Chapter 6
My happiness lasts throughout the week. Or pretty much throughout. Over the course of the week, we get new music in orchestra that sounds really cool and we also get information on a field trip we’re taking soon. In calc, we just did more work on formulas and did worksheets. Then in English we start A Midsummer Night’s Dream and it turned out to be not so bad. In AP HIstory, we talked more about Obama’s whatever-happened, and yeah. Not very full of anything. Until Monday the following week.
It starts off like a typical morning for me: I get up, dragging my still tired butt out of bed and into the kitchen for an unhealthy breakfast of a cinnamon roll. I throw on jeans and a blue t-shirt and sneakers, and I shove everything that I had to take out of my backpack for my homework back into my backpack and I rush out into my car. I get to school with about 10 minutes before homeroom starts.
In orchestra, I take my stuff out and get everything ready for the class. Amy walks in, and I give her a smile as she goes to her seat in front of me. She smiles back, though somewhat worriedly. I’m still confused about what might be wrong when I see Autumn walk in, and I start to understand.
She’s dressed in a blue and purple striped skirt and a gray blouse, her hair up in a bun. But that’s not really what’s wrong. What’s wrong is that her face is flushed and pale, and she has dark circles under her eyes. I can see sweat on the top of her chest and on her forehead, her glasses slipping down her nose. I can see from my seat that she’s shaking a little bit, and she’s wobbling as she walks over towards us. I draw in a sharp, worried breath, looking at her with concern.
“Autumn…..” I begin, hoping the tone in  my voice is enough to tell her I want to know what’s wrong. She looks at me, draws in a shaky breath, and shakes her head.
“Autumn,” I hear Mr. Jameson’s voice call from the front of the room, and I turn my eyes towards him. “Are you alright?” She stares at him with a hesitant look in her eyes, and I see her start to nod her head but, as I see her eyes just quickly glance over at Amy and I see Amy raise an eyebrow at her, she shakes her head. Then she turns to face Clara who is sits up abruptly seeming to feel Autumns eyes on her. Clara just stares a look of worriedness plastered on her face. Mr. Jameson sighs, and I see him run a hand over his hair.
“Want to go the nurse?” he asks her, the look on his face showing deep concern. Autumn nods, and quickly, though still shakily, walks out the room. Clara begins to jump up to help her Mr. Jameson faces Clara and gives her a nod. Clara is off and running after Autumn getting to her and grabbing her arm to steady her steps and then they are gone around the corner. Mr. Jameson faces the class and starts talking and getting ready to conduct us, but I’m still staring at the orchestra doors in shock. I feel something nudge my shoulder and I look over and see Amy giving me a warning look. I quickly glance back at my music and poise myself to play. Clara came back with 20 minutes left in class. “You were gone for a long time! whats-” I whisper and then am cut off as Clara whispers “I don’t know, just try to focus.”
At the end of class, I rush after Amy and Clara walking side by side giving each other worried glances and speaking quietly. I try to question them about Autumn addressing Amy, as I already tried Clara.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” she tells me, irritation, confusion, and worry all threaded through her voice. “Besides, you’re close with her. Aren’t you supposed to know these things?” I shake my head, understanding the reason behind her question.
“We may be close, but I’m not a girl, and it’s not exactly easy for someone like Autumn to talk to someone like me about, you know, personal issues,” I explain. Amy gives me look, and I shrug helplessly.
“What do you mean by ‘people like Autumn’?” she asks me once we reach the classroom. I gesture to her and then the door, allowing her to go in first. She looks at me, then rolls her eyes and walks in. I smile to myself. She looks back at me as I take my seat, probably waiting for me to answer. I shrug. Clara says goodbye timidly and walks off to her class two doors down.
“She’s not exactly shy shy, but it’s easier for her to talk to, well, girls, about things,” I tell her, and Amy nods in understanding. I’m getting my homework out for calculus when I think of an idea. I turn around so I’m in Amy’s direction.
“Amy!” I hiss, hoping she can hear me considering she’s almost all the way across from where I’m sitting. She looks up and around the room, and I hiss her name again. She looks at me, an impatient look on her face. I’m about to tell her my idea when Mr. Terren gets to the front of the room and I see him staring at me out of the corner of my eye. I face him, plastering a big grin on my face, adding a wink for good measure. I hear snickers from around the room, and I grin even bigger. I watch Mr. Terren’s eyes narrow at me and his jaw clench.
“Mr. Bransen,” is all he says, with a glare at me before looking back to the front of the class. I look back over at Amy to see that she’s staring at me, a disgusted look on her face. I smile at her, but her look doesn’t disappear. My smile turns into a frown, and I look away from her and back to Mr. Terren, thoughts swarming my head.
After class, I rush to pack up to reach Amy before she leaves. Thankfully I do, and I trot over to her desk, breathing somewhat heavily from rushing. She’s still getting her stuff together, so I start talking.
“So I had the idea that maybe we can ask Autumn’s friends about what’s wrong,” I explain excitedly. Amy looks up at me, an eyebrow raised.
