In A Bubble (Dark Bubble #1)

Chapter 1

The road to the great unknown always terrified me. What if I don’t make it? What if I fail? What if I’m not good enough? What if I make a mistake...?

“Zoe?”

Bell’s clear voice pulled me out of daydreaming, dragging me back to reality.

“What?”

I kept staring at her cup, finally looking up after a while.

“Is it the headache again?”

I nodded, feeling the sharp, pulsating pain grow stronger, the effect clearly showing on my face. I grimaced, rested my elbows on the wooden table and tried rubbing my temples with my cold fingertips. The whining pain persisted, and I soon gave up.

I rested my head on my left arm with a heavy sigh. Bell leaned over to get to my eye-level.

Her eyes were overflowing with worry, and I tried my hardest to smile back.

I would rate today’s ache a seven out of ten. It’s gnawing, dull, annoying, but not as maddening as it can be when it’s a ten out of ten pain.

When my pain is a ten, it gets so excruciatingly bad that my head feels like a volcano ready to erupt right from the top.

“Here. Take these.”

Bell handed me a blister of pills and I took it meekly, popping a few out.

I looked at Bell while washing the pills down with some water.

I liked how her comely appearance matched her personality.

Her impeccably straight dark chocolate hair reflected her composure, diligence, determination, and, at times, her aloof and no-nonsense attitude.

Her soft features gave away her inner kindness and sensitivity.

Her eyes bore the color of fallen leaves, glimmering with more care and humanity some can have in their entire being.

“Thanks.”

“Did you quit taking your meds?”

“I’m sick of them. They take the symptoms away, but they don’t treat the cause.”

“But they make the pain go away.”

“They do.”

I took the silver spoon and carefully gathered the foam at the edges of my white porcelain cup with a blue pattern.

“Why make yourself suffer, then?”

I lifted the foam-filled spoon and licked it.

It was sweet.

“Guess I hope it would go away on its own.”

I mumbled, still holding the spoon in my mouth.

“And it doesn’t, does it?”

“No. I’m waiting for the right moment.”

I looked up, smirking mischievously.

“Zo-Zo.”

“Bell, you clearly have some kind of disorder, you should really see a...”

She dipped fingers in water and sprinkled some on me.

“Hey.”

Smiling, I wiped off the droplets with a sleeve of my wool sweater.

“Don’t you talk back to me, Zo-Zo.”

I laughed, only now noticing a small part of the pain dissolving, like ice in warm milk.

Bell and I are roommates. She never told me this, but I know she’s afraid of leaving me alone .

Last semester my headache got so bad I fainted while trying to get up, dropping to the floor like a broken doll.

Luckily, Bell came back for a textbook she’d left behind and called an ambulance once she saw me.

I remember opening my eyes and hearing her soft sobs. She was sitting at my hospital bed, hiding her face in the sheets in an attempt to muffle them.

That incident reminded me of a story I’d forgotten, the story I used to think about a lot.

Sophomore year.

Late at night.

We were in our beds, chatting, not feeling like sleeping just yet. Bell decided to share a childhood memory with me.

Back when she was little, her parents took her to stay at grandma’s.

And one morning she woke up, and her grandma very much didn’t.

At the time she didn’t know what death was and what it was like to never speak to someone you love ever again.

She thought her grandma was sick. She’d bring her food and lie down next to her.

She would tell her stories mom used to read her.

She could barely read back then, but her memory was great.

When her parents came to pick her up, their faces were frozen in horror. The body began decomposing, filling the air with the smell of rotting flesh. They approached the bed and saw little Bell, lying next to grandma. She was talking to the body, stroking its discolored arm.

Thinking back about it as an adult, Bell told me she actually knew what was going on at the time. She was just so scared she didn’t want to believe it. She thought death won’t take your family if you don’t believe in it.

At the hospital, I opened my eyes and ran my hand over Bell’s head. Through tears, she uttered: “I’m so sorry.” I told her she had nothing to be sorry for, that it was my fault for scaring her like that. She shook her head and said, “I thought you were dead. I’m sorry. ”

She would never leave me on my own after the fall.

She would leave the room less and spend more time with me.

Despite my efforts to persuade her I was fine and a promise to try and fall on the bed next time to lessen the dramatic effect, I could still see her struggle with it, trying to dig her heels in.

Bell opened her textbook notes and got started on the homework.

Sweltering, stuffy summer made way for a cool, refreshing fall. Lush treetops switched color from green to gold before losing their leaves altogether. Cool breeze played with my hair, the sun caressing my face with its vibrant rays.

We were sitting at the Deaf coffee shop.

This was Bell’s favorite spot. She loved taking us here.

To be honest, Ilion didn’t really offer many options when it came to going out.

