Chapter 5 Your eyes

I nodded because I knew that if I looked for the voice at that moment, I wouldn't find it. It was him.

"You can take a seat. Anything you need, I'm here for you. By the way, Helena." When the principal said this, I just shook my head in affirmation and looked for the farthest chair to sit in.

I sat in the second-to-last chair in the last row against a glass window that overlooked a garden outside. I ignored all the stares and noises.

"I will ask everyone to welcome the new student in a polite and welcoming way, that means no comments about her." The teacher said authoritatively, then cracked a corner smile that disarmed and would disarm any student.

Everyone obeyed him, and the room was taken over by complete silence for a few seconds.

The class went on in a boring way and I even tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but for a moment, everything seemed too loud. I felt my lungs squeezing the air out of me and I drew in a breath, finding it strange how dry my throat felt. I stared at my hands on my wallet, clenched them together trying to control the abrupt shaking. Then my vision seemed to go out of focus and the slightest movement caught my attention, a pencil tapping rhythmically on the desk, a debauched smile, an audio on WhatsApp, and the smell, the smell of him invading me as he approached me checking the question of a nearby colleague. I put my hand on my forehead and lowered my head, closed my eyes trying to control the chaos that my mind had become, horns, footsteps, mixed conversations.

His smell. The metallic in my mouth coming closer and closer.

Then a snap, I opened my eyes and my attention went completely to his lips. He was standing in front of my wallet, his thoughtful eyes hiding the discreet raising of one of his eyebrows.

"Is everything okay?" Mr. Lennon asked. His voice was as low as possible. I narrowed my eyes at him, my vision going straight to his throat, my breathing failing and everything seemed to stop around me.

I swallowed hard.

"Why don't you go to the bathroom?" he asked still calmly.

I just stood up quickly almost knocking over the chair, and he held it up, putting his hand on it so it wouldn't fall. I headed out as fast as I could with my head down, because I felt that my face was boiling, and that there was something very wrong with me.

When I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, I tried to control my breathing. My eyes had taken on a completely different color, once light brown, now they were dilated and the honey gave way to a frightening blood red. I narrowed my eyes at myself and felt a kind of shock run through my veins.

"Not again..." I cursed feeling my throat choke and a crazy urge to run out of there, so I just locked myself in one of the booths and sat on the leak waiting for everything to return to normal.

I clenched my fists, trying to control my breathing and the sounds that were entangling my mind. Then again a popping sound caught my attention, the image of my professor came to my mind, his eyes also dilating to meet mine before I reached the bathroom.

I left the booth and washed my face, my hands tingled and my legs ached. But my eyes were apparently normal, I put my glasses back on.

"Hi." An unknown girl approached, she had come out of one of the booths.

"Hi." I whispered.

"Is everything okay?" She asked, her expression concerned.

"Yes, it is." I lied.

"You look pale." She said half-heartedly. "You're the new student, aren't you? New day and crowd, I know well how tricky first days are."

"Are you new too?" I asked ignoring the loud sounds and focusing only on her voice.

"I used to be, a few years ago." She smiled. "By the way, I'm Clara."

"Anubis." I replied.

"Cool name." She smiled.

"É..." I smiled in return, after a long time a sincere smile.

"Is it because of the goddess?" She asked curiously.

"Yes." I nodded.

"I already love your mother." That sentence made a lump in my throat. "Is that better?"

"Huhum." I nodded.

"Do you want to go back to the living room?" Clara asked.

"Are you in the same room as me?" I asked not remembering her face when I walked in, maybe it was because I wasn't paying attention.

"Three desks past yours." She smiled once again. Her smile was docile.

"Okay then..." I nodded.

We headed out of the bathroom.

"What was the one with the glasses?" She asked curiously.

"I have hypersensitivity to light." I answered. I knew there might be that question, my glasses were apparently prescription, but with dark lenses because of the anti-reflective, uv protection, and light sensitivity.

I started wearing glasses when I was only nine years old, coming home from school my eyesight darkened. I remember how terrified I felt.

"I remember my mother asking me.

"I can't see anything, Mom. Everything is so red." The memory of my answer made something turn inside me, today I knew it was like seeing everything with infrared lenses. No doctor found an answer and even said I was lying. Some time later, Mom showed up with the glasses, she said it was for when I felt I was hypersensitive, and so were the anti-noise headphones and later, already in the CDJ, came the medicines.

"Do you want to go outside?" Clara asked when the break bell rang.

"No, I better not." I replied, sighing.

"Come on, I'll show you around and if it's uncomfortable, you come back." She said.

"Okay." I gave in.

Clara was being friendly and I didn't want to be rude. Although she was closed to friendships, I felt somewhat comfortable with her. So I followed her out of the room ignoring the stares. We followed the corridor until we came to a huge cafeteria.

"So, generally, what group are you part of?" I asked curiously.

She seemed like the typical girl who could easily be part of any group.

"None." She shrugged.

"Why?" I glared at her.

"That one..." She pointed to a distant group of boys, all muscular and snobby. "That's the crow group. They're from the soccer team, and they smell Denny's butt." He finished by making me laugh.

"And who is Denny?" I asked noticing that most of them had a tattoo on their neck.

"That's the one on his back." She said as we walked on, he had his hair tied up in a bun and was dark, he reminded me of the teacher.

"Um..." I mumbled.

"Those are the most insufferable Cheerleader you will ever meet." Clara spoke with a debauched little smile. "They're led by Nally. The one over there touching up her lipstick is more shallow than a handbag. I looked at the group of girls sitting there as if they were posing for a magazine. Nally was a white girl with brown eyes and hair as black as her aura.

"I already know which way not to go." I joked. She laughed and nodded.

"Those are the Eagles. They're the crows' rivals." She muttered as if under a spell.

"Two teams?" I asked curiously.

"We only have one school in town, and they can't play together. They are deadly rivals. On this team, they smell Lohan's butt. That little delicacy over there that's staring at you right now."

"Um..." I muttered. Lohan was staring at me with his eyes half-closed, he turned his attention away when one of the boys said something in his ear and he nodded. He was white, with green eyes and blond hair.

"I would give anything for a one night fuck with him." She turned to me for a few seconds.

"Have you tried?" I mocked.

"He's Nally's. I mean, for now, because she's already rotated both groups."

"Not a straw for you." I huffed.

"I know, I'm the one who doesn't want to fight over macho stuff. Let her have him, I value myself." He joked simulating a kiss on my shoulder and making me laugh.

"And those?" I pointed to another table where boys and girls were sitting.

"Those are the common ones. The zeroes left, nothing special, just them." She said.

"That's where I want to be then." I joked.

She stared at me for a few seconds.

"Honey, I like you." She finally said and made her way ahead to the group of commons, and I could do nothing but follow her.

When we arrived I tried to avoid the stares of all the groupies on me, I wanted to run out of there and go somewhere else.

"Hey guys." Clara said sitting down at the table.

"I thought you weren't coming." A brunette girl said reading a book.

"I was busy." She shrugged. "This is Anubis."

"Hi..." I mumbled.

"Sit down, you don't have to play the role of a statue." One of the boys smiled, he had a charismatic smile, he had a body of eighteen and a face of fifteen. Angelic. He wore glasses.

I sat down with them and continued to stand there, quiet, trying not to exist. While they talked about everything and all the things I didn't know and didn't care to know. But it was kind of nice to be there, it was nice to belong again.