The Choices We Make

Tick tock. Tick tock. I looked at the clock. It was moving slowly. I wasn’t even supposed to be in this class. It was my free period. But my best friend was about to give a presentation, and she was a terrible public speaker. She always stuttered and got clammy and freaked out. Her anxiety had a habit of getting the best of her. So instead of enjoying my study hall, I was watching terrible presentations put on by average middle-class American teenagers, talking about things that mattered to them that really didn’t matter at all.

“Alexandra Marks.” Mrs. Johnson called out, after the clapping of the last presentation ended.

Lexy stood up slowly and straightened out her sweater before turning back toward me with a nervous smile.

I nodded encouragingly at her, but I knew there was really only one way this was going to end. I had sat through every presentation she had given in English this semester. I had helped her practice each one. I knew she knew the stuff she was talking about. But I also knew it would be painful to watch.

“The common reasons many teenagers turn away from their parents and start trying to practice magic or other supernatural things,” A mouth full in itself, but Lex rushed through it.

She had always been the kind of person who didn’t like boring. And she had been fascinated with the supernatural world since 7th grade when we discovered my house was haunted.

Now, we were freshmen, and her obsession had tampered off a little to only watching Ghost Adventures on Saturday nights, a show that only terrified me, but had been our tradition for the past 2 years.

But this project had opened a whole new can of worms. If I had thought she was obsessed in 7th grade, that was nothing. This was her project for the next four years. This was her baby. Bringing to light the similarities between religions and fables and cultures. Anything and everything, she had a hundred pages already. It was what she loved to do in our free time. Some would call it crazy, but I knew it was because there was something different about us, and she just wanted answers.

Finally, she stumbled to the end of the presentation and the bell rang.

“You did great,” I told her as we picked up our books and made our way to our lockers.

“It was disaster.” She replied with a sigh. “I should never be allowed to speak in front of anyone ever again. This was a thrilling project that should have had everyone’s attention, but instead those who did pay attention were laughing at me, and everyone else was thinking about random stuff that was totally irrelevant and way less entertaining than my presentation.”

“You listen to people’s thoughts while you’re up there?” I laughed as I traded my books for my lunch.

“Well, I can’t block them when I’m trying not to throw up.” She answered, her tone defeated.

“Maybe that’s your problem.” I told her, nudging her as she closed her locker.

“Well, I hope not,” She let out a chuckle, “it’s not a problem I can fix.”

I shook my head as she put her headphones in. We were headed to the cafeteria, and if the noise level there wasn’t bad enough, I couldn’t imagine how loud Lexy’s head used to get.

I used to wonder why she sat alone during lunches, just listening to her music. I always thought it was weird. No one ever sat alone during lunch. I mean, even the ‘weird’ kids seemed to have a group. But I learned later that it was because she couldn’t bear the flood of thoughts. There were too many people to block out and she couldn’t handle it. Music though, could drown it out. A trick she had figured out forever ago. If she turned it up loud enough, she could ignore the thoughts protruding into her head.

Now though, I didn’t allow her to sit alone. But we had an agreement. In winter, we would go make an appearance in the cafeteria then eat in the library and when the weather was warm enough, we would eat outside. The cafeteria affected me too, so I was never opposed to eating away from it. Not since I discovered I could feel other people’s emotions and see things happen before they did or as they did. That’s how I learned about Lexy’s problems. I felt she was upset one day. We weren’t even in the same class, but I could feel someone was upset, and then when I closed my eyes, I saw her crying in the bathroom.

Me, being young and stuff, didn’t understand, so I went to the bathroom only to find out her dad was having health problems, and she was in a tough spot. Of course though, that was only the beginning for us. Neither of us told the other about our gift for a while. But the closer we got, the easier it became to talk about it. The more we understood that we were different.

I nudged Lex as our mutual friend passed us in the hall, and she immediately pulled an earphone out so we could talk to them for a moment. She made it look so natural; you would never have guessed she even had headphones in to begin with.

“How did the presentation go, Lexy?” Marianne asked.

“You already know.” Lexy answered, making it sound like a joke.

Marianne laughed at the joke.

“Are you guys eating in the café today?”

“Nah, we gotta hit the books.” I answered. “Grabbing drinks and going to the library.”

“You guys are no fun!” She called back at us as she walked away.

Lexy smiled as we turned back toward the café, but her headphones were already back in.

The cafeteria was louder than usual when we walked in. I turned toward Lexy to make a comment about it, but she had her game face on, and her music so loud I could hear the steady beat. Sometimes, I forgot she wore the headphones. We had signals that if I needed her, I could get her attention. But most of the time we could be together in a comfortable silence.

We then separated like we normally did, where she would go buy her meal, and I’d go buy the drinks. But as soon as I got out of line and started walking to our meeting spot, some idiot was not paying attention and ran right into me, dumping his spaghetti all over me.

I let out a sharp gasp and looked up to see who the perpetrator was. A guy with jet black hair and the greenest eyes I had ever seen was looking down at me. In other words, Jake Green spilled his lunch all over me.

