the way to the lab. What if I’ve gone mental, and it isn’t Nico at all? Does he even exist?
What if it is him? Then what?
I scan my ID at the door, walk across to the back bench and sit down, all before I dare look: not trusting my feet to still work if my eyes see what they can’t stop imagining.
And there he is: Mr Hatten, biology teacher. I stare, but that is all right, all the girls do. It isn’t just that he is too young and good-looking for a teacher; there is something about him. And it’s not just those eyes, that wavy streaked blond hair, longer than you’d expect for a teacher, or that he is so tall and totally fit – it is more than that. Something about the way he holds himself: still, yet poised for attack. Like a cheetah waiting for the moment to pounce. Everything about him says danger.
Nico. It really is Nico; no question, no doubt. His eyes, unforgettable pale blue with darker rims, sweep across the room. They stop when they reach mine. As I stare back there is a warm touch inside, a recognition, an almost physical shock that makes it real. When he finally looks away it is like being dropped from an embrace.
Not my imagination. Right now, across the room, it is Nico. No matter that I knew it, from memories of then and now, compared and held up close together. Until I saw him, myself, with these eyes that are new with understanding behind them, I didn’t know it in my guts.
Then I remember that although the girls in his classes may stare, I don’t; at least, not so much.
So through the lesson, I try not to, but it is a losing battle. His eyes flick to mine now and then. Do they hold curiosity? Questions? There is some dance of amused interest when they lightly touch mine.
Take care. Until I can work out what he is and what he wants, don’t let him know anything has changed. I force my eyes down to the notebook in front of me; to the pen that skips across the page, leaving behind random blue swirls, half-formed sketches where notes should be. Hand on autopilot.
The pen; the hand…left hand. It is clasped, without thought, in my left hand.
But I am right-handed. Aren’t I?
I must be right-handed!
Breath catches in my throat, my guts fill with terror. I start to shake.
Everything goes black.
She holds out her hand. Her right hand. Tears trickle down her face. ‘Please help me…’
She is so young, a child. With such pleading and fear in her eyes, I would do anything to help her, but I can’t reach her. The closer I get, the harder I try, the more her hand isn’t where it appears. With some optical trick she is always turned to her right. It is always too far away to grasp.
‘Please help me…’
‘Give me your other hand!’ I say, and she shakes her head, eyes wide. But I repeat the demand, until finally she raises her left hand from where she held it beside her, out of sight.
The fingers are twisted, bloody. Broken. A sudden vision flashes in my mind: a brick. Fingers smashed with a brick. I gasp.
I can’t grasp her hand, not when it is like that.
Her hands drop. She shakes her head, fading. Shimmering until I can see through her like mist.
I lunge for her, but it is too late.
She is gone.
‘I’m all right now. I just didn’t get enough sleep last night, that’s all. I’m fine,’ I insist. ‘Can I go to my last class?’
The school nurse doesn’t smile. ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ she says.
She scans my Levo, frowns. My stomach clenches, afraid what it will show. My levels should have dropped low after what happened: nightmares sometimes even made me black out when it was functioning as it is meant to. But who knows what it is doing now?
‘Looks like you just fainted; your levels have been fine. Good, even. Did you have any lunch?’
Give her a reason.
‘No. I wasn’t hungry,’ I lie.
She shakes her head. ‘Kyla, you need to eat.’ She lectures on blood sugar, feeds me tea and biscuits, and, before she disappears out the door, tells me to sit quietly in her office until the final bell.
Alone, I can’t stop my thoughts spinning around. The girl with the broken hand in my nightmare, or vision, or whatever it was…I know who she is. I