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Keefe
Keefe drummed his fingers across the cafeteria table. It was the midterms parent mentor conference and he was stupidly nervous.
Not about his grades though. Keefe honestly didn’t care what they were, as long as he passed, then he was good, but his dad. He would care. Alot
Keefe hadn’t been at the Shores of Solace for weeks, maybe months. It wasn’t as though his esteemed Lord Cassiass- ness or whatever kicked him out, nope that would cause too much of a scandal, not unlike the one that was happening now that Keefe left. Nope, he just didn’t want to take the abuse anymore.
His friends wouldn’t let him be completely alone so he took turns at Sophie and Fitz’s places. Grady and Edaline were incredibly kind and Della and Alden were, always amazing and thoughtful so it wasn’t like he had a bad gig going or anything, but he still felt weird sometimes.
“Keefe!” and there was the source of his weirdness, Dex. Not that Dex is weird, well Dex is weird, in a cute kind of way. It’s just that Keefe always felt like he was glowing or floating around him. Weird.
“Yeah? What’s up?” he asked.
“Here’s some prattles, you’ve been looking down all day.” he said. I don’t feel down when I’m around you.
“Yeah, I’m just worried that I’m going to be in second place to Fitzy again.” he rolled his eyes jokingly. Honestly between all the blackswan, neverseen, shadows, and other crap that the group had to go though in between school, it would be a miracle if either of them even got in the top 20.
“Well we’ve all been super busy, maybe wonderboy got,” Dex looked around, “second place.” he giggled, and his cute little dimples showed up.
“W-what? Wonderboy getting s-s-s-second place? Oh no, how will the Vacker family name ever recover from this?” Keefe said dramatically and clutched his heart, pretending to faint.
They both laughed. You look like the sun.
Sophie and Linh sat down.
“What’s so funny?” Sophie asked.
“Making fun of wonderboy.” Dex said. Sophie glared at him. “In a friendly way!” Dex added.
“Yeah, we were talking about the terrifying possibility of Fitzy not getting first in our level six midterms. It’s pretty terrifying.” Keefe joked.
Linh giggled. “Does Fitz usually get first? I mean, we all hung out at Everglen to study and I know he’s pretty smart, but does he really get first place in midterms and finals all the time?” she asked.
“Yes!” Sophie, Dex and Keefe said at the same time.
“Honestly, I’ll just be happy if I pass linguistics with Lady Cadence. She can be such a freaking-”
BEEP.
The bell over the school intercom went off and parents began to flood the cafeteria.
“Oh, Linh, are your parents going to be here?” Dex asked.
“Hmm? Oh no, Tam made it very clear that if they did he would have quite a few words with them. Those words being loud profanity and insults in front of the entire school, sooo, yeah, they aren’t coming. Tigren and Pritence are going to be filling in though.” she said happily.
Sophie held her girlfriend’s hand. “That’s good to hear.” Sophie and Linh started dating three weeks ago and they were adorable together.
“That really is good, because the wires in the suckerpunches that I gave you guys need to be checked again. I’m thinking it’s because I used steel instead of something stronger, but I’ll have to check it out.” he started muttering to himself about alloys and metal combinations and elements.
Keefe beamed at him. When Dex got into his thinking modes it always looked so . . . cool? Attractive? Nice.
“SOPHIE! YOU PASSED!” Grady and Edaline shouted from across the room. Sophie jumped up and hugged her parents tightly. Keefe wouldn’t deny that he was a little bit jealous.
Tigren and Prentice ran up to Tam and Linh and hugged both of them, saying how happy they were that both twins passed all their classes.
Then Juline and Kesler ran up to Dex with the triplets all laughing and smiling, saying that they were so proud of how well he did.
Keefe looked to his left to see a big Vacker hugfest where Alden and Della were, saying how happy they were that Fitz and Biana were both in the top ten of their respective levels.
Then bile rose in Keefe’s mouth as he made eye contact with his dad, and he held a piece of paper in his hands.
Keefe stood up and tried not to clutch his stomach.
His dad just pointed to him then at the exit to the cafeteria, motioning him to follow.
“I’ll see you guys in a minute.” he said and waved bye to all of his friends before following his dad.
He walked through the crowd of people and got to the empty level six locker wing.
“So dad, how did I do?” Keefe asked coldly. He wasn’t going to be pushed around by his dad anymore.
“Well you passed, but that’s the best I can say about that.” Lord Cassius sighed.
