Sufficiently Vulnerable

A/N: This was intended to be just a short drabble, but I guess I got a little carried away with myself :3 I'm guessing that this will turn out to be a few chapters long by the time I'm done with it. Let me know what you thought and enjoy!

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Chapter I

There are some days that I hate living alone with my dad but these times where we gather in front of our basement TV with our bowl of popcorn and for hours join the Enterprise in exploring the final frontier are those that I always cherish. Despite the troubles that we have both encountered, he has always remained there to support me, even if he sometimes needs a little help from Jim Kirk. Still, science fiction doesn't make words any easier to read or fix my tendency to be a little more than slightly socially awkward.

I am jolted from my daydreaming as I begin to feel the smoldering of the limelight fall on me and gaze of every one of my classmates fall on me one by one. Unconsciously, I slump down a bit farther in my chair and rest my chin in my hand.

"What was that?" I ask my teacher. I can feel my face getting almost unbearably hot as redness invades it much too quickly.

"Alethia, it's your turn to read," my teacher says. I look down at the open book that lies on my desk. The words seem to swim before my eyes and I do not recognize which has been read and which does not.

"Where do I start?" My voice sounds wimpy and too quiet. It's a miracle that anyone besides me could hear it at all.

"The section underneath 'Federalist Grievances and the Hartford Convention'," he says. His words are tense and I only feel more pressure put on me to be a better student.

My heart beats wildly and my head feels unsteady so I keep my hands underneath my chin to keep it from shaking. I take a deep breath in and release it, focusing all of my attention on those black white words on their two dimensional page. They don't intimidate me. I can do this.

"D-Defiant New England remain-remained a problem." My words come slowly and I am forced to take a hand away from my chin to trace it along the line I was reading. "It prospered daring the conflict, owning largely to illogic trade with the anemone in Canada and to the absent of a British blade until 1814." I hear the snickers of a few of my classmates and know that I have missed a few words. I take another deep breath, but nothing can calm my pounding heartbeat now. "But the membered opposition of the Federalists to the raw continued untabbed.*" I close my eyes and wish that I was invisible, praying that my reading wasn't as horrible as I expected.

A half an hour later, when the bell ring, I leapt from my seat and was the first out of the classroom. I couldn't wait to get out of that hell-hole. I stopped at my locker and deposited my American Government books and replaced them with new books for English. I was out of the fire and into the frying pan, it would seem. Wanting to postpone entering that classroom, I pretended to rearrange my extra pens in my locker. Next to me, a shoulder slammed into the row of lockers and I looked up, giving a faint smile at the newcomer before returning to my pens.

"Alethia," he says and I look up again, meeting his sea-blue eyes. He leans against the locker next to mine and smiles down at me.

"You're Percy, aren't you?" I ask. He had just moved to my school a few days ago and I had yet to talk to him.

Percy nods. "You often have trouble with reading, do you?" he asks. I slam my locker shut, not caring whether it hits him or not.

"Yes," I snap. "Why does that matter?"

Percy's head snaps up and his long hair narrowly misses getting caught in my locker's door. He shakes his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't know that would offend you so much."

"Offend me?" I scoffed. I could hardly keep myself from breaking apart.

"I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone," Percy says and then walks away, leaving me to only gape at him in wonder. I brush a strand of my long dark brown hair out of my grey eyes. He couldn't be going through the same thing I was. There was no way. Everything about him shone with confidence, even in the classroom. That's not something that I thought a dyslexic kid like me could ever possess.

After English was finished, I hurried back to my locker and twisted the lock. As the door sprang open, a large hardcover book slid off from the top shelf and onto the floor before me. I leaned over to pick it up. A sticky note had been stuck onto the cover and a message was scrawled on it.

"Is this book better to understand?" I read. A little snort escapes from my nose. Percy. It had to be. Never the less, I tuck my book underneath my arm and begin my trek to the town's library. It was a habit of mine to go there to study each day after school when the weather permitted. There was something soothing about being surrounded by all those books and the building's quiet atmosphere. It's a shame how much I love my books but yet how unqualified I am to read them.

I sit down at my usual table amongst the science fiction and fantasy section and start thumbing through the book. My forehead wrinkles as I study the unfamiliar characters inside. How dumb was I to fall for a prank like that? Thumbing through the book, I stop to look at the pictures. For me, they were interesting enough and I began to take a liking to it. There was no way Percy was getting his book back now.

I took notice of a picture of a large man with a bushy beard. From his place up on top of the clouds in the sky, I saw bolts of lightning emanating from the air around him. "Zeus," I whisper to myself. This was a book on the Greek gods. Sure enough, as I read the caption below, my thoughts were verified. My hands jerk up from the page in surprise. I wasn't supposed to be able to read that. A moment ago, I could have sworn that the text was in a foreign language. I flip back to the cover of the book and to my surprise, the foreign letters seemed to rearrange in my brain into a language that I could understand.

I shoved the book back into my backpack and took out my homework. That book was too weird. It was going back to Percy tomorrow, even if it did have interesting pictures. I started in on my math homework, but no matter how hard I tried to concentrate, my attention kept traveling back to that mysterious book. Hardly able to control my curiosity, I took the book back out of my backpack again. It wouldn't hurt to read just one page, so I flipped it open to the beginning. Unlike anything else that I had read, the words came fluently and I was able to go through it without hesitation. One page turned into another and I lost my ability to distinguish the difference between the chapters. I was so captivated by the book that I lost track of time and it wasn't until 9:00 when I finally looked up from it again.

"Excuse me," one of the librarians said. "We're about to close, so could you pack of for the night?"

I looked up at her in confusion. Surely I hadn't been reading for that long. I checked the clock on the wall, confirming my fear.

"Yes, of course," I said still slightly shocked. I promised my father that I would be home for dinner. The thought of food set my stomach growling.

"Lost track of time at the library and will be home soon, don't worry," I texted to my dad as I left the building. It was dark out on the street and I was thankful for the streetlights that lined the road and the sidewalk. I put my headphones to my ears and hummed along to each song.

A few blocks from the library, the street lights began to flicker before going out and I was plunged into darkness. I kept walking ahead, though I could hardly see my own hands in front of my face. It was a cloudy night so there were no stars or a moon to help guide my way. My song ended and in the moment of silence before the next song, I heard a rattling in the bushes. It must have been the wind, I told myself, but I couldn't convince myself that easily. I shiver ran up my spine and I got the feeling that something was watching me. I had gotten the same feeling when my school's janitor had grown an extra head and an extra set of arms. His mop had turned into a spear and I had almost died that day in the school basement, but no one would believe me, of course. I had learned to always trust my feelings since then, so I broke into a fevered run.