Contrary to his expectations, Tyler does not in fact see her the next day. When he walked into their business css, she was nowhere to be found. Which was fine. Really it was.

  Except that she wasn’t answering her phone.

  He’d spent the majority of the css, tapping away with his pencil, barely able to register Miss Bckwood’s words because she wasn’t answering any of his damn texts. Never mind the st message he’d sent asking where she was, the very first sat unread as well.

  And it was slowly driving him insane. He could barely wait for the bell to ring, before he was picking up his bag and rushing out the door. A quick detour to the art room was in order, he decided. It didn’t take him much time to spot them. Even less to go up to them.

  “Have you heard anything from her?”

  Brown eyes rolled at him as Brooke, put the sketchbook on her p and fixed him with an unimpressed gnce. “Well hello to you too.”

  “Hi,” he says. “Did you hear anything? She’s not answering any of my messages.”

  They exchange a look, he can vaguely recognise as concern before Ally sighs, giving him a small smile. “No we haven’t. She hasn’t answered any of mine either.”

  “And I’m not even sure whether she has even looked at mine,” Brooke adds, fidgeting with pencil before taking out her phone. She frowns down at it. “Nope. Still not read.”

  It smelled like paint. The room smelled of paint and charcoal, with the oddly comforting scent of paper. The soft sounds and conversation in the background would even be soothing if his heart wasn’t thundering in his ears. His breath starting to come out a little unevenly.

  “Hey,” Ally stands, “It’s okay, I’m sure it’s fine.”

  “We have no way of knowing that,” he manages to say past the dryness in his mouth.

  At this point, Brooke has already put her phone to the side and makes to stand as well. She gives him a considering look, before bending to pick it up again. She holds it out towards him.

  “Put your number in,” she tells him when he just stares bnkly, “that way it’ll be easier for me to tell you if she does answer.”

  “Oh. Mine too!” Ally moves to get her phone out.

  “You can just take it from mine,” Brooke tells her when she begins to rummage through it. Tyler sees Ally give her a questioning look before she shrugs and plops down again to continue her sketch.

  “Okay,” he says, taking the phone and quickly putting his number in before sending himself a message. “Thanks.”

  Technically, if she messaged them, she was likely to message all his spam ones too, but it didn’t hurt to have their contact details. Idly, he mused it would probably be easier to find her with it as well, but it was mostly an afterthought. They both sent him a quick smile as he waved them goodbye.

  Thankfully, it was lunch so he didn’t need to worry about any more csses because he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to focus. Not that he’s able to focus on anything regardless, but still. He doesn’t need to have his grades drop because he’s distracted.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Zach shoots him a concerned look as soon as he sits down.

  Tyler rolls his eyes, taking out his lunch. “It’s nothing.”

  “It’s got something to do with Vicky, doesn’t it,” Nina says the words more like a statement than a question so he feels there’s no need to answer.

  “What makes you think that?”Zach’seyes squint on her. It gets him an eye roll from both girls.

  “It obviously has something to do with her,”Liasays with a sigh. She gives him a look that would have made him ugh in any other circumstance.

  “Hey! I know that look, you’re calling me stupid!”

  The offended tone only gets him another pointed gnce, this time from both of them. “I didn’t say that,” Lia points out.

  “You didn’t need to,”Zachhuffs. “But fine, what about Vicky?”

  Tyler just gives them a flippant wave of his hand, occupied with searching through his contacts. It’s not like they won’t find out anyway, and he has no time to expin. Well he did. He just didn’t want to.

  “Is he ignoring us now?”

  “Looks like it,” Nina sighs, “and I can’t even take his phone with the way he’s holding it.”

  “You’re not taking my phone regardless,” Tyler feels the need to point out. Whenever she does that, he has a another K-drama added to his watch list. He’s a little too busy for that now.

  “Boo,” she huffs. “Fine. Have your boring days.” He pauses just long enough to give her a deadpan look before going back to his search. Still unread.

  “Seriously though, what about Vicky? Did he scare her off or something?”

  He doesn’t even need to look up to flipZachoff for that comment. He did not scare her off, thank you very much. Although…No. The st message she did reply to didn’t imply anything of the sort.

  “It would be too bad if he did,”Liasays like a traitor, “I really do like her, awful taste in nicknames aside.”

  “Yeah,” Nina adds, “I thought he knew better than that considering all the training with the movies. But he did agree to the bet, so maybe he’s in his bad trope era.” That gets her another deadpan look. She just grins widely in a smug way that tells him the words were said to get a rise.

