Chapter 5: 5. Interrogations

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

"You know Emily, it's not unusual for students to fall asleep in class now and then. I know you kids like staying up all hours of the night with your video games and your chat apps. It's not normally a problem for a student to nod off in class now and then, unless they start making a habit of it. But I think you know why you're here. Sleeping in class is an issue when the student wakes up screaming. Not only is it disruptive for other students, but it also suggests some deeper problems going on. And now I understand you're skipping classes? You were absent yesterday afternoon."

I sighed, "I'm sorry Mr. Harding. Like I keep saying, it was just a nightmare. It's no big deal. And yesterday was... I was tired so I went home to get some rest. So I wouldn't fall asleep in class and disrupt people, like you said."

Mr. Harding was the school's guidance councillor. He was probably in his mid to late sixties, a heavy-set old dude with grey hair. He dressed in a cheap suit that didn't fit him very well, and he wore his Old Spice so heavy it made my eyes water. And the guy was a complete redneck, and a total narc. I could tell as soon as I saw him, and after a half hour talking to the guy I was even more positive.

And the only reason I was talking to him at all was because of that incident last week with the nightmare in History class. The principal said I had to have one meeting with the guidance counsellor, and now I was wasting my spare period talking to this idiot.

He frowned as he sat back in his squeaky chair. Then after staring at me for a few seconds he leaned forward again, as if that somehow made us friends or made him any less creepy.

"Emily," he said in what he probably thought was a soft friendly tone, "I want you to know you can tell me anything."

"Uh-huh," I responded. That was always a red flag, especially when it was the fifth time he said it in the last half hour.

Mr. Harding frowned, then asked "It's about a boy, isn't it? I know a lot of girls your age spend a little too much time thinking about boys and not enough time thinking about their studies..."

I did my best not to roll my eyes or make any gagging noises. I doubted he knew a lot of girls my age, or any age for that matter. And the whole hetero-normative assumption thing got under my skin too. Like this was twenty-fucking-twenty-one, don't assume everyone's straight, asshole.

The whole situation was starting to remind me of the last time I got interrogated by Internal Affairs. Stuck in a cramped office with some officious dolt who's too full of himself to see beyond his own prejudices, and there was nothing I could do about it but sit there and put up with the guy till it was over.

A moment later I felt a little wave of... I didn't know what to call it. Something unpleasant anyways. I had to remind myself, I'd never been interviewed by Internal Affairs. I was a seventeen year old high-school student. I'd never been a cop. That other life never happened. At least, not in this timeline.

I found myself wishing Skye would have done what I asked yesterday. I knew she was reluctant, but I was sure if she'd wiped my mind of that other life then it wouldn't be around to haunt me anymore.

Mr. Harding was still rambling on about his preconceived notions of what teenage girls were like, and what he thought we wanted, and we were supposed to think about. It sounded like he got most of his information from nineteen-fifties TV shows.

Still, as long as he was talking it meant I didn't have to. I forced myself to stop thinking about cop stuff and instead thought about some of the other details from yesterday afternoon.

Towards the end of our little get-together at the cafe, me and Skye and Danni all agreed to be friends. Danni suggested we should exchange numbers so we could keep in touch, but Skye didn't have a phone. It was one of those weird things about her, although it didn't surprise me. Like what sixteen-year-old girl doesn't have a phone? The one who's not human, the one with god-like powers of course.

Except despite not having a phone, it turned out Skye was active on discord. So me and Danni shared our user id's and somehow Skye sent us both friend-requests right there on the spot. And she set up a private server so the three of us could chat on there. It was another weird thing about her, but I'd all but given up on being surprised when it came to Skye.

Our meeting yesterday ended with Skye disappearing to go spend some quiet time on Io, to think about my problem. Then Danni went back to work, and I went home.

Last night after my homework I got on discord and found Danni was online and Skye was back from her visit to Io, she was online too.

Skye didn't say if she'd made any progress during her alone time, but the three of us talked about meeting up again in a couple days. Maybe on the weekend, if we could. It was complicated because I had school all week, and there was usually homework on the weekends. Plus I had chores, I helped mom out around the house with the cleaning and cooking and stuff.

And Danni had work. She worked a lot, apparently. Six days a week, eight or ten hours a day. Her closing the shop yesterday afternoon to spend some time with me and Skye was a rare occurrence.

I also found out she was lonely. Both her and Skye, in fact. Danni was so busy with work, she'd spent most of the last thirteen years working with her dad. And Skye simply never learned how to make friends in the first place, she never really understood how it worked. That's why Skye was there at the tattoo parlour, and that's why Danni agreed to help me and Skye with my problem.

