Icon of the Indecisive #3 of 3 (COMPLETE)

Chapter 9

I was actually hoping to see Robbie before my first class, but after that thing with Ms. Farrah, I decided to be early for GenPsych. Love could wait.

What couldn't wait apparently was the sudden wave of nausea that hit me while I was right there in the middle of the staircase. It was like I had been punched, except I wasn't in pain.

I was dizzy. So dizzy. I had to push some random stranger to make sure I could hold onto the staircase railing before I just collapsed. I used it to pull myself up, a step at a time, and actually held on to the wall until I made it into the closest girls' bathroom.

And then I threw up. Good thing I found an empty cubicle.

Did that make me feel better? It did, a little bit. I stayed in a squatting position, trying to catch my breath. The vomit was almost clear, because I hadn't eaten anything yet. My mouth kind of tasted like the half a cup of coffee I had before I left the house. I tried to remember the last thing I ate, where I ate it, if it was anything stomach-buggy.

"Are you all right there?" the voice from the next stall said.

"Um, yes," I answered. "Sorry."

"Is that you, Hannah?"

"Kathy?"

So my friend, and former goddess project, Kathy Martin, was in the next stall. She apparently had been hiding there for the better part of an hour. Because she was a good friend (and not just devoted to me for the rest of her life), she helped me up, and handed me some wet wipes, and did her best to get vomit off my hair.

"Why are you hiding in the bathroom?" I asked.

She shrugged and busied herself with dabbing a spot on my uniform. "The reality show premiered last night."

Right. The reality show College Girl. A youth-oriented cable network wanted to do a reality series set in a university, and they chose Ford River. They did a search for this show's "cast" a few months ago, and to everyone's surprise, including hers, they selected Kathy as their star.

I knew she was special all along. It was a matter of time when everyone else came around to it.

She however wasn't used to the attention yet. It looked like she didn't want to get used to it.

"I didn't get to see it," I said, knowing that she'd be reassured by it. "Was it good?"

"Oh it was cool," she said. "It's just weird seeing myself on TV."

"How's Jake?"

"He looked gorgeous on TV," she gushed, which was what a girlfriend should do. I knew that she meant it.

The bell rang, and that meant my class was going to start in ten minutes. At that same moment a girl ran into the bathroom, right into the cubicle I had just used, and slammed the door shut.

And we heard vomiting too.

Kathy knew the girl. "Are you all right, Jessica?" she said, when the hurling sounds stopped.

Jessica Torres stepped out of the cubicle half a minute later and headed straight for the sink beside us.

"Is there bad cafeteria food today or something?" Kathy asked, very concerned. And also relieved that something else might be the Ford River topic of conversation instead of her TV debut.

"I don't think so," Jessica said, rinsing her mouth with water from a bottle she already had in her bag.

"I was just doing the same thing," I said sympathetically. "Throwing up, I mean."

She spit into the sink and looked at me. "Are you pregnant, too?"

"No," I said, automatically.

And then I remembered my dream.

And then Kathy tilted her head and gave me this weird look. "Are you sure?"