She places the tip of the pen down on the paper and hesitates for one beat, two, three. And then she's off, ink streaming across the page, words and letters and phrases pouring from her pen. Hate and guilt and sorrow and love and triumph and joy flow from her hand, passionately flying onto the paper. And suddenly it's over, her hand stills, she slowly marks the last period on her essay, and cracks open her book.
When she stands to leave class, it's like walking through molasses. The world seems to slow as words and thoughts and ideas fly through her brain, names like Tris and Luna colliding with Montag and Winston. The beat of her heart seems to match that of an unseen drum, and her feet seem to shift in order to mark time.
Bum-ba dum ba-dum bum-bum goes a long-forgotten rhythm, coursing unbidden to her mind.
A strange feeling tingles underneath her skin as she walks, adrenaline coursing through her veins for no reason other than the words on the page of a book, she thinks.
Her legs feel numb, she notices with detachment. Yet she continues to walk until the drum grows louder, and she stumbles. No, this was not allowed to happen. She was supposed to be a new soul! She couldn't let baggage from years ago weigh her down! She still needed to get a scholarship to… to… to King's College? No, that wasn't at all right, she realizes, staggering through the quickly dispersing crowd and leaning against the wall.
Yes it was, flies through her mind, and she takes a deep breath. Calm down, Alex, she thinks, and it scares her, because she's only ever called herself Lexa.
She sinks down the wall, heart racing no longer from thoughts of fictional revolutions but of real ones. Stop, count, she tells herself. One, two, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf- Wait, what?
Another name joins the fray in her mind, Eragon and Katniss taking a backseat. A name that settles on her shoulders like an old coat, heavy but comfortable.
She lets out a little laugh from where she sits on the shitty tile flooring of the empty school hallway. Figures, she tells herself. I write a three-page essay on myself. Pointing out my own flaws. And how I could have done better. Then again, what else was the Reynolds Pamphlet?
“Alexa?” calls out a concerned voice, and she glances up to see her reading teacher heading towards her.
Lexa shook her head, and croaked out, “Just my Revelation, Mrs. Washin- oh.”
The memories came then, breaking over her like the hurricane broke the levees. Emotions, places, people, experiences, and then- “Oh my god, that's why Erin won't talk to me! Fu- fluffernutter.”
“Are you alright?” asks Mrs. Washington, and Alexa nods.
“Yeah, I'm fine,” she says.
Mrs. Washington purses her lips, looking like she doesn't believe a word Alexa just said. “Well, you should head down to lunch. Being with friends always helps after these th-”
She was interrupted by a frantic fluffy haired girl barreling down the hall. “Lexa! Lexa, it's Laurie! We were in Social Studies, her Revelation came! Mr. Lee only let me come get you now, of course, because he's a right- oh. Mrs. Washington,” Gillian shouts, rapid-fire, before stopping suddenly and trying much harder than before to look even marginally taller.
“At ease,” says Mrs. Washington with a light smirk, and Lexa realizes her teacher's first name is Georgia. Before she herself can say anything, though, Mrs. Washington says, “Go on, Gillian. Take her to Lauren.”
(Even Theresa Jefferson had helped convince Mr. Lee to let Gillian go get Lexa, it turned out. Jefferson claimed she just couldn't stand the whimpers, but Jamie Madison whispered to Luke Schuyler next period that her friend really did care, at least marginally.)
Mark Schuyler, Luke's brother, was the other one of their friends in that class, and currently knelt on the floor next to his sobbing friend.
“What triggered her Revelation?” Lexa asks, deceptively calm as she crosses the room and took her girlfriend's shaking form into her arms.
Mark winces and looks away, while Gillian replies with a wince, “Valley Forge.” Lexa grimaces.
“Oh love, your luck is as impeccable as ever,” she sighs into Laurie’s hair. “I write a three-page essay analyzing myself, you get traumatic experiences. Did you know that Mrs. Washington's first name is Georgia? Yeah, I'm pretty sure she was the General. Why she would ever want to be a teacher at a crappy broke school here in Shittown, though, I don't know. That's a pretty strange thing to want to do, isn't it? She could have claimed her past life, made a bazillion dollars, bitchslap Donald Trump… and why would she waste that opportunity?”
Laurie lets out a strangled laugh. “Truly a missed opportunity.”