Harris Institute for Gifted Students by Pineapple | Content warnings
The week had stretched into too taking long, but classes would restart tomorrow and everything would return to normal. Except that nothing was normal and would never be normal again. Headmaster Harris had announced another assembly for that morning. Two in one semester was unheard of. Sofia felt like she’d seen and heard more of this man in the last week than she had in her whole school career until now.
After the first one, after everything, Sofia felt like it was pointless to go and listen to the lies he’d spew. Whatever cover-up he’d offer to students not involved, whatever The Council had decided to say happened to Alaric of the Light… Sofia didn’t want to know.
Instead, she found herself in the clinic, checking up on Melissa and Sahar.
It wasn’t as if Sofia and Sahar were super close now, but Sofia could see why so many people had wanted to help him. Though he was still bedridden, he was cheerful and bright in more ways than one.
“Hey,” he said. Casual, friendly. Like he wasn’t at death’s door a few days ago. “I thought the old man was giving a speech today?”
Sofia shrugged, dragging a stool over to take a seat close by.
“Bad girl,” he reprimanded good naturedly, lips quirking up as he settled into his pillows. And then, like they were old confidants, “you know, I think Greyson is the happiest I’ve ever seen him. Even since his first year.”
“He puts on that cynical front, but he’s been in good spirits,” Melissa added fondly. She flipped through a few pages at her desk, pretending like she was working.
“He seems… lighter, right?” Sahar says. “I feel like I should thank you, Sofia. And apologize.”
Sofia shrank back. “I don’t really think I had anything to do with it,” she said. “We aren’t that close. He’s probably just happy you’re okay.”
Sahar shook his head, regretted it, and closed his eyes with a grimace. “It’s more than that,” he said, resting an arm across his face. “He’s getting along with Mr. Brady, too. He said you talked to him about that.”
Sofia felt a blush crawl up the back of her neck.
Melissa caught her eye across Sahar’s bed and stifled a laugh behind her hand.
“It must have been hard on you,” he said. “Sam and Greyson… and you and Ray, too… you guys all have something you can’t take back now because of me.”
Sofia looked down at her hands in her lap and picked at her peeling cuticles. “I couldn’t ignore something like that,” she said softly. “I couldn’t just…”
There was a small, polite knock on the door. Sahar uncovered his eyes to look at the doorway.
“I guess we had the same idea,” Greyson said from the doorway, knuckles resting against the wood. Samuel was at his side, as always.
“Is the assembly out already?” Melissa asked.
Samuel shrugged as he found himself a seat. “Dunno. We were with The Council,” he answered. “Greyson didn’t want to go check it out.”
“Delinquents, the lot of you,” Sahar decreed.
“It’s all bullshit, anyway” Greyson said, perching at the end of Sahar’s bed. “Who cares?”
Melissa very near pouted. “Good to see your cynicism is back in full force.”
Sofia watched the animated way Greyson talked. Was he happier lately? She couldn’t help but wonder if he was, and if she felt the same.
“Samuel,” Sahar said, reaching out with a small smile. “Come closer.”
Samuel reluctantly slid the stool he was on closer. He let Sahar grab a hold of his hand. “You’re being strange.”
“I was just telling Sofia that Greyson seemed happier these days,” he said. “So why is it that you’re so sad?”
There was a small twitch in Samuel’s face that gave him away.
“The Council wants to call him ‘The Dark Star,'” Greyson quipped. Sahar kicked him from underneath the blankets.
“I’m not unhappy,” Samuel said finally. He looked up, even swung their hangs between them a little. “I don’t… like the attention. The title. I don’t want the recognition. But… Greyson’s worries are gone now, aren’t they?”
Greyson smiled, a private little thing he tried to hide. He looked away, towards the door.
“He doesn’t have to worry about accidentally hurting anyone anymore,” Samuel explained. “My sister is happy. And I don’t have to worry about Alaric pressuring me into doing something I don’t want to do. I can do things my own way.”
Melissa set her pen down, resting her face in her hands to look at her brother. “You’re worried The Council will make you do things their way?”
Sam scoffed out a laugh. “I’m wondering if a title will make it easier to balk their requests of me,” he said.
“Probably,” Sofia answered. “And you’ll have us to keep you busy anyway, right?”
His mischievous smile grew. “I’m sure I’ll be far too busy to entertain them,” he agreed.
It was after spending the morning with Gresyon and Samuel in the clinic that Sofia ran into the twins. She didn’t recognize them at first as they walked across the field.
Well, that’s not strictly true. Sofia didn’t recognize Sumire.
