ACT ONE, CHAPTER FOUR
Back to the 90's

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

     TO LEARN THAT YOU WERE FILLED TO THE BRIM with built up magic was one thing. But to continue going to school and pretending that everything was okay was very different. Although that drink was disgusting and nearly made her throw up, Andi had to admit that it did make things easier when she walked into school the next day. She wasn't hearing any voices in her head except for the loud kids in the hallway. Even when she was in phys ed class in a room full of people, the muffled voices managed to stay quiet. All she could hear were people talking amongst themselves as they waited for their turn to climb the rock wall that was set up in the gymnasium.

     Andi's coloured hair was pulled into a loose ponytail to keep it out of her face and she was wearing a pair of black leggings and a watermelon pink tank top. She scanned the wall as she adjusted the harness and started climbing. Halfway up the wall, the boy next to her was picking up speed while she was reaching for the next rock. The boy was already on his way down by the time she was able to pull herself up. She placed her left foot on another rock but she slipped and lost her footing on both feet. Both of her legs were hanging as she held onto two of the rocks above her. She could hear some of the other students giggling as she struggled to get herself together and keep going. She eventually reached the top and carefully made her way back down to the floor so the other kids could have their turn.

     A pale boy with a buzz cut and a girl with messy blonde hair were called to the rock wall and Andi stood off to the sidelines with her arms resting at her sides. She wasn't really paying much attention until she heard ragged breathing and saw the blonde panicking before she could even get halfway up the wall.

     "Erica! Are you dizzy? Is it vertigo?" the coach asked while everyone watched the girl as she was about to have an anxiety attack on the rock wall.

     "Vertigo is a dysfunction of the vestibular system of the inner ear. She's just freaking out," Lydia said with her arms crossed and Andi rolled her eyes at the strawberry blonde's condescending attitude.

     "Erica!" the coach called.

     "I'm fine," she said while some of the other students laughed at her predicament.

     "Coach, maybe it's not safe. You know she's epileptic," Allison said.

     "Why does nobody tell me this stuff? Erica, you're fine. Just kick off the wall. There's a mat to catch you," the coach stammered.

     Erica let go of the rocks and she lowered herself to the mat. Most of the other kids were laughing as she walked away and Andi scoffed with her arms crossed.

     "Assholes," she muttered under her breath, not caring if the other kids heard her or not.

     "What was that?" Lydia demanded.

     "I'm sorry, let me say it louder so you can hear me. Assholes," Andi said, repeating what she said earlier with more force. "For someone who was in a much more embarrassing situation less than a week ago, you should be the last person to patronize a girl with epilepsy."

     "Nicks, watch your language," the coach said.

     "Maybe everyone here should watch their backs. Or they can just keep laughing until karma pays them a visit, I really don't care," Andi said as she shrugged her shoulders. "Although personally, I would love to see how much everyone here will be laughing once they find themselves in a very embarrassing situation."

     "Is that a threat?" Lydia asked as she stood right in front of her with her eyes narrowed.

     "Call it intuition," Andi said nonchalantly.

     "Nicks, just take a walk," the coach said and Andi left the gym without a word.

     She couldn't stand Lydia or any of the other kids who thought it was funny that Erica was about to have an anxiety attack while also being epileptic. As she was walking, she found said blonde leaning against the wall in the hallway and approached her carefully.

     "Are you feeling any better?" she asked.

     "I don't need your sympathy," Erica said while giving Andi a side glance.

     "I'm not trying to give you sympathy, I just wanted to make sure you were okay since nobody else seems to have the decency to do it," Andi said while shrugging her shoulders.

     "So you're only checking on me because no one else is."

     "That's not what I meant and you know it."

     "Do I?"

     Andi sighed heavily through her nose while taking a moment to let herself calm down. Erica was being rather difficult while all Andi tried to do was be a nice and decent human being.

     "Listen. I know we didn't really know each other until now, but if you ever want to talk or just get something off your chest, you can talk to me. And not just because I don't have any friends," Andi said with a lopsided smile.

     Erica only looked at her and Andi took the hint. She headed back to the gym where everyone else was and joined the crowd. The end of the period came by faster than she hoped and she was able to go into the locker room and change back into her t-shirt and cargo pants. She put her hair into a side braid and put her shoes back on while the girl right behind her snickered loudly. Andi turned around and it was the same girl who made fun of her bike and hair. It was also the same girl whose name she never got.