It all boiled down to choosing one of the two places.

You’d keep going to Deaf, ordering the same thing until you’re sick of it.

Or you’d go to the other coffee shop, aptly named The Coffee Shop, and have an instant coffee, feeling glad to have some semblance of a choice.

Ilion was a town that evoked no desire to stop by and have a stroll.

You’d just drive right through it without a second thought.

There was nothing interesting or worthwhile there.

It felt barren. Most people living here were retirees who saw no reason to leave, and students who came to study and leave as soon as they’re done.

“Aren’t you going to do your homework?”

“I want to drop out.”

“This is our last year.”

My gaze dropped back to the cup.

“And where are you going to work?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Nothing.”

I went on stirring the rest of my coffee, the spoon softly clinking at the sides of the cup .

“You should really hold your horses, don’t you think? Look, how about you finish what you started, and maybe you’ll get some clarity along the way.”

“It’s too late for the clarity, Bell.”

I tapped the spoon on the cup, trying to get rid of the leftover foam and dregs.

“That doesn’t mean it won’t come to you. We’re free now, and we probably don’t even realize our privilege, but...”

“It’s called burden, not freedom.”

I laid the spoon on the saucer and looked up, folding my arms.

“I want to cheer you up, but I don’t want to spew clichés.”

I glanced back at my cup.

“When you don’t know what you like, you try things. When you’re studying and can’t decide what you like, you keep learning and trying stuff.”

“I’m sick of classes and the university. They’re sucking the life out of me. How am I supposed to try anything?”

“Do you really want to drop out?”

“Yes.”

“Zo-o.”

“My parents won’t let me anyway. I talked to them about it back at the hospital. I thought it was the right time, a solid reason for them to hear me out. But they’d hear nothing about it. It was a slap in the face for them.”

I remember enrolling in my first year here, everyone had so much drive, such aspirations, so much hope for the future. It felt like the world was ours, and we’d be the ones to change it, for sure. Thinking about it now, we were so pathetic.

The question of “What comes next?” began gnawing at me during my sophomore year. It was compelling, pressing, uncomfortable and suffocating at times .

In the end, I found no answer to it, and I was so jealous of people like Bell. People who know who they want to be practically from the cradle.

Bell always wanted to be a teacher. As a teenager, she grew fond of Philosophy books. From this equation she derived a dream, transforming it into a goal. She wants to teach Philosophy at a university. She likes studying and does so remarkably well.

Once she gets her bachelor’s degree, she’ll apply for a master’s degree. With a master’s degree, she’ll enter a grad school. Get her doctorate and undertake an internship. And once the internship is complete, she’d teach at some university.

She knows what she wants. She can see her future ahead of her, and it’s crystal clear.

Which can’t be said about me.

“Maybe you just don’t feel like doing your homework?”

Bell looked at me with a playful smirk.

“Maybe.”

I couldn’t resist smiling back.

My phone vibrated, the screen lighting up to a family photo. Dad on the left, mom on the right and me in the middle. We were hugging, glowing with joy.

The phone was moving on the table like a wind-up toy.

“Aren’t you gonna take it?”

“Don’t feel like it. Mom’s been calling way too often recently.”

I declined the call, vibration immediately coming to a halt, and turned the phone over.

“They’re worried about you.”

“Had they been worried, they’d let me drop out when I was in a hospital bed, begging them.”

“But there’s not much left.”

“A year is too long for me.”

Bell closed her notes .

“I don’t get you, Zoe. You don’t want to study, yet you have no idea what you want to do if you drop out.”

“I’ll bus tables.”

I picked up the spoon and began stirring the dregs at the bottom of the cup.

“But you don’t like that.”

“I don’t like it here, either. At least they’d pay me over there.”

“And you’re gonna leave me here on my own? I don’t have anyone but you around here.”

“You’re smart. You’ll make new friends.”

I stopped fiddling with the spoon.

“But no one can take your place, Zo... Then again...”

She got a far away look in her eyes, raising her pencil to her lips.

“Come to think of it, there is this girl in our year. Her and I...”

I splashed Bell with water again, cutting her off.

She dipped fingers in her glass of water and splashed some back at me.

We were laughing out loud, sprinkling each other with water.

“If you stay at the university, I’m going to help you out with the homework. But!”

She raised her index finger, pastel pink manicure glimmering on her fingertip.

“In return, you have to promise to attend all the lectures with me.”

I sighed mournfully.

“Aaand...”

“Aren’t the lectures enough?”

“You will come to Deaf with me on Sundays.”

“But I’m coming here with you every Sunday anyway.”

“See. You’re doing it. You’ve already made the first step on the road to your bright future.”

I sprinkled her again.

“Thanks.”

She splashed me back.

“You’re welcome.”