They were a few yards ahead of her, walking the same way, towards the cafeteria. Sugi was wearing sweats and a baggy shirt, and there was someone next to him that Sofia didn’t know.
“Sugi!” Sofia shouted.
He turned and waved. The person he was with turned, too.
Sofia tripped over her feet in surprise.
It was Sumire, but her hair was cut short. A choppy, pixie-bob hair cut. Just a bit longer than her brother’s was, feminine in an edgy, high-fashion way. “Hey,” she greeted. “What’s with the face?”
“You,” Sofia stammered, “your hair.”
“Doesn’t it look good?” Sugi grinned. “She asked me to cut it!”
Sumire was blushing, embarrassed.
“It looks great.” Sofia couldn’t keep her eyes off it. It suited her much better than the long, straight look, but it would take some getting used to for sure.
“I just felt like something different,” Sumire muttered, fussing with it. “We were going to meet Mickey and Marjani for lunch. You coming?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said, falling into step with the two as they made their way across the field.
“Sofie, tell me,” Sugi started. “I think Sumi should start training with someone else. You were with her and Ben when we were in the final battle. What do you think of the two of them?”
Sumire shot a glare at her brother. “Don’t say it like that,” she said.
Sugi just smiled a shit-eating grin.
“I mean, they worked well together,” Sofia agreed. “You don’t want to, Sumire?”
“Of course I do,” she admitted, like it was obvious and stupid. “But I’m sure he has better things to do. And why would I, when I have you guys?”
Sugi sighed, his expression becoming far-off as he caught sight of Mickey and Marjani. “I’m not so simple,” Sugi answered. “I still have lots to learn. I don’t want to hold you back.”
“You aren’t—”
Sugi looked straight at Sumire then, grabbing the sleeve of her shirt. “It’s okay,” he said preemptively. “It’s okay if you want to do it. I don’t want to be your excuse.”
Mickey stood up across the room and waved them over, as if anyone would be able to miss the bright colored sweater Marjani was wearing.
Sofia looked at the twins, then at Mickey. She waved so Mickey would sit down again.
“I’m not afraid of being left behind,” she heard Sugi say. “So don’t be afraid to go ahead. I’ll always be supporting you, whether it’s at your side or your back.”
“Okay,” Sumire said. “Okay.”
Sugi smiled again, bright as the sun. “Let’s go eat.”
Sofia went straight to the table while the twins went to get food.
Mickey was looking between her and her seatmate with a shaky smile, pink high on her cheeks. “Hi, Sofia” she greeted, her voice pitchy.
“What’s going on?” Sofia asked slowly, looking between the two.
“Oh, nothing!” Mickey answered, too quickly to be true.
“I’m asking her advice,” Marjani said, her voice and her face serious.
Mickey’s head dropped to the table.
“What would you do in my position, Sofia?” Marjani asked. Mickey’s pathetic groan went unnoticed by Marjani’s blunt nature. “I’m in love with Ben, but I don’t want to give up my path for a man.”
“Love,” Mickey echoed, high-pitched and squeaky. She raised her head. “You love him?”
Marjani nodded without hesitation.
Mickey gestured to her like Sofia would understand what she meant.
“Uh,” Sofia stalled. She dragged her eyes away from Mickey to look at Marjani, but the frank expression wasn’t much better. “Have you asked him what he wants?”
“He has expressed that I should do what I want,” Marjani answered, open and honest. “But I’m not sure what that is. I fear this is the first time I feel unsure about what I should do.”
“Well, um…” Sofia looked at Mickey and then back to Marjani. The twins were in line, waiting to order. Sugi was playfully slapping at Sumire’s arm. “Well it’s obvious he likes you a lot, too. But you know… Melissa almost lost her boyfriend, even though he’s a gifted alchemist. I think I’d be too scared to wait after everything.”
Mickey leaned back in her chair, rocking on the back two legs. “I broke up with my boyfriend because it didn’t seem fair to him… if anything happened to me, he wouldn’t have any way of knowing. I didn’t want him to have to wait around and wonder. But you’re different from me and Melissa. Ben could go with you after this year. You two work so well together.”
“So you think I should wait for him?”
“Not necessarily.”
Marjani frowned, puffing her cheeks out. She looked cuter than Sofia had ever seen her when she was like this. “This is not advice, Mickey,” she said.
“I can’t tell you what to do, Marj!” she groaned out, like she was mourning the whole situation. “You have to make the decision. I think that’s probably what Ben wants most. Is just to know that you’re committed enough to think about it and decide something.”
She hummed. “Hm.” And then: “I invited him to join us for lunch as well.”