“You underperformed greatly. Even though your normal test scores of 99’s and 98’s are unfavorable, they are still much more preferable to what you got this time around.” he passed Keefe the paper with all of his grades on it.
Keefe looked at the paper once, then twice, then a third time. What? These grades were fine! No these grades were great! His highest was empathy at 102 percent and his lowest was elvin history at 95 percent. Everything else was somewhere in the middle. He did amazing!
“What exactly was unfavorable?” Keefe asked, trying not to let him notice the edge in his voice.
“Well, your tone for starters, but also your elvin history, physical education and agriculture were disappointing, to say the very least. All under 98 percent. Honestly did you even study for those?” Cassius snapped.
Keefe took a step back. He stayed up for three nights trying to memorize everything in elvin history, and studied with all of his friends for agriculture every week and for P.E, well he’d gotten hurt from all of the blackswan and neverseen meetings so many times that he missed a few days of that.
“Yes, I did study for those.” Keefe replied.
“It doesn’t look like it.” muttered Cassius.
Keefe looked at the ground. He hadn’t seen his dad in weeks and this is what he wanted to talk about, how disappointing he was?
“Whatever, you have no intention of coming back home, so I won’t waste any time with you. But you’d better get extraordinary grades come finals or else.” Cassius threatened then walked away.
Keefe nearly sprinted back to his friends once the coast was clear.
Dex was the first to notice him.
“Hey, are you alright? Did you have to use the suckerpunch?” he asked in all seriousness.
“Nope, but thanks for that though. It was actually one of the shorter talks I had with him.” Keefe said.
“That’s good.” Dex patted his arm. Keefe felt his face grow warm. What is happening?
Sophie ran up to Keefe, “Hey, you’re staying with us tonight right?” she asked, then knitted her eyebrows, “Is your face okay?” she asked.
“Yep yep everything is great, and if Grady and Edaline are okay with it then that’d be great too!” he said hastily.
“Cool, I’ll tell them.” Sophie said then ran off to her parents.
Keefe and Dex stood in awkward silence.
“So, I should go, before the triplets destroy everything, but hail me if anything happens.” Dex said bashfully.
“Alright, only if the three troublemakers haven’t destroyed your imparter by then.” Keefe shot back.
“Ugh, honestly those three might be better pranksters then you are.” Dex shook his head.
Keefe took a step back and gasped, “You wound me!” he said jokingly.
“Pfft, alright, alright. But seriously I have to go. See you later?” he asked.
“See you later.” Keefe said. You are so bright.
Keefe laid down on the makeshift bed that was next to Sophie’s. Grady and Edaline were only letting them stay in the same room because they didn’t have a spare, and they weren’t dating. Actually it was harder to tell who was happier when Sophie Linh started dating, the two lovebirds or Grady and Edaline. Maybe it was bangs boy, he was always complaining about how they were obviously in love and stuff.
Ahh the joys of having an overprotective family members, but in a kind way.
“Alright, see you soon! Bye!” Sophie said and her imparter clicked off.
She smiled and put down her imparter. “That was Linh.” she said and climbed into her bed.
Keefe nodded and started at the ceiling trying to focus on falling asleep, but he couldn’t.
Ugh, what is wrong with him? He didn’t get sleep problems when he felt safe, so why couldn’t he sleep now?
And why was his mind drifting to Dex?
Other than the fact that Dex was funny, and smart, and really hard working, and incredibly caring, and so nice, and really really really cute, and . . .
Oh,
Oh fuck.
Oh f u c k!
“Sophie I think I Dex.” Keefe said.
“Huh?” Sophie turned around and looked at Keefe. She made a confused face.
“Like, Dex Dizznee? Like, our friend Dex?” she asked.
“Yes! What other Dex do we know? I mean it isn’t a really common name!” he said, starting to feel panicked.
“Well how should I know the trends of elvin names? Look calm down, it’s cool that you like Dex. If you two dated then Foxfire would get pranked like a thousand times more which would be pretty interesting.” she said.
“Yeah but, I like Dex. Like, alot! That’s . . . aaahhh? I don’t know what to feel?” he said, starting to panic.
“And yes I am aware of the irony that I am an empath, but still!” Keefe said.
“Look, it’s too late for this. But just know that Dex cares alot about you too. Maybe some of it’s romantic.” she said and turned around.
What if Dex liked him back?
OH F U C K.