As for me, I couldn't exactly say if I was lonely or not. My life as Emily was still really new to me, and I did have a couple friends at school. Except I may have lost them last week. And I worried that if I kept acting weird or different that I might wind up completely alone if things didn't improve.

Eventually Harding got tired of the sound of his own voice and the bigoted archaic opinions he was spewing. He started asking questions again about whatever boys I was thinking about. I told him I wasn't dealing with boy problems, but I didn't elaborate. I sure as hell wasn't going to tell him I was a lesbian, he seemed like the type to view that as either an illness or a sin.

I gave him some platitudes about making sure I'd get to bed early and avoid late-night chat sessions and video-games, then at long last I was free. Just in time for lunch too.

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From Harding's office I made my way to my locker first and pulled my lunch out of the little cooler bag, then headed for the cafeteria. I found a quiet place to sit off in the far corner of the room.

Lunch was pasta salad again today. Same as yesterday, and the day before. Me and mom made up a big batch of the stuff on Sunday then portioned it out for both of us for the whole week. I didn't mind, it tasted pretty good and it was a lot cheaper and probably healthier than buying lunch every day.

As I ate I got my phone out and opened up discord, then checked to see if there was anything new from either Skye or Danni. There wasn't, but I started tapping out a little blurb about my hour with the guidance counsellor. I also mentioned that I had another nightmare last night. It felt like it was happening every single night now, and I couldn't help worry that I wasn't going to last much longer if I couldn't sleep at night.

I was just finishing the message when I was startled by someone sitting down across from me.

"Hi Em. Is it ok if I join you?"

I looked up with wide eyes but nodded, "Hi Kim. Yeah, of course you can."

Kimberly Lawson was one of my friends. Or perhaps one of my ex-friends, I wasn't sure yet. She was in a few of my classes, including History. And she hadn't said a word to me since last Thursday when I had the nightmare in class.

She was about the same age as me, and about the same height. Her figure was more curvy, where I leaned towards slim. Kim had long blonde hair and blue-grey eyes. She wasn't exactly one of the popular girls, but I had memories from this life of Kim being a nice person and a good friend when we were younger.

Kim was carrying a tray, with a slice of pizza from the cafeteria and a can of diet cola. She opened her drink and had a sip. Finally she looked over at me and said "I'm sorry I've been kind of avoiding you. How's it going? Are you ok?"

I had some of my drink as well, then shrugged. "I'm ok I guess. How about you?"

"I'm good," she replied.

After a bite of her pizza she asked, "So um, I guess I'm curious? What's going on with you Em? Like, what happened last week?"

I sighed "It was just a bad dream. Nothing happened, nothing's going on. I just had a nightmare. It's no big deal."

Kim looked like she was trying to think up some other way to ask or phrase the question, like she seemed unwilling to let it go at that.

I had another sip of my cola, and as I did my eyes swept the cafeteria. I spotted them, and the pieces immediately fell into place. Five or six tables over, a little group of girls were staring at me and Kim. Stephanie Tammy and Blaire were the popular clique.

Kimberly wasn't part of that group, but she wanted to be. It seemed obvious, they sent her over here to try and dig up dirt on me. They probably promised she could join them, or at least hang out with them if she got some juicy details out of me.

It was a basic rookie mistake, the three of them sitting there watching and staring. When you send an informant to snoop around and get you some intel you don't hang around and watch them work. At least I didn't have to worry about Kimberly wearing a wire. Though on second thought everyone had a smartphone, you never knew if someone had theirs set to record audio or video.

I sighed as I set my drink down and finished the last of my pasta salad, then I mentally kicked myself again. I had to stop thinking like that. I wasn't a cop. I shouldn't know stuff about informants and wires.

"Are you ok Em?" Kim asked. "You look upset."

"I'm fine," I mumbled. I used to be better at lying, but at the moment I didn't really have the confidence to make it sound convincing. "I'll see you later Kim. Take care."

She frowned, "Oh. But..."

Her voice trailed off. She was at a loss for words, she didn't know any of the tricks and techniques for getting a suspect to talk. And mostly I had a feeling her heart wasn't quite in it. We used to be friends, maybe she wasn't quite ready to betray me yet.

I almost felt sorry for her, but not sorry enough to play along and give her something to report back to the other girls. I got to my feet, then picked up my drink and my empty lunch container and walked away. As I walked past that other table I felt the popular girls' eyes on me. All three of them were staring at me as I made my way out of the cafeteria.

Back at my locker I put the empty container away and got out my books for the afternoon, then I drained the last of my cola on the way to the library. I still had twenty minutes before my next class, and I wanted to finish that message I was working on and send it off to Danni and Skye.