     "Can I help you?" she asked.

     "Who even wears cargo pants anymore? I thought those got left behind in the nineties," the freckled brunette said while smiling.

     "I don't really see the problem with bringing back nineties fashion," Andi said while shrugging her shoulders.

     "I wouldn't be caught dead wearing those."

     "Well then I guess it's a good thing you're not wearing them. My clothes, my business."

     Andi grabbed her bag and left the locker room away from the judgement and criticism. She might as well have been back at her old school where she was treated like she was nothing. At her locker, she checked her phone and there was a new message from Loretta. Andi stared at the screen for a while before clearing her notifications and putting her phone back in her pocket. It was probably petty to ignore someone over a photo but things weren't always as they seemed.

     Andi couldn't say how long it was going to be until the potion wore off and the voices invaded her mind again. All the voices were the ones that were loud and jumbled together as Andi sat at a table alone in the cafeteria. She picked off small pieces of her sandwich while watching everybody in the cafeteria converse with each other and laugh at bad jokes somebody else told. The voices got more quiet and Andi turned around to look for the reason.

     A girl walked in wearing a black mini skirt, a white shirt and a black leather jacket. She had on a pair of leopard print heels on her feet and her blonde hair was down and curled. She was wearing some makeup and Andi had to admit that she looked confident and beautiful. Andi realized that it was Erica and if she were to say that she wasn't shocked, she would be lying. Erica grabbed an apple off of somebody else's lunch tray and took a bite while smirking. She wiped the juice off her mouth and left the cafeteria, leaving everybody shocked, including Andi. Even she wondered what the hell happened since phys ed class.

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     While Andi was on her way to class, she saw Erica standing at her locker and still looking as beautiful. She walked up to her as she was closing her locker and smiled when Erica realized that she was there.

     "So who gave you this awesome makeover, and can they give me one too?" Andi asked and laughed at her own joke.

     "No comment," Erica said as she started to walk away.

     "So nothing else has happened since phys ed?" Andi asked when she caught up to the blonde.

     "That's none of your business."

     "I just want to make sure that you're okay."

     "Well don't because I don't need you to look out for me. I barely even know you," Erica said. "Go find someone else to annoy."

     Andi stopped walking and let Erica keep going as she stood in the hallway. Why did she even bother trying to be friendly? It was obvious that nobody cared and her attempts to be kind were nothing more than failures.

     Andi went through her day just like any other day and once it was over, she was quick to grab her stuff and leave. She decided to just walk instead of taking her bike and it gave her time to think. School was hell, everything was hell and the only time it wasn't was when she was on her way to and from school. She was alone with her thoughts and there was no one to make fun of her hair or her clothes.

     When she got home, the house was empty except for a note sitting on the table. She picked up the small piece of paper that had her grandmother's handwriting on it and read what it had to say. She crumpled the piece of paper in her hand once she finished reading it and tossed it in the garbage bin. While her grandmother was out grocery shopping, Andi was alone in the house with nothing but homework to keep her occupied.

     She was still curious about the book she found, which also happened to be the same book that lured her into the basement. From what her grandmother told her, it wasn't just sleepwalking, although now she wished that that was all it was. She wished that she could even recall what happened that night but she couldn't.

     Her mind went back to everything that happened that led up to this point. She wondered if she had known about the witches sooner, she would've been able to handle things better. Maybe she wouldn't have made that flask explode or maybe she wouldn't be drinking a potion with a horrible taste to block out the voices in her head. Maybe she wouldn't be wandering down to the basement and have no recollection of it as if she was drunk and passed out. It was like her life just got more complicated every single day and she hated it. The people in this town didn't exactly make things any easier for her, especially Lydia, the freckled brunette whose name she still didn't know, and now Erica.

     She stared at the screen of her phone while thinking about whether or not she should call her parents. She hadn't spoken to them since the day she left Atlanta and she couldn't deny that she was wondering how they were doing. She inhaled deeply as she tapped on her mother's contact and held the phone to her ear. She became more nervous as the phone rang and she waited for her mother to answer.

     "Hello?" her mother said.

     "Hey, Mom. I just wanted to call and see how you guys were doing," Andi said while fidgeting with the hem of her shirt.

     "Your father and I are doing just fine," her mother replied and Andi sighed.

     "How come you and Dad never told me?"

     "Told you what?"

     "About our family? About witches?"

