10 - Health scare

“What seems to be the matter, Lucas?” Dr van Vuuren asked the blonde man.

He had a stressed look on his face as he sat down on the nurse’s bed.

“The matter, doc, is that my friend has just misplaced his last brain cell,” Tamsyn said with a bored tone as she stood beside the nurse.

“Well, I’m sorry for being concerned. Forgive me for caring about my friend’s mental deuteriation,” Tamsyn rolled her eyes, “Oh, don’t even start. You slept with fish face, Linda, fish face!” he stressed and fell back onto the nurse’s bed dramatically with his face buried in her hands. This only earned a giggle from the nurse. The brunette woman was highly amused and all too familiar with the friends’ dynamic by now. She didn’t even speak, only nudged the blonde nag-pot off the bed and waltzed out the room leaving the echo of her laughter in her wake.

Once the woman was out of the room, Lucas sat up and stared at his best friend of almost 2 decades. He wanted to slap some sense into her, and on any other occasion he would have, but this was not that occasion. She was hurting, so much was obvious. But why else would Tamsyn bed that wench? Lucas stared at his best friend, his best friend who was like a sister to him and sighed.

“You’re not alone, Sun. You’re always going to have a family here,” he said and leaned forward to meet her brooding brown eyes. Tamsyn looked everywhere except at her friend for as long as she could manage until her tear-filled eyes reached the only pair of blue eyes that made her feel safe.

“He… he didn’t even know me, Luke. I was a stranger to him. My own brother had to attempt to pronounce my name,” she seethed. Her voice was laced with arsenic and viper’s venom. “And then… I fucked up. I was supposed to go there like a ghost and disappear all the same but somehow in the span of days, I fucked up his life again. Wasn’t it enough that I already killed his parents –,” she choked up and took a shaky breath before continuing, “I couldn’t stop there! Of course not, I had to take more from him. My uncle was so right, and I guess my gran knew too. That’s why they sent me here. That’s why they threw me away. I fuck up everything I touch.” She was staring down at her hands as she dug her fingers into her palm and bounced her knee rapidly against the tiled floor. She wanted to throw up at the thought of betraying her brother again. And yet she couldn’t bring herself to. She did not deserve to be relieved of the ill-feeling in her gut. She deserved to let it fester and eat her from the inside out. She wished that somehow Razeen could witness her pathetic state and know that it was caused by guilt over what she did to him.

Only… he didn’t know. About her. About their family. About Kelly. About anything.

All he knew was that he was marrying the woman of his dreams and that his family was proud of him, at least the ones that managed to stick around long enough to see him become who he was.

“What are you talking about, Tamsyn?” Lucas asked. “Firstly, you did not kill your parents. That evil emptied headed monsters did and secondly, you are leaving… while unfortunate was necessary. Your brother will understand someday.”

“Yeah, before or after he realises that he has a sister?” she asked with a razor blade wrapped around her tongue. She felt her skin get hot and her nails start to melt in preparation to erupt. Lucas saw the grimace on her face and the way that her forehead furrowed and relaxed in equal intervals. She was having a meltdown.

“Okay, breathe, sun, breathe. You’re safe here. I’m here. Breathe,” he instructed her and slowly got up from the bed and stood in front of her. he knew better than to touch her when she was like this. The last time he did, he was rewarded with second degree burns. Despite the fact that he had inherited the ability to heal through the assistance of blessed water, the burns themselves were not fun to experience. So, instead, he led her away from the nurse’s office and outside towards the ravine ran right beside the school. The best part of living on an island, one was never short of freshwater supplies to use for all manner of mystical purposes.

“Now, tell me what happened. There is something that you’re not telling me,” he asked her once she was fully submerged further down the ravine where it emptied into the start of the river Gale. He watched the steam come off the water surface in steam waves. It was sort of impressive and oddly meditate to watch them ripple and swirl in the air against the background of the dreary grey sky but now was not the time to admire the artistry behind steam. His best friend was in trouble and she needed him to focus and help her, not admire their surroundings.

“What happened, Tamsyn,” he asked her again in a softer voice than last time.

Tamsyn clenched her eyes tightly shut as she willed herself to retain her composure and be the reason the fishing people of their campus shouted at them for killing off all the freshwater fish again. It was going to be a normal day on campus, even if it killed, him. She was not going to lose control and hurt someone else. Not today.

“I met someone-,” she said.

“Did they give you trouble?” he asked with a stiff voice.

“Not exactly. But they sort of saw me,” she said.

“Saw you?” he asked. Bit took another shaky breath and looked up at her friend motioning her hands towards herself.

“Yeah. She saw me do something like this,” she said and allowed her body to release droplets of lava into the river. She watched her best friend raise his eyebrow and give her a confused look before his crystal blue eyes widened and he looked between her and the boiling river water in rapid succession.

“You mean she saw you… y’know?” he practically stuttered.

“Glad to see you’re catching on there, Luke,” she said and took one last deep breath before making her way out of the water. He took the gown that he swiped from the nurse’s office and held it out for her to walk into. Those training suits were not very conservative when they got wet. He was also sure to bring an extra layer along if she ever went into overheat mode. She put on the gown and then turned to him with a now relaxed facial expression. “She knew, Luke. She made this drink for me… after she saw. And my anger, it was gone like,” she snapped her fingers and smiled dopily, “She knew what I was and she didn’t even care.”

Her voice was dreamy and her eyes were trapped in the past. Lucas smirked at his friend and laughed.

“You love her,” he said and Tamsyn’s eyes widened and shot towards him.

“What? No… I um… she’s. Kelly’s lovely but um, we couldn’t,” she trailed off and looked toward the horizon. “She isn’t mine to love,” she admitted with a humourless laugh and looked at Lucas. The look on her face, coupled with everything else she’d said in the last half hour was enough for the Norseman to put and two together.

Honestly, it was more like putting two and two together, carrying a one from someone else’s equation and then doing quadradic algebra but, in the end, he got to the desired answer. Kelly was not Tamsyn’s to love because she was promised to someone else. Razeen’s a very unlucky boy indeed.

“Come on, kid. Let’s get back to the room,” Lucas said and wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled his best friend towards their dorm.

They were both unwinding from their stressful morning but they were interrupted. There was a knock at the door and Ivar, a slender raven-haired young man with perfect teeth and a disinterested look on his face, leaned against the door frame.

“Can I help you, leach?” Tamsyn asked with an equally stoic face. She wasn’t racist by any means but there was something about the Vampires that made her uneasy. Ivar more than most because of how much he relished in the pain of others. Lucas found that one out the hard way.

“Headmaster wants to see you and Sparkles,” he said and smirked over the Orisha spawn’s shoulder at Lucas who was standing in the hallway with a timid look on his face. Despite everything that happened between them, the sight of Ivar still got under his skin sometimes. Most of the time. “Better get a move on, lads. Sir doesn’t really look in the mood to wait.”

Tamsyn and Lucas shared a worried look and a single thought floated between them.

What could possibly be wrong at 8 o'clock in the morning?