Sugi and Sumire finally slid into seats across from Mickey and Marjani, on the other side of Sofia. “Who is joining us?” Sugi asked.
“Ben,” Marjani answered.
Mickey looked positively mortified. “You couldn’t give me some kind of warning?”
Marjani shrugged as she checked her phone. “He says he is on his way.”
Sofia drummed her fingers on the edge of the table. She didn’t want to wait, she could feel it in her gut. She’d felt it since they faced off with Alaric, since after that. There was a hum in the back of her mind she couldn’t escape from and didn’t really want to. Sofia wondered if she understood Marjani better than she thought. “Maybe you should go and—”
“I’ll go meet him,” Marjani said, standing up, staring at her screen. She probably didn’t even realize how she looked, how big her smile was, how her eyes sparkled as she typed back a response. Her heels clicked on the tile as she walked out to find him.
“She didn’t even want to eat until he got here,” Mickey said, like she was tattling.
Sugi slurped his drink.
“Okay, well, I’ll go get food,” Sofia decided finally. “Back in a few.”
Sofia searched for the shortest line before settling on a sandwich and a soup.
She heard familiar voices drift from around a pillar in the middle of the cafeteria and suddenly regretted her choice. It was too close to the door and Sofia nearly froze in her spot.
“If you don’t want to wait for me, I understand,” Marjani was saying, “and I apologize for keeping you waiting this long.”
Ben’s laugh was forced. Self depreciating in a way that was trying desperately to keep the mood light. “Jeez, Marj, I think this is the first time you’ve apologized to me for something,” he said. “What’s the occasion?”
“I’m going to make preparations to leave on my journey as a hero officially,” she answered, matter-of-fact.
“Oh.”
Sofia could hear the heartbreak in his voice. When she moved forward in line, she could see it splayed out across his face, too.
“That’s great, Marjani,” he said thickly. He visibly swallowed around a lump in his throat. “What’s all this about waiting then?”
Marjani took his hands. “I love you,” she said. “And I don’t want to be apart from you.”
“Then why…”
“The two of us will be unstoppable. But we aren’t yet,” she said, rubbing her thumbs over his knuckles. “I need to know that if something happens, I can protect you on my own.”
“You know you could.”
“I do not know that,” she argued. “We were separated. And I need to know you’ll be able to protect us if I cannot.”
Ben nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I get it.”
“I’m not Melissa, and I’m not Mickey. I won’t just accept it if you’re not there and I won’t let you go. May I kiss you?”
“Hey now, that’s my line.” Ben pulled her gently by their hands. She took a step forward and, with a click of her heels, they met in the middle.
Sofia quickly looked away, realizing she was a few steps behind in line.
“You’ll come back for me next fall?” He asked and kissed her again.
She hummed into his mouth.
Sofia grabbed her food and went back to the table with the growing feeling that Ben and Marjani wouldn’t actually be joining them for lunch.
It was quiet that night in her dorm room. It was boring, lying there in bed, waiting for it to get late enough to go to sleep so that she could go to class the next morning. Sofia thought, if she tried hard enough, she could hear Ray’s music tickling the back of her brain. It wasn’t loud enough, not nearly noisy enough to distract her from the way she was itching with anxiety about struggling to return to whatever “normal” was supposed to be.
“Want to go play ball?” Vanessa asked, her voice floating across the small space between their beds.
She was parallel to Sofia, a perfect match. In her own bed, staring up at the ceiling, restless with energy. She’d been tossing a baseball up into the air and catching it. A nervous habit. She’d been doing it since their first year—any time before any kind of written exam or before midterms, she fidgeted with a baseball in her hands.
Sofia was no good at catch, but she sat up anyway. “Sure.”
Vanessa was grinning when she rolled up and out of her tangle of sheets. She tossed Sofia an extra mitt and then they headed out to the yard where the baseball field was, tossing the ball up, down, up, down the whole time.
They tossed the ball back and forth a few times, nice and easy. The breeze was cool. It had been a nice day, but now that the sun was setting, it was edging on chilly. Sofia thought she’d be cold if she wasn’t moving around, doing something, though it was Vanessa doing most of the running.
It wasn’t long before Mickey stopped by to watch. “Hey,” she said. Vanessa tossed her an easy one, and Mickey caught it with ease before lobbing it back. “Got a minute?”
“You sound serious,” Vanessa noted, tilting her head. She rolled out her wrists and moved in, throwing the ball up in the air to herself. “What’s up?”
Sofia pulled her jacket tighter around her, bouncing up closer to hear the situation.
Mickey bit her lip, eyes straying to the ground.