  Fucking hell. He might actually need new friends. They were clearly struggling not to ugh at him. In a show or maturity, he decides it’s better not to engage. Nina’s cringe words notwithstanding.

  “Don’t ever say that again,” Lia says after a ugh, “We’ve talked about this. You can’t use that lingo in person.”

  “Yes Mum,” he can practically hear the eye roll, “it got the reaction I wanted anyway. But…” Her voice trails off and Tyler pauses, shooting a gnce up. It wasn’t like her to be hesitant. “Anyone else get odd senses of deja vu around her?”

  “What do you mean?” Lia’s voice sounds as confused as he feels. He exchanges a look with Zach and is gd to see he’s in the same boat.

  “It’s just that…” Nina’s lips thin, “She fixed my attempt to…Well I had this whole pn to get these two kids together. Anyone could see they were crushing on each other, and I was going to lock them in a closet. But then she gave me this look.”

  “Look?” Tyler’s more confused than ever. What look? And why did it sound like it got her to change her pn. Did it?

  “I don’t know how to expin it exactly, but it just…tugged at something and the next thing I knew, I was back in my seat. I just…didn’t think twice about it and just did it.” She sighs, running a hand through her head. “It was like I…” She shakes her head with a small smile. “It wasn’t a bad feeling, just…strange.”

  Vicky actually managed to make her stop her pns? Wow. He couldn’t remember the st time anyone had managed to do that. The best they could manage was damage control if they didn’t get to her before her mind was set.

  “What happened to the to-be couple,” Zach asks like the closet romantic he was.

  “Oh!” Nina grins, “Vicky got them talking pretty soon, and they’re now together.”

  “Impressive,”Liasays before looking down with an odd frown. He’d ask about it but she didn’t look like she wanted to talk about it.

  Not to mention, Nina’s words had struck a chord with him. Some of Vicky’s actions did give him that feeling. A sense of familiarity they hadn’t yet built. It almost reminded him of…

  No. He internally shook away that thought. Better not to think of her. This was Vicky. Yet the thought lurked in the back of his mind like an unwanted phantom. Fortunately, he soon had a distraction.

  “Got to go,” Tyler stuffed his things back in his bag, holding up his phone. “Think Vicky might be sick or something, got to make a call.”

  Then he walked away before they could ask any follow up questions. He was fairly positive that the reason she wasn’t here was because she was sick. But she also wasn’t answering her phone, so he couldn’t dread from pooling in his stomach. What if it was something worse?

  As soon as he was far enough away and isoted enough, he clicked call on Jade’s contact details. She’d insisted he have them in case of emergency. Surely this qualified?

  “He-llo, Jade speaking. Who is this?”

  “Hi Jade. This is Tyler,” he replied, considering his next words. “Vicky isn’t answering any of my messages, is she okay?”

  “Oh. Hi Tyler!” He could practically hear her smile. “V’s…well I won’t say fine, but it’s not anything to worry about.”

  “Then why isn’t she answering any of my messages?”

  “Ah,” he hears her sigh, “That’s partially my fault. I made her promise not to check her phone. She has a high fever and it wouldn’t do any good.”

  That was fair. Looking at his phone sometimes gave him a headache if he was sick enough. Only…“She has a high fever?” That didn’t sound good. He knew they had come a long way, but didn’t those used to be very dangerous?

  He only had a moment to consider the thought before he realised what he was doing. Tyler didn’t know whether to ugh or not. It seemed those documentaries Lia had made them watch had stuck more than he thought they had.

  “Yeah,” Jade is telling him, “but it’s fine. I’ve been with her all morning and she’s being a good patient. She’ll be better in no time.”

  That may be so, but…“Would you mind if I came over right now?” It wasn’t as if he’d be able to concentrate with her sick. And that’s not even considering the time crunch he was on.

  “Right now? Don’t you have school?” Well, that wasn’t a no.

  “Nothing that’s important. I won’t be able to concentrate anyway,” he tells her. The silence reigns on. “Please Jade? I can’t stay here like this. I promise it’s not anything I can’t make up and my parents sometimes take me home early anyway. Please?”

  “Alright,” she finally replies, sounding somewhat amused. “I suppose you can come over.” Then her voice perks up. “This is actually good. I have some groceries I need to get anyway. Thanks Tyler, see you soon.”