“You have a noodle in your hair.” He laughed.

“Yea thanks to you!” I exclaimed in frustration.

“Annie,” Lexy gasped, coming out of the meal line herself. “What happened?”

“Can we go?” I mumbled.

She looked at me confused but nodded. “Come on, let’s go to the bathroom and get you cleaned up.”

I could feel the stares of everyone as we walked away. But I didn’t turn around. Knowing it was happening was enough.

I heard Lexy sigh as she picked the noodles out of my hair. Only a real best friend would spend time picking noodles out of my hair rather than eating the ones on her tray, which had disappeared into the trash before I could even stop her.

“How bad is the damage?” I asked.

She gave me a smile that made me almost instantly feel better.

“I think you’ll recover.” She answered, taking a wet paper towel to wipe the sauce off my face. “Your shirt on the other hand, I’m not so sure about. But luckily for you, your best friend has a fear of not being prepared enough and has one right here for you. I know it’s not your style, but it will have to do.”

I smiled too, as she reached into her backpack, pulling out a t-shirt with some sports logo on it that I had no knowledge of.

“Thank you, you’re the best.” I responded, taking the shirt gratefully.

“I know,” She replied, laughing, adding a hair toss in there.

She wasn’t a cocky person, but she liked to pretend she was sometimes. Like she was out of this world or something. And maybe, in a way, she really was. I mean, I didn’t know, even back then, many other people who had her patience or kindness. It was sometimes a dreary world out there, and if you didn’t think your best friend wasn’t something else, they weren’t your best friend at all.

I waited by my locker for Annabeth. She had to finish her math test before we could walk home. She was late, which wasn’t unusual, but I had to get home to watch my sisters.

“Lexy!” She exclaimed after what seemed like forever.

I didn’t see her till she was right in front of me though, there were too many people in the halls still for me to take out my headphones.

I nodded at her and moved toward her locker which was only three away from mine.

She then slipped something in my hand, and I nonchalantly opened it up. It wasn’t unusual for us to pass notes. But usually, they were of some importance of things we couldn’t say out loud, in fear that if someone knew our secrets’ we would never live normal lives again.

I opened the letter, my back against the locker as was our protocol.

'We might have trouble coming. Keep your mouth shut till we get home. Earphones out. Listen to what’s around us.'

I folded the letter and put it in my pocket. I wondered what she was talking about, but I knew better than to talk about it here. My studies had shown me that people who are different were always in danger. And as much as I hated it, fitting in was our best chance of survival.

“Hurry up,” I said, trying to sound normal as I took my headphones off. “I have to be home before my sisters. I told my parents I would watch them.”

Annie looked up at me and nodded, but her face looked worried.

I knew better than to ask about it at school. Her note literally told me to be quiet. But if my headphones were off, with this many people still around, I needed to focus on something.

It was weird though. I had survived many years with no headphones and school. When I was younger, I’d get these awful headaches that I didn’t know how to handle because to me, the world was very loud. I knew from an early age that I was different. I had survived many years being the only person I knew who was different. I often didn’t wear headphones because I liked the voices sometimes if I was in the mood for it. But today, I was surrounded by the same people as always, but the sound was different. And there was a low humming noise droning on in the background that I had never heard before.

The second I noticed it, I didn’t want to hear it anymore, but I fought the urge to just shove my headphones back in and drown it out.

“How was your last class?” Annie asked as we started to walk out of the building.

I furrowed my eyebrows. I could hear her unasked question in my head as if she asked it out loud.

“It was fine. Completely normal.” I answered, choosing my words carefully.

As we were walking, I noticed 2 guys walking behind us. One of them being the one who had spilled spaghetti all over Annabeth earlier today – Jake Green.

Annie looked back too, but when she realized who was behind us, she sped up.

“They won’t hurt us,” I whispered. “They aren’t a threat.”

“Keep your voice down.” She answered in a hushed tone. “Hurry up.”

“Do you wanna run?” I asked. I didn’t really want to, but it wasn’t unusual for us to run home. When we were younger, we used to race, and occasionally, we still did.

“No.” She stated shortly. “Tell me something funny.”

I let out a chuckle. “Well let’s see, today was a fairly normal day at school, until my best friend got spaghetti dumped on her, and turned into a total lunatic.” I teased.

“Not funny, Lex.” She said through gritted teeth.

“I think it’s hilarious. Because that boy is following us home, and we’ve not once seen him before on this route.”

“What if he’s some creepy stalker?” She whispered.

I laughed; I couldn’t help it. “I’m the one with the crazy theories, remember? Besides, it would be weirder if he was like a new kid whom you were being pulled to. He’s been at this school with us all year, I don’t think there’s anything to be afraid of.”

This time she smiled.

“Come on, crazy lady. Those clouds don’t look promising.”

Her smile then fully stretched across her face just before she took off running.

“No fair!” I yelled after her, as I started to run too. “You got a head start!”

