, he had actual people to talk to until the assembly started. Lucky day indeed.
“Yep!” Alice said merrily and threw an arm around Nate’s shoulder. “We’ve known each other since kindergarten. Fortunately for him, he got into the same school as me, or else he’d be crying alone in the corner.” She reached out to wipe an imaginary tear from Nate’s face, only for him to shove her hand away.
Eli spent the next few minutes learning about his rescuers. Like Eli, they’d both grown up in the eastern half of the state. They were next-door neighbors and as close as siblings.
Thankfully, neither of them asked him any probing questions like, what’s wrong with your brain, or why are you out without a keeper? Instead, they asked about his family. Talking about his mom and sister were easy topics, and it gave him a safe place to spend all of his leftover adrenalin.
“So, your mom raised both of you on your own and put herself through nursing school?” Alice whistled. “Congrats, Eli’s mom. Mine doesn’t do anything more strenuous than yell at the gardener through the window.”
Eli nodded. He was incredibly proud of his mom. “After my dad died in Afghanistan, she poured everything she had into making sure my sister and I had the life they’d planned for our family. I think it helped her deal with losing him.”
His phone buzzed in his pocket. The name on the screen read Berry. Speaking of his sister Juniper . . .
Berry:Hey jerk, you still alive?
He put it back in his pocket, but it buzzed again before it even made it all the way back in.
Berry:Don’t leave me on read, assface
Eli:I’m talking to someone rn, fuck off
An outsider would think he didn’t get along with his twin, but theirs was a special bond. A bond that involved copious amounts of swearing.
Berry:You made a friend??? I didn’t even have to pay someone!
Eli didn’t bother responding. Juniper had only texted him in the first place to make sure he was okay. Any response other thandear sweet god in heaven send helpwas a sign he was fine.
He was lucky she hadn’t texted him fifteen minutes earlier when he was decidedly not fine.
“Hey, I think it’s starting,” Alice said, bringing his attention to the stage.
Several people had filed onstage while the crowd waited, and now an older woman in a smart pantsuit moved up to the microphone. She began what Eli was sure was a rousing welcome speech, but before she gotten too far in, his attention was drawn to a young Asian man sitting in a chair on the far end of the stage.
His dark hair was pulled back in a short ponytail, and he was dressed in gray slacks and a white dress shirt that looked expensive even from this distance. But it wasn’t the clothes or the man’s strikingly handsome face that caught Eli’s eye, but rather the way he was looking around the auditorium.
Unlike everyone else on stage, he was slowly scanning the crowd with an intensity Eli couldn’t help but notice. What was he looking for?
“But don’t take my word for it, let’s hear what students from each department have to say.” The woman stepped away from the podium and motioned to a young woman to step forward.
Over the next hour, Eli did his best to focus on what each speaker had to say, but no matter how hard he tried, his attention kept going back to the man at the end of the stage gazing intently into the crowd. It looked as though he was going from face to face. When he reached the row Eli was on, his eyes seemed to linger for a moment before moving on.
