Unfaded (4 page)

             
There were other people too. I recognized a bunch of kids from school in the background. The barista from behind the counter had come over too. She had a towel wrapped firmly through her fingers.

             
“What happened?” My tongue was rough and grainy. If I turned my head I wondered if I’d spit up ashes. I could taste them in the back of my throat. Above me, my computer was on the table, along with the drink I hadn’t tasted. My chair was on the ground beside me, tipped over presumably when I fell.

             
“You fainted,” Amber said. Her voice was shaky but still in control. “You just fell down and smacked your head.”

             
I tried to move again but they all continued to hold me down. Claire was pushing down on my arms so much it was beginning to go numb from lack of blood flow.

             
“Maybe you shouldn’t move,” Claire said. “Your head actually bounced when you hit the ground. You might have broken something.”

             
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just let me up.”

             
The hands pulled away from my body and Connor helped me into a sitting position. Claire rushed around to stand behind me in case my neck started to flap uncontrollably.

             
The crowd surrounding me pulled back a little and people started returning to their tables. But my little episode still hung in the air like a bad smell. Everyone continued to watch me carefully in case something else happened. A few people were talking and I even heard a bit of laughter. Hopefully it was the shocked, surprised kind that sometimes comes out during bad situations. My cheeks burned as I repressed the thoughts about what kind of gossip would be circling the school tomorrow morning.

I could see some of the kids pulling out their phones. This sort of thing was the type to make headline news.
I decided that if someone snapped a picture I was going to really give them something to talk about.

             
“How do you feel?” Connor asked as he helped me rise to my feet. I was a little shaky so I didn’t complain when Amber pulled out her chair and forced me into it.

             
“My head hurts,” I said.

             
“No wonder,” Claire said. “You smacked it pretty hard. I’ll go get you some ice.” She turned and raced off towards the counter.

             
“I’ll take you home,” Connor said. Kneeling down beside me, he picked up my bag and jacket from where they had fallen off my chair. Amber dutifully began to pack up my laptop, even remembering to save my essay before she closed the lid.

             
“Maybe we should take her to emergency,” Eugene said.

             
“No,” I said a bit more forcibly than I probably should have. But if I didn’t make it clear I’d end up having to deal with the same comments for the rest of the evening. Besides, if I left now it would just leave the gossipers more to talk about. “I’m all right. Honest. I just want to finish my English assignment.”

             
“Are you serious?” Amber asked, pausing as she was about to unplug my computer. “You want to stay? You do realise your head just rebounded off the floor, right?”

             
“I’ve got a hard skull,” I said. “And that’s what I want to do. At least let me finish my drink. You can rush me to emergency if anything weird happens.”

             
Everyone returned to their table but Amber sat closer to me than she really should have. Claire came back with ice wrapped in a towel and I held it to my head for a bit until the pain subsided.

             
They weren’t happy with me but they listened to my wishes.

             
What had just happened? I had never in my life had a seizure of any sort so I had no idea what sort of things went through people’s minds when they blacked out. For all I knew it might be perfectly normal to end up in a field with a bunch of people fighting in leather armour. Maybe it was something from my psyche, some sort of deep hidden rebellion. Perhaps my mind was telling me I wanted to take fencing classes or something.

             
The girl with the black curls. She was so familiar to me. I could have sworn I knew her from somewhere. Just like how earlier, Kian had felt like some sort of long lost friend. But that made no sense. A real life event couldn’t trigger some sort of weird brain event—could it?

             
Maybe I was growing one of those tumours you hear so much about on the television.

             
Needless to say I wasn’t really able to concentrate on my paper so I pretty much just sat in front of the computer for the next hour and drank my macchiato which didn’t take long to grow cold. I ignored the concerned glances my friends kept giving me and gave them my ‘I’m fine’ answer every time they double and triple checked.

             
Finally I gave up and started to pack up my computer. I ignored all the offers of rides home; I was perfectly able to drive myself. My head had stopped hurting shortly after the ordeal and in all honesty I felt fine. Better than fine. It was as if nothing had happened.

             
I waved to all my friends and allowed Connor to walk me to my car. I allowed him to kiss me but I wouldn’t let him follow me home to make sure I was all right. Of course he ignored me and drove behind me until I got about a block from home. Honking his horn, he flashed his brights twice and did a U-turn.

I just didn’t want everyone making such a big fuss over something that would never happen again.
It was just a onetime thing. I was sure of it.

The next morning I was up and out the door before anyone else.
I was worried and with good reason. Word got around in Addison and I wouldn’t have been surprised if about ten or more people had called Dad last night to inform him of my little accident. And if they hadn’t called him last night, they’d absolutely let him know today. I wasn’t in the mood to start answering questions about whether or not I had a concussion, tumour, or some sort of fatal disease that first showed itself through fainting spells. I hated it when Dad worried about me; he had enough problems with Granny.

Last night when I got home
Dad was gone and I was thankful for that. Sometimes he went out with some friends to play poker or have a few drinks over at the tiny pub at Thelma’s motel. Usually he spent his evenings with Marley watching television in the living room. Tonight Marley was asleep on the couch by herself and I didn’t bother to wake her. Granny was listening to her iPod and curled up with the electric blanket turned to the highest setting. I turned it down so she wouldn't burn and carefully pulled the earphones off her head and went into my room. I was too exhausted to do anything except brush my teeth and crawl under the covers.

