Chapter 27

Everyone pretty much ignored me for the rest of the week. I didn’t blame them in the slightest. I’d probably ignore me too if I knew someone who could see the future. For the first couple days, I was chill with it, but by Friday morning, I was tired of sitting in the library each morning by myself. Everyone else was just ignoring me like I was some disease they needed to get rid of.

Trayvon walked into the library, giving me a confused look. "Hey Anneliese. Where’s Edward? He asked to meet here."

"He didn’t ask." I said, getting off of my chair and crossing my arms. "I did."

"But the text-" Trayvon said, sighing heavily as he closed his eyes. "You and Edward are dating. You asked him to text me, didn’t you?"

"You bet your ass I did." I said, nodding my head to the table. "Now sit. Everyone else is coming to this too."

"I really don’t think-"

"Sit down. Stay a while." Callum said, forcing Trayvon to sit down. "No harm in talking."

"You mean that you were in on this?" Trayvon asked exhaustedly.

"All three of us were in on this. You guys are treating Anna like a social pariah, and that’s not cool." Callum said, crossing his arms.

"I’m surprised that you and Edward aren’t following us. She saw you two die."

"That’s hardly Anna’s fault. Not her fault that she can see the future."

"Yeah, but-"

"If you have a problem with me, just tell me." I said angrily.

"It’s not that we have a problem with that, it’s just that… It makes us uncomfortable because you’ve seen what’s going to happen to us before we even know. It’s weird that someone knows us better than we know ourselves, you know? It’s freaky." Trayvon said nervously.

"Oh, you want to talk about freaky?" I asked angrily.

Callum practically had to hold me back as I attempted to get in Trayvon’s face.. "Anneliese, calm down."

"Girl, what are you talking about?" Trayvon asked, giving me a confused look.

"You think that that’s easy? I have seen and discovered things that I really wish I could unsee, but I can’t. I don’t have a choice." I said, feeling my body shake. I lowered my voice as I looked at Trayvon’s shellshocked face. "I am going to be the cause of my own father’s death, Trayvon. I am going to be the one who kills him. Do you really think that that’s easy to live with, because it isn’t."

Callum staggered back a bit. "You didn’t tell me that."

"Because I didn’t want you to freak out after I told you that you were going to run on a landmine and explode."

"You’re gonna-"

"He’s gonna die from electrocution from red lightning. My lightning changes colors depending on how emotional I am. Red means anger. I’m going to kill my father out of anger."

"That sucks."

"Yeah. It does."

Braylen came in, dragging Keisha and Becky down to the table as Erika willingly sat down. Braylen walked over to me and Callum, crossing his arms as he looked at the group. "Now, you are all going to sit here and listen to Anna or so help me God, I’ll-"

"You’ll what, banish us from the land?" Becky asked, rolling her eyes. "You have no power here is America, Edward."

Erika walked up behind Keisha, putting her hands on her shoulders. "Yeah, you’re staying here too, Keisha."

"What? But Erika-"

"You’re staying."

I raised an eyebrow. "Erika, you’re actually helping with this?"

Erika shrugged. "Edward asked me too."

"You did, did you?"

Braylen sheepishly smiled. "Well, she’s easily your best friend out of everybody here."

"And he raised a fair point. If you didn’t get that premonition, you wouldn’t have even tried to save my life. I owe you one."

"I think you owe me more than one." I said jokingly.

"No offense, Anna, but I really don’t trust you right now, so I’m just gonna-" Becky said hesitantly, struggling to get out of her seat. "Why can’t I- Edward!"

"I said that you were going to listen. Now stay there."

"Okay, now that we’ve all gathered here, I promise that I won’t try to invade your personal boundaries and all that. At the beginning, it happened on accident."

"And now?" Keisha asked.

"We saw what happened with Damian, so don’t try and pretend that it didn’t happen." Becky said angrily.

"As much as I’m sad to admit it, Anna had a good reason." Callum said, sighing heavily.

"Becky, Trayvon, you guys didn’t tell him about my mom, did you?"

"No. We agreed to keep that between us during lunch." Trayvon asked cautiously.

"Why?" Becky asked, growing worried.

"Because he told me that he was sorry that my mom cheated on my dad with her boss." I said, sighing heavily. "I got a read off of him because I know I didn’t tell him, so I got suspicious."

"Still doesn-"

"I know it doesn’t, but I was just trying to trigger something so I could feel him out."

"But Anna-"

"I know, I know." I said, raising my hands above my head. "I shouldn’t have done that without his permission and same goes for you guys."

"Okay… And what are you gonna do about that?" Becky asked.

"She shouldn’t have to do anything. While it is a little… Freaky, it’s a part of her." Braylen said angrily.

"It’s okay." I said, digging into my pocket of my blazer and grabbing a pair of black gloves. "I’ll just pull an Elsa."