  “Thank you,” he manages to say the words just before she hangs up. A smile pulls his lips right after, and he sends his friends a message, telling them he’s leaving early. Heading to the office, it doesn’t take him long to get a leave pass.

  They just assume his parents want him home early to prepare for some event and let him through. It’s not often that he’s thankful his parents have a habit of getting him to come home early, but this is certainly one of them. It doesn’t hurt that he has a signed note in his bag either.

  Regardless, he’s walking out the door and down the street not long after. He doesn’t even need to ask for the address. He smiles. Walking her home in the rain was definitely one of his better ideas.

  Jade greets him at the door with a smile, pressing a kiss to his cheek and giving him quick instructions before heading for the door. “Food’s in the fridge. I shouldn’t be gone too long, but there’s medicine in the top drawer if I’m not back by the end of the next hour.”

  “Alright,” Tyler makes a show of saluting her, “Will do.” Then he smiles. “Thanks for letting me come over.”

  “No, thank you,” she says cryptically before heading out. “Lock the door behind me, please.”

  “Okay,” he says, doing just that.

  As the car drives away, Tylerrealiseshe doesn’t know where Vicky’s room is. Shit. He could call out, but that would mean Vicky getting out of bed. Meaning her rest would be disturbed. But he also didn’t want to be an unabashed snoop…

  Ah hell. He decides he’d rather be the snoop than possibly disrupt her rest. Jade mentioned that she needed to drink some more water soon, so he figured he could just take that to her. There weren’t that many rooms to search.

  His thoughts were proven unnecessary when coughing from down the hall alerted him to the right room. He felt a little like an idiot for standing there so long then and immediately dumped his bag on the floor, picking up the water bottle. Then a thought occurred to him, making him pause in his step.

  Did she even know he was here?

  “Jade! Could you please get me some water?” Clearly not.

  A smile spread over his lips as he knocked on the door. This could go very well or remarkably horribly. In either case, this was going to be fun. Well, mostly funny, but fun as well. How was she going to react?

  “Come in!” Her words were followed by a cough that had the smile fading. Ah. That sounded very…painful.

  Opening the door, he was a little concerned to see how pale she was. A bucket was pced by her side and the room was hot. Not that it mattered, considering the way Vicky was clutching the bnket close. Just how bad was this fever?

  Her eyes remained closed as she took the bottle and made to sit up. Tyler’s hands twitched to help her, but refrained. She hadn’t noticed him yet and he didn’t want to spook her. Not when she was drinking water.

  “Thanks,” she says after only a few sips. He can’t help but frown at it, that didn’t seem like enough. But then again, he wasn’t a doctor, so what did he know?

  “Do you need anything else?”

  At his voice, Vicky froze, eyes snapping open and widening as she turned her head towards him. She blinks those beautiful blue eyes several times like she’s not sure she’s seeing correctly. He can’t stop the grin that spreads in answer.

  “Hi. I didn’t see you at school, so I thought I’d come here.”I missed you, went unsaid. And he wasn’t about to say it either. It made him sound a little too clingy in his opinion.

  “What…What are you doing here?” Her eyes are still wide, hand reaching up to touch him. He makes it easier for her by taking a seat on her bed, avoiding her legs as he sits on the bnket.

  “Jade let me in,” he says by way of expnation, taking the water bottle and putting it on her nightstand. “I called her after you didn’t answer the first fifty messages I sent.”

  “Fifty messages?” She smiles. “Why’d you send so many? My phone is going to be spammed.”

  “Because you didn’t answer the first one I sent,” he shrugs.

  “So impatient,” she says accusingly, smile widening. Then her head turns to the side teasingly, “Were you worried about me?”

  “Yes,” he answer immediately, moving his hand to hover over her forehead. She moves to bridge the gap. Oh. She really is burning up. “I’m not even going to try and deny it. And that’s not just because Brooke and Ally would tattle on me.”

  That gets him a ugh, making him smile. Good. There’s a little more colourin her face now. A breath he didn’t even know he was holding leaves him in a whoosh.

  “You didn’t need to come here though. I’m sick.”

  “I know,” he nods in answer. “That’s why I’m here.” He smiles broadly, moving off the bed to give her a dramatic bow. “At your service. I’ll get you whatever you want, all you need do is ask.”

  And when she ughs again, a surge of pride goes through him. Truth be told, he wasn’t really sure he could look after a sick person alone. But it somehow didn’t seem as daunting as he thought it would.

  Not with her.