Beautiful Disaster.

Chapter 6.

After the incident in the science lab, Charles and Elizabeth were the only ones who still talked to her. Even Danielle shunned her during trainings, and even deliberately cut right through her routine. Sequoia didn’t care, if her ‘friends’ treated her like that, then they weren’t true friends anyway. The other half of the class hated her too; Warren had told them all about the experiment. But it was hard to fight against the crowd, especially when status was everything to you.

Three months later, Charles dumped her and got together with Elizabeth. Sequoia was all alone.

She often came to school with red eyes, or eye bags. She hardly seemed to be listening in class, and she drifted around the hallways aimlessly during breaks. Her work started to drop. Her teachers were concerned but decided to ‘give it some time’.

The whole class noticed, but no one wanted to do anything. Yeah, they pitied her. That was about the extent of it. Only Warren McAfee felt a little guilty. He started to sit next to her in classes, and lent her his notes.

She didn’t seem to notice him, just stared right ahead into nothingness. When he occasionally prodded her into doing some work, she would just copy his without even reading the thing, looking but not seeing.

In the next test, oddly, she rose back to her original position of second to Warren. Everyone was shocked, including her. When she got back her paper, she just said to Warren.

“Somehow…I just knew how to do everything. But I don’t remember studying or even reading the text…” She looked at him, confused. He just smiled back at her cute blurness.

“You’ll find out soon. You want my notes?” She nodded and took them. Then it hit her. All the answers were from his notes. She gasped.

“Warren! I…you…why’d you help me…?” she didn’t dare to look him in the face.

“Because…that day, I knew it wasn’t you. You’re a scientist like me. You respect others’ opinions and experiments. I was just so angered by the wreck that I took it out on you. And I’m sorry.”

“Tha…thank you. And I’m sorry…about that day.”

“Nah. It’s long over. And besides, after the ‘destruction’, I noticed some major flaws in the experiment, and I changed it. I finished it with less cost and less time. So in a way you helped me. So anyway, friends?” He grinned sheepishly and held out a hand. She grasped it tightly.

“Friends.”

6:19 AM