“Um, excuse me, but aren’t we her friends too?” she asks. I feel my smile disappear as I ponder her question, feeling a tiny spark of anger that she had to ruin my spotlight.
“Well, yeah sure. But I meant Sadie and Megan,” I tell her, trying to keep the exasperation out of my voice. Amy nods, and I see her smile a little.
“I know that Cody. I’m messing with you,” she tells me. I can’t help but smile back at her.
“Are we going to ask them right now?” she continues, motioning for me to follow her out of the classroom. I shrug as I catch up with her.
“I guess,” I say, and Amy nods again. “All right. Let’s find out why our friend is so upset.” She smiles sadly at me, and I return it, surprised to feel a nauseous feeling in my stomach, though I can’t place if it’s because I’m worried about Autumn or because I’m finding out what’s wrong with Autumn with Amy.
***
We roam the hallways, looking for Megan and Sadie. Bumping into Clara along the way, she asks if she can help we shrug and a look of hurt crosses her faces and she walks on.  Even though both Amy and I are very close with Autumn, we have no idea where to find her other friends. After about seven minutes of searching, I shrug, giving up.
“Maybe we should just wait until lunch,” I suggest. Amy smacks her palm against her forehead.
“Duh! Of course! Autumn probably went home, since I haven’t seen her for the rest of the day, so we can ask her friends at lunch!” she exclaims, her voice ecstatic. I just nod along, smiling at her excitement. She looks at me and grins, and I grin back at her.
We head to the lunchroom, and before we even make it all the way inside I’m blasted with various scents of different kinds of food. I take a deep breath, and start coughing and sputtering.
“woah, are you okay?” I hear Amy ask. I nod while still coughing into my elbow.
“Well, now we know your lungs aren’t fully capable of working,” she teases me, and I laugh, which makes me cough all over again.
“Sorry,” she mutters. I clear my throat and walk after her, ignoring the few stares I see around me, probably attracted because of my coughing. Finally we reach the table where Autumn usually sits and I see Megan and Sadie talking and doing random things as they usually do. I love Autumn, but she and her friends often do the most oddest things I have ever seen. But it’s not a bad thing. Sometimes.
“Hey guys. We were wondering if you know what’s wrong with Autumn,” Amy explains, sitting down on the seat and gesturing to me. Sadie and Megan look at us, and I swear I saw Megan look at Amy like she wanted to murder her. I got the same look. But as I shake my head to clear it, any sign of murderousness in Megan’s eyes has disappeared.
“No. We’ve noticed odd things but she hasn’t said anything about it except that she’s been really sick and that she’s been cold. Besides Amy, shouldn’t you know? She tells you everything,” Megan replies, her voice a sharp, hostile dagger. My eyes widen at her hostility. I know that Megan and Amy aren’t as close as, well, Autumn and Amy, I’m still shocked at her tone. Apparently so is Amy, because she glances over at me, her eyebrows furrow in confusion and hurt. Then she turns around without saying anything more to the both of them, but they seem to not care because they’ve already picked up on where they stopped their conversation. I open my mouth, but no words come out, so I just follow Amy out of the lunchroom and just outside the doors. She’s breathing somewhat heavily and she’s rubbing her leg just like she did in orchestra.
“Okay, I’m sorry, it’s off topic but why do you rub your leg like that?” I blurt out. The curiosity was killing me, considering it seemed like a pretty big issue according to Clara and Autumn. She looks at me, but she doesn’t look mad.
“I do it when I’m nervous. And it seems to really bug Autumn when I do it, even though I have the right to be nervous,” she says, her voice rising and she turns her head away from me to say the last part. Almost as if she’s talking to Autumn. I suddenly feel an urge to reassure her.
“Amy, it’ll be fine. Autumn is probably just feeling bad again. I doubt it’s anything major,” I assure her, hoping I sound more confident than I feel. To be honest, I was probably as worried as Amy, though she’s probably more worried since they’re closer. But the thing is, Autumn rarely ever gets sick. So it’s kind of odd she’s already missed this many days. But still, people do get sick, so it’s not that big.
“I hope you’re right,” Amy says worriedly with a glance at me. She bites her bottom lip and looks away from me, her right hand still rubbing her leg. Before I can think I reach out and reassuringly squeeze her shoulder. She looks at me again, and I quickly take my hand away. She says nothing, but gives me a small smile. Just then McKenzie and Sarah burst out of the cafeteria, looking delighted as they look over and spot Amy.
“There you are! We saw you walking out and we decided to wait to see if maybe you went to the bathroom or something,” McKenzie tells Amy. She looks over and notices me for the first time, looking me over.
“Cody, right?” she asks. Sarah peeks over her shoulder. I nod, slowly backing away. I look over at Amy to see if she might say something to stop me, and she meets my eye but says nothing. I finally make it into the senior locker area, in which I pull out my phone to email Autumn.
Dude seriously. Are you okay? You looked so not okay today in orchestra, so what’s up? And don’t tell me it’s not just a cold or something because I’ve known you long enough to know it’s not just a cold. So why are you acting like something is going to kill you?