Chapter 10: 10. Friendship

=::= Emily's PoV =::=

I woke suddenly to the sound of my bedroom door being opened as my mom impatiently stated "I said you're going to be late! Now get your tush out of bed young lady, it's time to get ready for school!"

"Sorry mom," I groaned as I stretched.

Her frown melted into a sympathetic smile, "I'm glad you're not having those nightmares anymore Emily, but you can't spend another day in bed. And I don't want you missing any more school, ok hon? Let's get moving. I'll give you a lift on my way to work."

"Thanks mom," I replied with a yawn and another big stretch.

Last night was the third night in a row without any nightmares. After a couple weeks of them it was almost like heaven, and despite what mom said I was really tempted to just roll over and close my eyes again.

On the other hand mom was right. I already took yesterday off, if I missed too much my grades might suffer and I didn't want to risk messing up my second chance. Or third chance, depending how you counted it.

Like she said, Selene didn't take all my memories of the other life. It was strange in a way, like I still knew I'd been a cop and I actually still knew some cop stuff, but I no longer had any first-hand experience. I knew some of the dirty tricks cops used and the ways they cheated and skirted the rules, but I wasn't sure if I ever did that sort of thing myself. On the other hand I couldn't remember any good things I may have done either.

Maybe the best way to describe it was I still had theoretical knowledge, but none of the practical experience.

I wasn't complaining though. This was Tuesday morning, and for the last three days I hadn't had any more intrusive thoughts. And I hadn't had any more nightmares either, and that was pretty much everything I could have hoped for.

My mind was still drifting along in that direction when mom cleared her throat. Then I caught sight of the time on the clock by my bed, and cringed slightly as I quickly sat up.

I grimaced, "Ok I'm up. Sorry mom. And thanks for the wake-up call."

"You're welcome hon," mom smiled, then left my room so I could start getting ready.

There was barely enough time to shower and get dressed, and I had to rush my make-up. I didn't have any time for breakfast so I grabbed a granola bar and a bottle of water then followed mom out to her car. Mom frowned at me as I ate the bar during the short drive to school, then she leaned over and gave me a kiss before I could escape out the door.

I blushed but thanked her again for the drive, and waved as she pulled out and headed off to her job at the dealership.

The first bell rang as I walked through the front doors, and I had to run to my locker then sprint to my first class to get there before the late bell.

With a sigh I slumped into my seat at the very back of the class then pulled out my math books. Then I realized I completely forgot about my math homework over the weekend, but there was no time to try and deal with it now.

Mr. Keebler was already strolling up and down between the rows of desks, he stopped next to mine and asked "Forgot your homework, Miss Collier?"

"Yes sir," I blushed. "Sorry Mr. Keebler."

He made a "hmmm" sound then continued on. I knew what that meant, I'd probably get a double-homework assignment for tonight. And after finishing his rounds through the class he ended up at the blackboard where he started writing out the formulas for today's lesson.

As he did that a soft voice to my right whispered, "You were almost late this morning. You're not still having nightmares are you?"

"Nah," I shook my head. "Not a single nightmare since Saturday."

Another voice on my left whispered, "That's good news. I hope -"

She was cut off by Mr. Keebler's droning voice, "Miss Thomson, Miss Collier, Miss Trent, there are one hundred and sixty-eight hours in a week but this one belongs to me. Save the gossip for another time."

Danni and Skye and I all cringed in our seats, while some of the other kids grinned or suppressed laughs. Keebler really did have eyes in the back of his head it seemed. So the three of us stayed quiet and focused on the lesson.

We didn't have much time to talk between classes either, the three of us had to hurry to Ms. Brooks' English class where we were stuck for another hour. After that was lunch and I could finally get caught up with my two new best friends.

Rather than eat in the cafeteria we all headed out to the school yard, and ended up sitting together on the bleachers overlooking the empty athletics field.

"Sorry I missed class yesterday," I said as I opened my water bottle. "I pretty much spent all day in bed. Sunday too, for that matter. I guess I've been catching up on all the sleep I missed before."

Danni had a few gulps from her soda can then shrugged, "You didn't miss much yesterday. Mrs. Cunningham had us running laps around the field for gym."

"And Mr. Duncan spread more lies and misconceptions in physics class," Skye commented. She had a sip from her milk carton before adding, "Although I suppose it's not his fault the textbooks are wrong."

I had a sip of my water as I looked back and forth between them, and couldn't help noting how they'd changed since I last saw them on Saturday at Selene's place.

The brunette on my right looked almost the same, with some minor exceptions. The biggest difference was her clothes.

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Instead of the severe black dress and shoes she was actually dressed casual today. Still a lot of black, but she was wearing sneakers, jeans, a t-shirt, and a hoodie. And she'd cut her hair, it only hung a little bit past her shoulders now. The style made it easier to see the shiny silver-coloured earrings she was wearing, which along with her dark lipstick gave her a bit of a goth look. The casual clothes at least made her look friendlier and more approachable.

Beyond the new clothes and hair style, her demeanour had changed somewhat as well. She was expressing more emotion, both in her face and body language, as well as in her voice. She didn't remind me of Wednesday Addams anymore, she actually looked and almost acted like any other teen girl our age. Which was the last change, she looked a tiny bit older than she had before. It was just enough that she'd fit in with the rest of the grade twelve students.

The blonde on my left had changed a lot more, but was still very much recognizable as herself. Danni's hair was still short, with a side-shave on the right. That along with the blue jeans, t-shirt, work boots, and unbuttoned flannel top made it pretty clear to everyone what flavour of queer she was. For her, the single biggest change was her age. She was seventeen now, like me and Skye.