     There was a long pause before Andi heard her mother breathe heavily into the receiver.

     "We were hoping it would skip you─"

     "Well it didn't. That's what caused the accident at school, why I'm being lured into a basement by a magic book, and why I'm hearing voices in my head. And instead of telling me, you sent me away and barely looked at me," Andi said. Everything was starting to hit her and her emotions were starting to rise. "It shouldn't matter how things ended, you and Dad should've told me but none of you said anything."

     "I know. I'm so sorry."

     "You don't know anything! You're not the one who's carrying this burden, I am!"

     The more Andi spoke, the more frustrated she got. None of her parents knew what she was going through. They were the ones who kept her in the dark and sent her away when things got rough. They didn't even bother to say goodbye when she was leaving. From the day she caused that accident at her old school, she was truly on her own. Instead of explaining to her what happened and why it happened, her parents booked that flight to California and she was gone.

     "None of you guys were there when I needed you. Instead you put me on a plane and you didn't even say goodbye. How could you and Dad do this to me?" tears of frustration flooded her eyes as she waited for her mother's answer.

     "You have no idea how sorry we are─"

     "'Sorry' doesn't fix anything. You gave up on me when things didn't go the way you wanted them to and you turned your back on me when I needed you most. 'Sorry' just doesn't fix anything," Andi said before hanging up and putting her phone on the nightstand.

     The tears started to spill and she laid down on her side with her face buried into her pillow. Ugly sobs made her shoulders shake as the pillowcase absorbed the salty water from her tears. Her head started to throb and her eyes were red and swollen by the time she let out everything she had been holding back. After a while, her body felt numb and all she wanted to do was sleep. Eventually, she did fall asleep.

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     Even though Andi didn't see the point, she thought it wouldn't be such a horrible idea to go to the lacrosse game that was being held a few hours after school. Her grandmother decided to go as well so now the both of them were getting out of the car after finding a spot in the parking lot. Andi decided to go with a pair of straight cut jeans and a grey graphic t-shirt with a maroon zipper hoodie to keep herself warm from the autumn wind. Both her and her grandmother found a spot on the bleachers as the players from the opposing team arrived onto the field while the Beacon Hills team got ready for the game.

     Andi watched the game unfold as players collided into each other, especially a player from the opposite team who looked much bigger than all the other players. The crowd groaned as her ran into any and almost every player that got in his way and knocked them to the ground.

     "Is that thing even a teenager? I want to see a birth certificate!" the coach yelled before sitting down on the bench.

     Andi's grandmother chuckled as she watched the game. "I've seen high school students who were six foot four plenty of times," she said. "This one isn't as tall, he's just really strong."

     "Anyone who's six foot four would have to really look down when they talk to me. We're talking a whole foot and two inches here," Andi said while laughing.

     "At least you can ask them to reach high shelves for you," her grandmother joked and Andi smiled before turning her attention back to the game.

     Since the one opposite player kept crashing into the other players, the Beacon Hills team was down on a few players. Even when all the extras were put into the game, they were still short until the coach looked at one of the students in the back. He was sitting right next to Erica and both of them looked at the coach.

     "Do you play lacrosse?" he asked. There was a pause before the boy stood up and took off his jacket. "We got ourselves a player!"

     The boy was put in a lacrosse jersey and a helmet and he was given a lacrosse stick before running into the game. Andi watched as the one player from the opposing team charged at the new player, with the intention to knock him down just like all the other players he targeted. Both boys collided but instead of the new player falling down, it was the player from the other team.

     The game went on and everybody stood up and cheered as the Beacon Hills team scored a goal. But after that, the same player from the other team crashed into the player who scored the goal and Andi could hear a loud snap. Allison and some of the other players crowded around him while everyone on the bleachers watched.

     "Red card!" Andi shouted as she stood up. "He did that on purpose!"

     Despite the loud snap she heard when the boy fell onto the ground, he managed to stand up on both legs as if nothing happened. Andi was confused since she was sure she heard something break when he landed but it seemed like everything was okay. It shouldn't have been possible for anyone to recover from an injury that bad so quickly but somehow he did. She was certain that he had broken something, most likely his leg judging by the way he landed on the ground yet there he was, standing on his own two legs with no evidence of any pain or injuries. She still felt like the player who knocked him down after he scored the goal should've been dismissed for the rest of the game but it seemed like the game was going to carry on.