“Everything okay?” Sofia asked. And then, to ease the growing tension, “Marjani and Ben never came back, did they?”
Mickey laughed. “No, they didn’t,” she said, glancing up at Sofia. “I was thinking about what you said, though. About not waiting.”
Sofia nodded, urging her.
“So I’m taking a break,” Mickey said. “From school.”
Vanessa fumbled, her baseball falling to the ground. “Sorry,” she muttered, embarrassed, moving quickly to grab it. “What?”
Mickey put her hands behind her back to hide that she seemed to be trying to knot her fingers together in some sort of complicated origami. “Yeah,” she said, teetering on nervous. “I just… I have to. There’s so much I left undone at home and…”
“You’re leaving,” Vanessa said listlessly.
Sofia put a hand on Vanessa’s shoulder before she could start to spiral. “Are you gonna come back?”
“The plan is to come back next semester,” she said. “In the winter.”
Vanessa started moving the ball from one hand to the other. Not quite throwing it exactly, but almost.
“An old friend of mine died and I… want to say a proper goodbye,” Mickey explained. “And I need to explain to my ex why I did what I did.”
“Yeah,” Sofia agreed. “That’s good. Right, Vanessa?”
Vanessa didn’t answer, and Mickey looked between the two of them, struggling for something, for a good enough reason, something to placate her friends and the situation. “I don’t think I’ll be able to join you on the same track, though,” she said, “when I come back.”
Vanessa let the baseball fall from her hands. Intentionally this time, by the looks of it. “What are you saying?” she asked.
Mickey smiled. Something sad and private. “I don’t want this to ever become a possibility again. If I have to give up my boyfriend at home, it’s the least I could do compared to Sofia and to Samuel. Even to you, Vanessa.”
“I didn’t do anything special, Mickey.” Vanessa sounded a little bit like she wanted to cry.
“You were our leader,” Mickey said. “You took on a burden nobody else could. Do you think I didn’t notice how worried you are about everyone?”
Vanessa ground her teeth together. “What’s the point of coming back, then? You said this was the point when you woke up, but what is it?”
Mickey gestured between the two of them slowly. “This is,” she said. “We are.”
Vanessa scoffed, looking away, maybe at the ball she’d left on the ground. She scrubbed at her eyes with the edge of her sleeve.
“I want to come back to train to be an instructor,” Mickey explained. “Nobody else will go missing. Nobody else will have to worry someone won’t come back.”
“I’m worried,” Vanessa argued.
“You know,” Mickey started. She grinned so bright, but Sofia could see it was just to keep herself from crying. “You guys really are my best friends.”
“You’d better come back, then,” Vanessa said, petulant.
“I have to go pack,” Mickey said. Then, she wrapped her long arms around Sofia to hug her, and then she hugged Vanessa. When she stepped back, her face was wet, her voice soft. “How could I leave this behind?”
“You’ll be back,” Sofia said, patting her on the shoulder.
Mickey waved, and Mickey went back to her dorm room. Sofia watched her go, unaware that Vanessa had even moved until she heard her.
“Damn it!” She yelled. She threw the ball hard across the field.
It soared, flashing blue and yellow by the time Sofia turned around to see it. Sofia reached out a hand, extending her mind further, further, until she could stop it with her own powers, her telekinesis.
Vanessa stopped to look at her, dumbfounded. “What was that for?”
Sofia shrugged, shooting it back their way so Vanessa could catch it. “I could ask you the same,” she said.
Vanessa had to jump for it. It must have been harder than Sofia thought, because switched hands so she could shake the blood back into her dominant one. “Nothing,” she said. “I just…”
“Just?”
“I feel like I failed everyone,” Vanessa said, staring at the ball in her hands. The way she had to flex to get the feeling back after catching Sofia’s throw. “I wasn’t a good leader.”
“What?”
“If I was better, stronger… maybe Mickey wouldn’t leave. Maybe Samuel and Greyson wouldn’t be bound by an unbreakable spell. Even you have your brain mixed up with Ray because of all this…”
Sofia cocked her head. “I don’t… mind the thing with Ray. And Samuel and Greyson are fine, too. You didn’t make us do any of those things. We did them on our own because we wanted to help Sahar or because we wanted to do the right thing.”
Vanessa kicked up the dirt around her shoes. The grass was starting to die in the changing weather. There were a few especially crunchy leaves on the sidewalks, when walking from building to building. Sofia hadn’t taken the time to notice until now how much time had passed.
“I don’t know if I can do this again,” Vanessa admitted, voice soft.
“Of course you can,” Sofia argued. “You can do whatever you want.”