The other big difference was most of her piercings and tattoos were gone, though she still had more than most girls in school. She had two studs in her left earlobe and three in her right, and another little sparkly gold stud in her right nostril. And she still had her tree-of-life tattoo on her right fore-arm, but it was a lot smaller and less elaborate than I remembered.

"So don't take this the wrong way," I finally said as I looked back and forth at my two best friends, "But why are you two here exactly? Not that I'm not happy to have you here, but I'm honestly confused why you both decided to come back to high school?"

They looked at each other, then Danni went first.

"It's the do-over you bought me," she explained with a smile. "First time around I was basically living for my dad. Everything I did was for his benefit. Sure he sent me to college and stuff, but my whole life was wrapped up in working with him, for him, and ultimately taking over the studio when he decided to retire. It was all sort of a given, you know? And I never bothered to figure out whether or not I actually wanted that, I just did it because it's what was expected."

She drained the last of her cola then shrugged, "Except it meant I didn't even have my own dreams or plans, I didn't have much of a personal life, I didn't make friends. And when the economy around here tanked from the pandemic I was left with the realization that I wasn't happy but I didn't know how to fix it or what to do about it? So this is my chance to fix my mistakes. Figure out what it is I want for my life, and make some new friends along the way. Starting with you two."

"What about your dad though?" I asked. "You were worried he'd be disappointed if you weren't there to take over the business."

Danni blushed and grimaced, "Yeah... So like Selene said, dad and me both need to work on communicating better. He'd been thinking about making some changes to the business but he thought I was really into it and that I really wanted to take it over. So he was sort of ready to step aside and hand it all off to me thinking that's what I wanted. While I was only doing that because I thought it's what he wanted?"

Skye made a quiet 'snrk' sound but she kept quiet for now.

I just rolled my eyes, "Right. Typical sitcom levels of misunderstanding. So how'd it all work out then, what's your dad doing? And how's he feel about you being a teen again?"

"Dad's ok with my situation," she replied. "As for the business, his biggest complaint was the stress of being the owner, and seeing how it's been circling the drain for the last year or so because of the lockdowns. He's not actually in a hurry to retire though? He enjoys doing tatts and piercings. So the way it's worked out, he's selling the business to someone else who'll handle the books and the back-end stuff, while keeping him on as the main employee and artist. The other person will be like a silent partner I guess? It means dad gets to do what he loves, while someone else looks after all the stuff that he hates."

"That's convenient, but what if this new boss changes their mind later?" I asked with a frown. "Or if the economy doesn't pick up and they end up having to shut it down?"

"I think we can trust her to keep the doors open, and to keep Mr. Thomson on staff," Skye commented with a smirk. "She's getting something out of the arrangement too. She gets to keep the friendly neighbours who don't complain about her shop overlapping theirs. And I guess it makes her store slightly more legitimate, since she's actually the one paying rent on the location now."

That caught me off-guard and I turned to stare at my vaguely-goth-looking friend, "Seriously? Selene bought the tattoo parlour?"

Danni grinned, "If only she'd buy that seedy bar next door too, then maybe we could clean the whole building up a bit."

I drank the last of my water as I continued to get my head around the idea of Selene owning the tattoo place. I realized she probably wouldn't spend much if any time there, like Danni said it was more of a silent partnership thing. Actually with her magic I figured she could afford to run both businesses like hobbies, it really wouldn't matter to her if they made money or not.

That left one big question though, and I looked to Skye as I asked "So what about you? You can travel through time, you have your own private hang-out orbiting Jupiter, and you can change reality with a thought. Why in the world would you want to be a high-school student?"

The mysterious girl blushed awkwardly. She had a sip of her milk then finally shrugged, "There's a lot of stuff I can do, and there's a lot of stuff I know. I may look like a teen and you two might think I'm actually in my twenties, but subjectively I've lived a whole lot longer. There's one thing I haven't learned though, in all my travels and all my lessons with Selene."

Her blush grew a bit brighter and her voice got quieter as she admitted, "I've never really learned how to make friends, or how to just...be with people. You two are the first friends I've ever really had, apart from Selene. So it just sort of made sense for me to be here too."

"Anyways," she added with a smile and a shrug, "I dropped out of school after grade ten the first time around. So I skipped grade eleven and came back to take grade twelve with my friends."

I smiled, then reached out with both arms. My left arm wrapped around Danni's shoulders while I took hold of Skye with my right arm, and pulled them both in close for a group side-hug.

"Like I said I'm happy to have you two here," I told them both. "I just hope you don't mind hanging out with the school's number one social outcast. Nobody else wants anything to do with me, after all my weird behaviour the past two weeks."

Danni put an arm around me as well and scoffed, "Fuck 'em. I wouldn't want to hang out with the kind of people who'd shun one of my best friends anyways."

"Agreed," Skye stated, and punctuated her word with an emphatic nod of the head. She didn't hug me back, and she was still a little tense, but at least she didn't pull away. So I took that as a win.

I smiled and held them both a little tighter, "Thanks Danni, Skye."

After another few seconds we ended the group hug, then spent the rest of our lunch talking and comparing notes on our very different experiences. Our afternoon classes went by ok, and when school was out for the day we hung out some more.

The three of us walked to a nearby burger place, me and Danni got sodas and Skye got a milkshake, and we all shared a jumbo order of poutine.

Each of us was different in our own way, but we all knew and accepted each other's quirks and secrets. And we could talk to each other about stuff that we couldn't share with anyone else.

Together with each other we all felt comfortable, appreciated, and above all, happy.