The Class Agreement

45

When you've been through enough chaotic and traumatizing shit, you start to develop a fifth sense for when bad things are going to happen.

It's a feeling that's so unsettling and uncomfortable, it slowly rattles your nerves until you can no longer take the anticipation for whatever shitty event is about to take place. You become hypersensitive to everything.

Your body prepares for it. You become anxious and restless — impatient. Irritated and paranoid. It's like getting bit by a venomous animal and waiting for the venom to do its job.

When there are people involved, people that can get hurt or in trouble, it makes things that much more gut-wrenching.

And it all started this Monday morning, during Athena's class.

Upon walking in I could already see that she was fed up and not in the mood to even be here today. Besides the obvious, I didn't know if there was anything else on her nerves. I desperately wanted to ask but didn't have the proper amounts of privacy needed to do so.

Especially with Oliver's eyes on me every time we're in this class, it made it hard to try to seek Athena out. I've been doing my absolute best in ignoring him but I knew eventually there was going to be another interaction. I disintegrated the thought, pulling my attention back to the warnings my body was giving me.

Athena was fidgety, messing up during her short lecture, and could barely hold eye contact with any of the students, including me. For the first time ever she looked very off.

That was until Gallagher, followed by a police officer, escorted Athena out of the classroom. She was quickly replaced by a substitute teacher. The room erupted in noise.

Panic bloomed in my chest and I immediately thought the worst.

We were caught. Finished. Athena was going to be thrown in jail. She was going to lose her job. And it's all because of me.

It took every last bit of restraint in me to not jump out of my seat and run after her.

Everything we ever did flashed before my eyes. I felt so hopeless. I couldn't text her nor call her because it obviously wouldn't be smart. It's not like she'd be able to answer her phone in the middle of an interrogation anyway or being driven to the police station.

Tommy was trying his best — doing his best — to calm me down.

We left class. We had too. Air wasn't reaching my lungs properly. Pressure was building in my head and suddenly I was being whipped around, dragged somewhere. My legs were moving. My arm was being pulled.

My body went into full autopilot mode.

It took me a few seconds to understand what was happening. Tommy brought me to a bathroom — the guy's bathroom — and was holding my face. His mouth was moving and he looked just as scared as me, probably.

I wasn't hearing a single word that was coming out of his mouth. I was losing myself in the riptides of shock and distress. The film of red unraveling itself in my body faster than I could catch my next breath.

"You—"

"—Have—"

"—Hold it—"

My vision was shot. My tears became a curtain over my pupils. I wanted to be wrong, so bad. I didn't want to lose her, not like this.

Why did this have to happen now? During the middle of class? Today?

Did she know this was going to happen? Is that why she was so anxious and unfocused? No. Why would she know of her own downfall and not tell me?