Tiredness

When Ivy was in 7th grade, she had managed to perfectly time doing her homework around her next door neighbor, who was in the same grade. They had two of the same teachers so she was able to use those thoughts to her advantage.

Unfortunately, they hadn't shared any teachers since so Ivy started spending her lunch periods in the library. There was always at least one person around who shared assignments with her so she got some of it done that way.

Despite her tendency to cheat, Ivy was actually pretty smart. But schoolwork bored her. She would much rather be immersed in books. TV shows were hard to get into unless they were really obscure because people always thought about spoilers.

There were so many books in the world that it was much easier to avoid hearing people's thoughts about them. Mystery novels were her favorite. Sometimes she even managed not to guess who the killer was before the end!

She also enjoyed learning languages. From a young age she had studied to be fluent in Spanish so she would understand the thoughts of her Hispanic neighbors.

Knowing what people were thinking was so natural to her that hearing things she couldn't understand made her uneasy. Spanish was her best after English, followed by German, but she also had a vague grasp of French, Italian, and Portuguese.

Ivy's plans after high school included majoring in linguistics and becoming an interpreter in another country. Maybe people overseas had different thoughts than the ones here did. It could be interesting.

She didn't see the point of studying biology or U.S. history when she could be studying languages instead. Her high school offered German as a language credit so that had been her elective for the past two years. Everything else she had learned online or using books in the library.

'Die, die, die! No, not me! You die! Ugh, why is this so hard? I hate team battles! I'm the worst player here…I'm dragging my team down…oh wait, I did it! Yes! Who's awesome? I am!' wafted over from Ethan's room and Ivy rolled her eyes.

He was supposed to be working on homework now; he panicked internally a few minutes ago when he thought he heard their mom coming up the stairs.

'Traffic was terrible…why can't I ever make it home before seven o'clock,' Ivy's father thought wearily. She heard his thoughts coming up the driveway before the car was even parked.

Deciding to take a break from her homework, she stretched and nearly tripped over the orange and white cat lying on her rug.

"Sorry, Peaches!" she yelled as she bounded down the stairs to hug her dad.

Even though she did this every day he was always surprised when she threw herself at him. It brought her a faint sense of satisfaction every time. She couldn't be surprised herself so she enjoyed doing it to others.

"Welcome home, Daddy!" she greeted him with a bright smile. Ivy was a daddy's girl through and through.

"Hi, Princess," he said warmly as he rubbed her hair. "Do anything interesting at school today?"

"Not really. I'm going shopping with Lydia this weekend though." Her parents both knew Lydia since she was just about the only person Ivy hung out with outside of school.

"That sounds fun," he said absently, as his thoughts betrayed his desire to locate his wife.

So he was feeling sentimental today. Ivy was in for a mush fest later. Joy.

As predicted, once her parents met up in the hallway there were a lot of lovey dovey thoughts. Ivy tiptoed into the kitchen and snatched a few more cookies while they were distracted even though dinner would be ready soon. Creeping up the stairs, she did her best to block out the love fest and focus on her German homework.

===

Ivy hadn't gotten much sleep so she stumbled through the school hallways like one of the undead. She could hear her parents' thoughts going a little wild for half the night and what self-respecting teenager wanted to be witness to their parents going at it?

Her English teacher was taking attendance and it took her name being called three times for her to respond, to everyone else's amusement. Their thoughts stung worse than their muffled laughter.

Ivy sunk lower into her chair, wanting to disappear. How embarrassing. Normally she didn't get caught off-guard like that.

As the lesson went on Ivy noticed someone worrying about her. 'I hope Ivy's okay, she seems a little out of it this morning.'

Carson? Since when did Carson notice her? It must've been because everyone laughed at her blunder.

They weren't exactly on speaking terms. Their interaction, if you could even call it that, from the day before was the first time they had spoken since being stuck together in a project group in 8th grade.

'She seems tired…I wonder why she smiled at me yesterday. Should I talk to her? Or should I wait for her to talk to me again?'

Ivy scrunched up her face in confusion. So this was about yesterday. What's the big deal? Was she so aloof that telling someone to have a nice day was against the law?

She took a moment to reflect on the flavor of Carson's thoughts. Dull. Studious. Repetitive.

She never really paid all that much attention to him outside of test-taking but she had heard a fair amount of stray thoughts over the years. His primary concern seemed to be getting a full-ride scholarship to college. He had been in honors and AP classes the whole time she knew him and did things like Academic Decathlon and Key Club. Nerd stuff.

'I'm going to talk to her,' Carson decided. 'I think I have some gum in my backpack; that could be an icebreaker…'

Ivy was surprised he was putting so much thought into this. She heard thoughts about herself fairly often, especially from people she knew well, but from most people they were barely in passing.

When the bell rang he hurried to catch up to her—his seat was three rows behind hers. "Hey, Ivy! Wait up!"

She turned and tried to act like she didn't know what was coming. "Hi, Carson," she said with a yawn. "What's up?"

He fiddled with his glasses nervously and pushed a strand of dark brown hair off his forehead. "Um…this is kind of random but do you want some gum? It's really minty and always helps perk me up."

She decided to tease him a bit. "Are you saying I look tired?"

Panic flooded his face. "No, you look great! I mean, yeah, you seem a little tired but that's not—"

His thoughts were in even greater panic. 'Great, I just said the worst thing I could possibly say to a girl. She probably thinks I hate her. Stupid! I should go find a nice hole to go die in now.'

"Relax," she said with a smile. "I know I look tired. I hardly got any sleep last night. Gum would be great, thank you!"

Carson breathed a sigh of relief as he handed over a stick. "You're welcome. See you in APUSH."

APUSH (pronounced as the letter A and the word 'push') was the nickname AP U.S. History students had used for their subject for years.

"See ya!" Ivy said cheerfully as she popped the gum in her mouth.

As he walked away his thoughts betrayed him yet again. 'I can't believe I just did that. That was so lame. So totally lame. She must think I'm an idiot. Why am I like this."

So the seemingly unflappable Carson Summers was awkward around girls. Interesting. She might have to pay more attention to his thoughts than just getting test answers.