Callum’s eyes widened as he shook his head. "Anna, are you sure-"

"Absolutely not." Braylen said, smoke practically coming out of his ears as he looked at me. "The last time you did that, you-"

"First off," I said, stuffing the gloves into my blazer. "I haven’t tried gloves yet. Second, I’m not gonna do it all the time. I’m just gonna wear them when I’m hanging out with everyone so that they know I’m not gonna accidentally see something."

"What would be so bad if she used her gloves?" Keisha asked cautiously.

"Remember the beginning of the school year?"

"Of course we do. It’s not like it was that long ago."

"What is one thing Anna was wearing then that she isn’t wearing now?"

"I don’t know." Becky said, shrugging. "A bra?"

"Hey!" I said angrily.

"What? I’m just saying that you don’t have much in the boob area."

"What size cup do you think I have, Becky?"

"I don’t know, an A?"

"C!"

"You’re a C?"

"I like to wear sports bras! They make my boobs look smaller. Is that a crime?" I asked as Braylen started laughing beside me, the other boys at the table looking mortified.

"No, it’s just that they… Well, they look-"

"Can we stop talking about boobs please?" Trayvon asked exhaustedly. "Speaking as a straight guy, this whole conversation is making me very uncomfortable. Callum, you with me?"

"Could be worse. I’m gay, so I’m not arroused by that type of thing like you and Edward are."

"Who on Earth said that I’m aroused by stuff like that?" Braylen said, shaking his head with shock.

"Your face turned really red when Anna said that she wears a sports bra." Trayvon said, shrugging.

"Because he’s seen me in a sports bra." I said, rolling my eyes. "And no, not in a perverted way. He didn’t know how to fight hand to hand, so I taught him. When I’m in my house and I want to use the home gym or whatever, I literally just wear a sports bra and a pair of shorts. Not weird."

"Can we get back to the issue at hand here?" Erika asked exhaustedly.

"Yeah. Anna wore glasses at the beginning of the school year." Keisha said, drumming her hands on the table. "What does that have to do with Anna and her… Phoebe Halliwell moment?"

"The glasses were… Sorta kinda maybe suppressing all of my powers." I said nervously.

Braylen rolled his eyes. "There’s no doubt about it. They suppressed your powers."

"So if she wears the gloves-"

"It’s just another way of suppressing her powers. If she wears them, she could forget all of the stuff she learned about controlling her… What did you call them? Phoebe Halliwell moments?"

"Yeah."

"Who on Earth is Phoebe Halliwell?" Becky asked exhaustedly.

"A character on this super old TV show my mom likes to watch. It’s called Charmed. Phoebe is the youngest sister out of the original trio, she’s also technically the middle sister after Prue dies and Paige comes into the picture, but that’s beside the point. She can do the same thing Anna can with the whole… Future thing. She also has this whole empath thing, but that really doesn’t matter right now."

"Is Phoebe a cool character, at least?" Braylen asked.

"If you call someone who literally falls in love with the source of all evil and Cupid cool, then yes. Phoebe is a cool character." Callum said, rolling his eyes.

"Sounds halfway appropriate if you ask me." I muttered to myself.

Trayvon and Becky looked over at each other, nodding as Trayvon held out his hands. "Anna, hand over the gloves."

"Uh… Why?"

"Just do it."

"Fine." I said, digging my gloves out of my blazer and handing them to Trayvon. He looked over at Becky one more time, who sharply nodded once, as Trayvon turned around and threw the gloves in the trash can. "Hey, those were my good winter gloves!"

"You don’t need to wear them around us."

"Uh, yes I do if we’re going to be hanging out at an ice rink or building snowmen or some other cold related activity in the middle of winter!"

"Anna, we are still in October." Keisha said gently.

"But they were my nice gloves!" I said, watching as someone dumped the rest of their greasy breakfast sandwich into the trash can, cheese and bacon grease sliding off the plate. "That are now ruined because somebody got cheesy bacon grease on them. Dad is so gonna kill me."

"I’ll get you a new pair." Trayvon promised. "What we’re trying to say is that you don’t need to feel pressured to pull an Elsa on us. We all kinda freaked out way too much about it. You didn’t deserve to be treated that way."

"Just promise us that the next time you… Do a deep dive into the human mind, you give us a warning beforehand if you can so that we don’t freak out." Becky said, laughing a little bit, Keisha joining in hesitantly at first until everyone at the table was laughing.

"Deal." I said, giving Becky a thumbs up.

Callum checked his phone, eyes slightly widening. "Anna, we gotta go."

"Why?"

"Alvarez and Graves called drum majors out all day since they want us to run press and deal with superheroes that are visiting campus today and Graves volunteered the four of us to help."

I sighed exhaustedly. "Why did he volunteer us to help and not give us time?"

"I don’t know." Callum said, grabbing my arm. "Can you guys get our school work?"

"We’re on it!" Erika said happily.

"See you later?" Braylen said, smiling at me warmly.

I smiled back. "Yeah."

"Okay, lovebirds, calm down." Callum said, rolling his eyes. "We gotta go deal with a bunch of superheroes."

I nodded. Something about the way that Callum said that made me realize that nothing about today was going to be fun.

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