Elise

"Are you almost done?" Todd called out as I rinsed the last of the puke out of my hair.

"Yeah. Give me a second."

Ugh, this morning sucked. Recently, I had been such a mess. I couldn't quite put my finger on what the fuck it was. Before, I was able to figuratively joke about how certain things make me gag. Now it was literal. The scent of any cooked chicken, other girls going on about their periods, and of course, cauliflower. The root of all that is evil. In an effort to mend the bridge between my mother and myself, I sat down for dinner with them and even tried some of her garlic and barbecue marinated cauliflower. Fact about me: I hate cauliflower. It was honestly just flavorless broccoli that made me wanna gag. Here we are the morning after, like one of my hangovers.

I flushed the toilet before washing my face and hands to rid the stench, but it only made me feel more sick.

My stomach churned as the stench hit my nose and I sprayed a lot of freshener which did help. Eventually, I got out where Todd recoiled with the nose wrinkle and everything. "Whoa, you okay?"

"Nope, but I've got shit to do."

"Well you look like shit yourself."

"Yeah. Thanks for the compliment." I rolled my eyes, purposefully bumping into him on my way back to my room. Once I got inside, I shut the door and held my head.

Oh please don't do this to me today, I prayed despite not believing in a God. My head felt warmer than usual, but it was fine. It was my groggy voice that was really driving me insane. Though not as insane as guys saying that it sounded seductive. Once I asked some dude for a napkin and he took it as me offering to deliver a hand job. Like what in the actual fuck?

I rested my head on the desk before hearing the door open. Immediately, I sat back up and acted like things were fine even though Normack saw through my bullshit.

"Late night, Miss Roswell?" he asked in his usual proper tone.

I chuckled and told him. "No, I've just been feeling really weird lately."

"Any particular reason why that is?"

"Eh, not that I could think of." I shrugged. "Besides, I've never exactly been a cheerful, energetic person."

"You know, that isn't the worst thing. We get plenty of those around and I need all the coffee in the world to through the day."

Both of us laughed for awhile until coming to an abrupt stop. His face got all serious again and I quickly readjusted by sitting up straight. He cleared his throat and then carried on. "Anyways, getting back to the first event you five pulled together. How do you think it went?"

"This is probably gonna sound bad, but Aria was the real star here. Not me, not Dominic, especially not Johnny–"

"You two really need to work out those issues."

"We will sir." I lied through my teeth. We already did work it out, nothing more to be said. I then flipped my hair back and returned to praising Aria. "She's so organized and does bring a lot of great ideas to the table. Better than what I could've come up with. I mean if we were a couple, she'd be the bride with exquisite taste and I'd be the ho-hum groom who checked out the dresses and sampled the cake."

"Interesting way of describing your relationship."

"Friendship." I corrected him. "We're just friends."

"Noted." Normack casually responded before he continued with the questions. "Now, as I put down on your evaluation...there were complaints about your attitude."

"From who? Johnny?"

"Actually, you'd be surprised."

"Oh if Aria ever said anything it was because–" I came to a halt once my eyes met the name listed on the feedback source. "Lyle?"

No...this wasn't right, I thoroughly examined the feedback sheet as Normack nodded. "It was nothing against you, though he felt you were very distracted plus he feared for you too."

"I thought these were confidential." I responded, my eyes glued to feedback as it pounded like a giant gong of truth,

"They were until I mad this a cooperative peer evaluation. That means any feedback you left for them will be traced back and vice versa."

"Oh god."

Right when reality sliced through me with its sharp end, the door flew open.

Both Johnny and Dominic pushed against each other to get through the door before going off on Normack.

"I just got this back. Apparently this counts for our grades?" Johnny asked.

"Yes it does."

"Well that's not fair. His feedback shouldn't count because he barely knows us." Johnny demanded, slapping the sheet of feedback on the desk.

"Same here." Dominic followed up. "This tool don't know me either. He thinks he's the king of Russia or somethin'."

"Russia doesn't have kings and queens, you moron."

Dominic turned around though the loud sound of Normack's voice got us all to jump. "Enough!"

Immediately, all of us went silent as he spoke again. "I will not have this type of behavior in my office. You two need to take it outside. Let's not forget you're also interrupting my meeting with your friend over here."

Johnny and Dominic looked over my way right as I shifted my sight to the right. I heard Johnny scoffing in the background before he said, "Fine. We'll deal with this our own way."