“Everyone survived, but at what cost?” Vanessa mused, starting to toss the ball to herself again. Up. Down.
“The fact that you care is important,” Sofia said. “I like that you care and that you’re afraid. You don’t have to be perfect about it, you know.”
“I know that,” Vanessa bit out.
Up.
Down.
“I’m just… I could have done more. I thought maybe if I… I thought if I switched to a support position, I wouldn’t have to deal with this.”
Up.
Sofia caught the ball out of midair. “Of course you would have to,” she said.
“Hey—”
“This can’t be the same girl who started her very own little rec team on campus?” Sofia teased.
Vanessa pouted. “It’s not little.”
Sofia laughed as Vanessa grabbed the ball right out of Sofia’s telekinetic hold.
“And why not?” Vanessa asked petulantly.
“You—Vanessa—who gags every time she sees Ben and Marjani making googly eyes at each other?” she clarified. “You pretend that you don’t care but you care so much. You’d be upset whether you were leading us or supporting us.”
Vanessa was starting to blush. “Sofia—”
“I know it’s hard,” she said, extending a hand out. “I know it hurts. But we survived. We’re okay, right?”
Vanessa sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Look,” Sofia said. She took a step closer to Vanessa. “We made our own choices and we’ll live with them. You didn’t do that for us. We’re okay and we’re together. And that’s the point.”
“Yeah?”
Sofia nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go get ready for bed. We have class tomorrow.”
Vanessa breathed out a laugh and agreed.
Sahar was sitting in Ms. Fatima’s office when Sofia arrived for class. He was relaxed and upright. He had several earrings in each ear, rings on nearly every finger, and lots of bracelets and necklaces. Each of them was adorned with metals or precious jewels that, Sofia imagined, were used for his alchemy. He looked more like a person and less like a patient here, in his own clothes and out of the sterile backdrop of the clinic.
“Hey, Sof,” he said, waving.
“What are you doing here?” Sofia asked, sitting down next to him as Ms. Fatima directed. “I mean—I’m glad, but confused?”
Sahar laughed. “Well, Alaric was technically my overseeing instructor, but I worked with Ms. Ximenez a lot, too,” he explained. “And Ms. Clara, as well, since she works with potions. I asked them a lot about my research.”
Ms. Fatima leaned forward at her desk, cupping her face in her hands. “Sahar is an excellent student, and it’s wonderful to have him back. But actually, he stopped by for you.”
“For me?” Sofia echoed. Her head snapped from looking at Ms. Fatima to look at Sahar.
“She’s exaggerating,” Sahar said with another little laugh. “I was just finishing up what I was working on. I’ve been testing it out over the week. Ms. Ximenez has been helping me since I’ve been bedridden, but I wanted to give you yours personally.”
“What…?” she asked. She looked between the two, but neither of them were giving anything away. She felt something creeping up on her. “My what? I already told you that you didn’t need to thank me for anything.”
“It isn’t anything like that,” he said. He leaned back in his seat to reach into his pants pocket. He pulled out a small glass vial. “It’s fuzzy, but I still have some of the knowledge from when I ascended. I used it to make this.”
Sahar held out the bottle and Sofia took it. It was the size of her pinky, maybe, and filled with a pretty blue liquid, the color of the ocean. It sparkled in the candle light of Ms. Fatima’s office. “What is it?” she asked.
“It’s a potion for your telekinesis,” he said, looking proud, just shy of smug. “Ms. Ximenez had mentioned that you have bad days where things get too loud. This should help block those unwanted brainwaves without hindering your own electric pulses.”
Too loud, Sofia echoed hollowly. Lately, if anything, it was too quiet.
“Ah,” Ms. Fatima said. She hid her lipstick smile behind a slim finger. “Another surprise.”
The door clicked, and Sofia turned to look and see who was joining them.
It was Ray, standing in front of her, outside of his room.
“You gave him some, too?” Sofia asked, not taking her eyes away from the man in front of her.
“He’ll be joining us officially next semester,” Ms. Fatima said. “Just to get back into the swing of things.”
“That’s why it was so quiet?” Sofia asked. She was scared to take her eyes off of him, afraid it was an illusion. That she’d look away and Ray would be gone, locked away in his room and away from her again.
Ray shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. “They insisted.” His real, tangible voice.
“We were testing it out,” Ms. Fatima explained.
“I figured,” Sahar said, “what was the point of all of that if I couldn’t help anybody with what I’d learned, anyway?”
What was the point indeed, Ray thought to her. She heard it loud and clear.
End.
JAAM Writing 