I managed to fall asleep quickly and when I woke the next morning I felt fine. There was no pain f
rom where my head hit the floor, I wasn’t seeing double, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t slipped into a coma during the night.

The main roads were in the process of being
plowed. The storm hadn't been nearly as bad as predicted. Not that the white stuff ever slowed us down. I drove across town to grab a coffee mostly because I didn’t want to go to Bean Town. I didn't want to go back to the scene of the crime. It meant going out of my way but at least I was less likely to run into anyone who had witnessed my weird episode. I grabbed a quick coffee from the drive through and headed to class.

Because of my
newfound desire for being punctual, I arrived at school way before the bell. There were only a few other cars in the parking lot. Coffee in hand, I snuck off into the library to hide in the back where I found a copy of Frankenstein which I thumbed through for the next half hour. I had all ready read it, even though we weren’t really supposed to be studying the book until my final year. It was one of my little known secrets. I liked old books. I read Beowulf, Shakespeare, Jane Austin, Ernest Hemmingway, and others. I understood them all too. Maybe this was why my grades were always tops in English class and teachers always enjoyed calling on me when they wanted questions answered correctly. But like my friends, I groaned and complained when teachers pulled out copies of King Lear and the Canterbury Tales. I pretended that I was just like them, completely uninterested in anything that involved learning. Not to say that I didn’t have a mind of my own. I just liked having a secret.

             
As I thumbed through the book, my mind wandered away from the words on the pages. I was having a weird connection with the strange dream I had last night when I found myself on the coffee shop floor. Was it a dream? It couldn’t be a vision, those are supposed to be prophetic, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t something that was going to happen in the future. It was more like something that happened somewhere in the past—none of the clothes I’d seen were something you’d pick out of the latest fashion magazine.

             
I wasn’t psychic, I was pretty sure I would know if I were.

So what was it?
Was it just a dream? If so then why did it feel so familiar? It was almost as if I had relived a memory I had forgotten. Just like how sometimes I could remember something I did when I was younger, like falling off my bicycle, or the time Stevie Horowitz pulled down my pants at my seventh birthday party.

But that was impossible unless I was reliving some sort of past life and I didn’t believe in that sort of thing.

I didn’t leave the library until just before the bell rang and then I had to dash to Algebra class. No one seemed to be looking at me. Last night's episode hadn't made the rounds yet. Maybe people were still talking about how Suzy Wallace got stuck climbing back in her bedroom window last week, after spending the night with her boyfriend when she was supposed to be grounded. Her parents had to call the fire department to cut her free and now everyone in the school had given her the nick ‘Wide Load’. Poor Suzy.

My next class was Biology and
I grabbed my seat beside Connor at the last possible second so there wasn’t any time for him to start asking questions.

“I tried calling you this morning,” he said, ignoring the fact that Mrs. Perkins had started talking.
She wasn’t the most observable teacher and we sat at the back. When we weren’t doing experiments she mostly wrote notes down on the board. She had dark grey hair and talked in a monotone voice. It seemed to be a standard quality when schools picked out science teachers.

“My phone was turned off,” I said. “I forgot to charge the battery last night.”

“Are you--,”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you but I woke up late.”

              OK, this was a first for me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually lied to my boyfriend. And I knew I should be feeling guilty for doing it but I didn’t. I was just relieved that I hadn’t talked to him earlier. It wasn’t much of a lie anyway, was it so wrong that I just wanted to have a bit of time to myself without having to answer tons of questions?

             
Fortunately for me the rest of the morning went rather quickly. I don’t know why I was continuing to be anti-social girl but by lunch time, I was finally in the mood to return to my normal self and socialize. It wasn’t that I had some sort of grand revelation or anything—I just finally accepted that whatever happened last night was a onetime occurrence and I was being silly trying to spend the rest of my waking life analyzing it.

             
It also helped that no one noticed my short mental absence. When I arrived in the cafeteria, my group of friends were in our usual table and no one gave me weird looks when I waved at them. At least no one at my table. A few of the cheerleaders were glancing in my direction and Breanna Johnson turned to Sue Chabotski and started laughing. Ignoring them, I grabbed a can of iced tea from the drink machine and got in line to get some fries.

I did however get the third degree
once I sat down.

“How are you f
eeling?” Claire asked. “I tried calling this morning but your Dad said you were already gone. Did you tell him?”

“No,” I said. “I’m sure the rest of the town has alerted him. I’ll
probably be off to the emergency room the second I get home. But I’m feeling fine,” I added just because Amber looked stricken when I mentioned the hospital. So much for trying to be funny when no one else understood my sense of humour.

“It’s weird,” Eugene said. “You’ve never fainted before. Not since I’ve known you. You haven’t
, right?”

“
Nope, never.” Claire took the liberty to answer for me. “Not even the time we gave blood last Christmas. Remember that? I thought Breanna looked good that particular shade of green. But you were solid as a rock, Mai.”

"
Lack of coffee can sometimes put me into a deep coma,” I said. “You’ve never seen me go an entire day without a latte. It’s not pretty.”

“I did once,” Amber said. “It was terrifying and we shall never talk about it again. I still have the scars.”