Him and Dominic left as quickly as they arrived. My heart was going at a thousand miles per hour and it wouldn't stop.

I clutched onto my chest while Normack shook his head and laughed. "Sorry about that, it seems that your peers don't have a level-head at the moment. Now shall we continue with how you can improve your attitude?"

Sweat ran down my face. The world around me was spinning. I felt my stomach churning slowly. Swish, swish, the waves inside me went. Oh mother of god, it was happening again.

"Miss Roswell?" He asked as I gagged and covered my mouth. I bolted outside to the nearest bathroom and let all the contents out. I didn't even care how embarrassing it was, I just let it all out.

* * * * *

"Listen, I'm fine." I told Nurse Steinberg as she kept trying to feel my head only for me to swat her hand away.

"Not if you're getting sick in the girl's bathroom."

"It's just a bug." I insisted. "Nothing to worry about."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive." I forced a smile.

Nurse Steinberg gave me that vulture glare before shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders. "Well I'm afraid I have no choice but to send you home."

"You can't do that."

"It's for your own health, Elise." Nurse Steinberg wrote up a note and tore it out for me. "We can't have sick children roaming about."

"Yeah, that wouldn't be good."

Lyle, My eyes squinted and shifted over to him with a tissue sticking out his nose. It was ironic how he drew blood and now he was literally drawing blood. Almost literally. He was still bleeding but that wasn't the point. I guess I wouldn't have to hunt him down after all.

"How'd you end up here?" I asked him.

"It was another nosebleed." Lyle's voice was all funny from having it plugged. "It's really annoying."

"You know what else is annoying? Secrets. Bad secrets. Bad secrets that judge me and get the principal to give lectures on how to better my attitude."

Lyle's jaw dropped as I nodded. "Yep, I know what you said."

"But those sheets were–"

"Confidential? Not anymore." I scoffed before turning away from him. "Seriously, why couldn't you just tell me?"

"Well you can be very opinionated."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Scary." Lyle quickly answered. "Very, very scary."

I faced him again with my signature glare and his eyebrows raised. "See? Like that."

"You should've said something. My grade went down and I never said shit about you."

"I know." Lyle moaned and looked down. "I just didn't know how to break it to you. Also if we're being honest, I was far more critical of Dominic than you."

"What about Johnny?"

Lyle's slowly eyes shifted away as I folded my arms and sighed. "Oh really? He was even better at this than I was?"

Lyle quickly looked around before leaning in and whispering. "First off, you showed up half drunk for the meeting. You were never fully committed or even halfway like the rest of us. Lastly, you kept having conflicts with the others. I know it's your way or the highway, but that won't help the group. Sometimes you have to compromise."

"I've done my share."

"Well unfortunately, the lengths you went for your brother don't cover the actions of today."

"Excuse me?"

Lyle sat down next to me and looked me in the eyes. "You may not realize this, but everyone worries about you."

"How come?"

"The drinking, the down-spiral, and apparently you hooked up with a guy after the Homecoming game. Is that right?"

"Yeah I did, but you heard wrong. It happened weeks before and I wasn't paying attention. Safe to say, it was a mistake except...I had no regrets."

"And that's exactly why we're scared. Me especially." Lyle softly anguished. "Look, I'll promise not to make anymore shady judgments if you promise to keep me in the loop."

"Like tell you when I'm feeling empty inside?"

"That should actually be for a therapist, but that works too." Lyle nodded. "Just please don't shut me out. I already worry enough about falling back in love with a certain someone, this doesn't need to be included too. You are Elise Roswell. You can handle your problems, but always can come to me too."

"Thanks Lyle." I hugged him tight and he hugged me too only for that to end a minute later.

"Roswell. What did I say about spreading germs?" Nurse Steinberg nagged.

I chuckled and told Lyle. "Sorry, I totally forgot I was sick."

"It's alright." Lyle shrugged. "Hope you get better."

"I do too." I replied before giving him a smile, grabbing my things, and taking off. What he said was a bit strange, but I knew he meant well. Maybe it was time to really take a good look at my life in recent weeks since things haven't been going right at all. It was bad enough I had this sickness of sorts... now my other problems were bleeding into my school life. Ugh, this was a mess. Though if I've learned anything in life it's that I was my own problem and also my solution. I would get through this. Someday.