Neither of us slowed down till we reached my house. I don’t know what I was expecting, but part of me was surprised to see it still in one piece. I had no reason to think otherwise, but still, I felt a little surprised when I walked in.

“Mom? Dad?” I called out, but I wasn’t actually expecting an answer. Neither of them was supposed to be home. Mom was doing some volunteer activity today and my dad was at work. It was just a typical Tuesday.

As soon as we knew the coast was clear, we ran up the stairs to my room, and Annabeth immediately raided my closet for the clothes she left over here for days when she didn’t expect to spend the night, or on days like she got spaghetti dumped on her by random boys. Things like that happened more often to us than one might think.

“Okay,” I started as I plopped down on my bed. “So, what’s the big thing that’s actually wrong?”

“I didn’t say anything was wrong,” Annie answered trying to sound nonchalant.

“Yes, you did,” I responded. “You told me to keep my earphones out, and that means you were worried about something. What has you freaked out?”

“I ran into Jake again.” She blurted out after a moment.

“What?” I questioned, not following.

“Jake. Jake Green. The kid who spilled the spaghetti all over me. The kid who followed us home.”

“Okay… I’m not following…” I replied slowly.

“I can’t explain it,” She answered sounding flustered. “Both times, I don’t think I should have run into him. It was like we were being pulled into each other or something. And when we touched…”

“When you touched, what happened?” I questioned, sitting up.

I could feel that she didn’t want to tell me. I could feel her trying to decide if she should. If I wanted to, I could have just read her mind, and been done with it, but I respected her privacy. I rarely ever read her mind. And sometimes when you’re close to someone it’s harder to read them.

“I saw something that scared me.” She finally answered.

“Okay, you lost me again.” I replied, leaning back again.

“I saw you… and I saw him… in a bad situation...”

“How bad?” I asked, remembering the weird noise I had heard at school.

Anna didn’t answer… She just ignored the question.

“Annabeth Layne McAlister, tell me right now what you saw.”

She still didn’t want to tell me, but the urge to tell someone was overwhelming so finally she blurted out, “I saw you and Jake both in handcuffs and chains on a dirt floor looking pretty beaten up…”

“Oh.” I responded.

“Look, I don’t know what that means. It’s just weird. It could be one of those things that have a different meaning or something.” She tried.

“Annie, we both know you don’t have those very often. It must be a warning. We can probably prevent it.” I didn’t feel confident with that answer, but it seemed to make her feel better.

“Lexy!” My little sister, Calynn shouted as she walked in the door. “We’re home!”

“Okay!” I yelled back. “I’ll be down in a minute!”

“So, what do we do now?” Annabeth asked.

“Now, we go give the children a snack, and we forget about everything for the time being,” I replied simply. “There’s no use worrying about something that may or may not happen.”

She nodded and we headed downstairs.

It was Tuesday so that meant I had to cook dinner tonight. Sometimes, I made a real meal, but more often than not, I put in frozen food like a chicken cordon bleu and made some instant mashed potatoes in a pot with some microwave corn and called it a day. Annabeth, being a vegetarian, kept her own supply of food at our house, so she would make some fake meat food from our freezer.

Dinner was in the oven, and we were all doing our homework by the time my parents came home. It was nothing out of the ordinary, for which I was grateful.

“Mommy!” Sara, my youngest sister exclaimed when they walked in.

“Sari!” My mom wrapped my sister up in a hug as my dad walked in behind them.

“What? No hug for me, Sara-Bear?” He teased.

Sari made some very odd noise, sounding a bit like a pterodactyl, before letting go of Mom and jumping into Dad.

“How was your day, girls?” Mom asked as she put her stuff down and walked over to the table.

“It was good.” I answered, and there was a round of echoes of about the same thing from around the table.

“And your presentation, honey, how did that go?”

“Eh,” I answered, writing down the answer to the math problem. “It could have gone better.”

“What? The people didn’t like your presentation on uh what is it, the supernatural appeal to teens?”

“More like I stuttered and stumbled and made it about as unappealing as I could have.” I told her with a sigh.

“I told you, you just gotta sing a happy song when you’re stressed. It works like a charm every time.” My dad responded. “You listen to enough music; I’m sure you have a good song for things like that.”

“Dad… It never works that way for me,” I stated annoyed.

“You don’t know it till you try it.” He reminded me.

I sighed and closed my math book and moved to take dinner out of the oven.

“I have tried, dad.” I responded. “But it doesn’t work for me.”

Annabeth rolled her eyes at me but didn’t say anything.

“Annabeth, how did her presentation really go?” My mom questioned.

“You know, she did her best,” Anna stuttered, nearly choking on the glass of orange juice she had just gotten. We only kept orange juice in our house because she liked it.

“That’s my girl,” My dad hugged me as I was walking dinner to the table.

“Careful, it’s hot!” I exclaimed, attempting to dodge out of his way, unsuccessfully.

And just like every other night we sat down around the table and had dinner. The way we had every night for as long as I could remember. And the thought of something bad happening, disappeared in the contentness of the night.