Terra leans back in her chair. She idly kicks her shoes to together, and twiddles her thumb. Nervous. She isn’t used to being quite in this position. Knowing intimate things about a school counselor. The weekend seemed to be a big blur to her now. Her father had worked some things out and had a heart to heart, but Terra didn’t believe he would actually stop drinking. She knew not to get her hopes too high.

“Yeah, and well we agreed for me to see a therapist. I saw him once on sunday. He suggested some pills like Effexor, but L-. My Dad is a bit iffy on pills. I can understand why.” She said, rambling on about how things were at home to Katrina.

“So. Are you going to be a permanent thing? Like. You and my dad. I’m still not used to it.” She asked. 

Katrina laughed and looked away from Terra for a moment.

“We… We’re not a ‘thing,’ Terra,” she said, turning back to her with a soft smile. “At least, not that I’m aware of. I think right now your father is mostly concerned with finding someone to… grieve with.” Katrina pondered if that was the right word for it.

“What about you and Mr. Slater?” she asked, now realizing that it felt weird to be close with a student too. “Are you two a ‘permanent thing’? What was that all about?”

Terra shook her head and smiled. “I don’t really know. I’m not ready to have a relationship, I mean let’s be honest.” She started to laugh. “It was a party, he was drunk. I wasn’t in the right state of mind either. It just happened and got a bit out of control. We were fighting right before that so I don’t even know how that happened the way it did.” Terra waved her hands in the air. “Ugh… Emotions. Boys. I don’t get it anymore. I don’t know if I ever did.” She chuckled to herself.

Looking back to Katrina. “Well, I’d say me and him are friends? At least I hope. For the time being until I find some way to screw that up.”

Katrina chuckled at her comment about boys. She could definitely relate to that. Terra’s father was a prime example, but certainly not the only example. She looked Terra right in the eyes, reading her closely.

“Well, you’re doing an okay job at it,” Katrina commented. “I can already tell you’re trying to protect him. Mr. Slater doesn’t seem like the type of boy to binge drink on the weekends, does he? In fact, he didn’t look even buzzed. So then, care to explain what really happened?”

Terra squinted her eyes at Katrina. Knowing that she definitely caught on to her little lies. Well, it was, nope, it wasn’t even sort of true. Katrina had her cornered pretty well. She sighed. “You’re pretty good. Almost as good as my mom was. She always called me or dad out on our shit.” A small smile appeared on her face as she looked to the ground.

“Alright, so we got into a bit of a fight earlier in the night. I think he came to find me. Found me outside on the window. The side roof. And, I was reading Julius Caesar and he came to join me. Kinda mulled everything over. He looked like his beer went bad. But I kind of saw it in his eyes. He knows why I don’t drink now, so things got really personal. Why do we just make out with the nearest person when we’re at our most vulnerable?”

Katrina laughed.

“See? Was that so hard to share?”

She cleared her throat and began to shuffle through a couple of papers on her desk.

“Well, I’m glad you came to see me, Terra,” she said, still looking around. Finally, she found Terra’s schedule in a binder and checked the time.

“You’re just in time for chemistry. Try not to skip, okay?”

Terra rolled her eyes at Katrina. “Yeah yeah, whatever.” She said, grabbing her bag and flipping it over her shoulder.

“I’ll try, but no promises. Mr. Harrison has the most monotone voice of all time. No offense to mechanical voices and Stephen Hawking, but yeah. That’s what it’s like.” She turns and leaves the room, going out into the hallway to find her locker and get her things for chemistry.
-----------
Silas had arrived to chemistry early as usual. He barely had enough time to finish all his homework with such a busy weekend. He had waken up extra early the morning after he spent the night at Terra’s house and called Eric to come pick him up. Of course, he had to explain everything to him, but Silas carefully left some not-so-needed parts out, like Terra and him having that weird, vulnerable makeout sesh.

He groaned in his desk. Just thinking about the weekend gave him a headache. Eric and the team were already talking about another party that Friday. How on earth did they keep up with such a lifestyle?

He pulled the hood of his hoodie over his head and laid his head down on the desk, trying to fit in a quick nap before class officially started.

After grabbing her things from her locker, Terra quickly came running to the class. She wasn’t late, she actually managed to get in just in time. Sure, kids were already seated but Mr. Harrison wasn’t ready to begin until the clock was EXACTLY the time to begin. On time by like 10 seconds. Terra walked over to the lacrosse players. giving a look to Eric who obviously stared at her in his paranoid suspicion. She just ignored him and sat right next to Silas. Placing her books down on her desk loud enough for him to hear in his mini-nap.

“Good morning!” Terra said, with excessive enthusiasm. Completely bounced back from the weekend. The party scene might not always be her scene, but she definitely had the non-stop energy to recover and do it again at any time. 

His face hidden from sight, Silas grimaced at the sound of books slamming next to him, followed by Terra’s enthusiastic salutation.

“Bad morning,” Silas replied, his voice muffled as he didn’t raise his head up from his desk.

“Some party,” someone on the lacrosse team said sarcastically to Terra. “Didn’t you know your dad was gonna come home?”

“Everyone else enjoyed the party, Gary. Just because you can’t get yourself laid even when you’re on the Lacrosse team doesn’t mean you should blame my dad for coming home when he said he’d be back another time. Sucks to suck, doesn’t it?” She shrugged, some other girls and guys chuckled at her comment. 

She turned back to Silas. “Maybe you need to just have a more positive attitude about mornings.”

Silas finally lifted up his head and rubbed his eyes, having not slept at all in those few minutes.

He was about to say something when Mr. Harrison began his lecture on thermodynamics. Thankfully, this was a topic with which Silas was already quite familiar, so he could risk not paying attention.

He turned to Terra and whispered, “Sorry for leaving so early.”

“Sorry it didn’t end quite the way we might have intended.” She teased him. “But, it was probably for the better.” Terra opened her book and scanned through the contents of the chapter.

Silas’s face turned red and he looked back at his desk without giving a proper reply to her. What was her deal anyway?

“Well, I was just so black-out drunk after all,” Silas said quietly.

“Yeah, Ms. Fierro knows you weren’t even buzzed. So that story won’t fly anymore.” Terra flipped the page. Looking down word for word as Mr. Harrison spoke.

“When I’m not grounded, wanna hang out?” She blurted out, looking at him. Quickly wiping the stupid grin from her face. “Well, we’ll chill anyway. Rules never bottled me up before.”

Silas was about to reply when Eric, who was two seats away from Silas on the opposite side from Terra, looked at him, shaking his head. Silas smiled and shrugged back at him before turning back to Terra.

“I’ve got lacrosse workouts almost every day,” Silas replied, giving her a wink that Eric could not see from his angle. “But we’ll see if I can work you into my schedule.”

Terra smirked and nodded her head. “Yeah, I’m sure something could happen. We’ll see when you’re not busy.” She wrote something on a piece of paper and tossed it to him.

It read. “Lunch in the locker room? We might be alone ;)”.

Silas read the note and quickly crumpled it up and shoved it into his pocket. He wanted to facepalm. He was nearly at the end of The Bronze Bow and was really looking forward to finishing it. He then just realized how nerdy that was and almost laughed at himself. This was daring, especially for Silas who was a good kid, but they could very easily pull it off, given that there was a locker room dedicated completely to sports players, which were abandoned during the day.

Silas nodded back at her, though the nervousness was already becoming apparent on his face. To try to calm his adrenaline rush, he tried to focus on the lecture for the rest of the class until the bell rang, signaling the end of class, and the start of their mission.