Lulu looked over at her roommate, buckling over as she held her stomach, laughing so hard that her diaphragm began to spasm. Her cheeks hurt from smiling, still sore from the night before.
"I...I take it that's not yours then?" Alli asked, breathing the words between giggles. āGod no, thongs are like giving yourself a 24 hour wedgie. Not okay,ā Lulu snorted, allowing her own laugh to pitter out before Alli looked back over at the red thong they had discovered. Lulu looked at her again and she couldnāt help but laugh a second time.
"Oh, Miss Allen, I think you're going to kill me with laughter," Alli announced, wiping away involuntary tears from her eyes. Lulu wrapped her arms around her chest and stood upright, scanning the common room again when she suddenly spied a series of abandoned books on a shelf along the far wall, one of which was out of place. Her memory quickly put two and two together. He had thought it funny to bring out my favorite book.
"Aw, dammit, you made me ruin my eye make-up!" Alli giggled. Lulu grinned at her friendās false anger. "Listen, I need to head back to my room. I need the, ah, little girls room. I'm not running out on you if... they aren't yours, I promise."
āI promise they arenāt! And go, donāt be late for class. One of us has the better reputation to uphold. Iāll catch up with you later,ā Lulu replied, watching as her roommate began to exit the spacious common room. āAnd hey! Thanks! Really. Most people arenāt as receptive to me, you know?ā she added, smiling warmly and watching as the highly dexterous Alli bounded up the stairs without missing a step, never jeopardizing her balance or even giving herself the chance to fall. If Lulu had tried to mimic her, she knew she would land a face plant halfway up. She smiled, content that her roommate hadnāt taken badly to her. Lulu had destroyed their room and shown up virtually naked the morning after without explanation and Alli had still been friendly. I wish everyone was like that.
With no one close, Lulu proceeded to the bookshelf, pulling down a copy of Choderlos de Laclosā Dangerous Liaisons. Sure enough, behind it and tucked into a passage he had decided to read to her ā mocking her love for the book all the while ā was the black silk underwear she had worn for him, and tucking behind the stack of books her bra. It was fitting and she laughed as she held them in her hands, rubbing her thumb over the soft fabric, feeling relatively better all things considered. No one was going to be finding something they shouldnāt. Laughing as hard as she just had had made her forget about the pounding hangover in her temples.
Lulu leaned up against the fireplace, keeping the copy of Dangerous Liaisons in her hands, flicking through the pages, amused by the notes someone had made in pencil in the margins. The copy was incredibly old and not one of hers. It wasnāt the most popular book by far amongst her generation. Considered classic literature, most people never read it unless they had to and even then, high school level courses never wanted to teach a book about two aristocrats who used sex as a weapon against rivals.
It wasnāt more than a few minutes after Alli left that the ground began to vibrate suddenly. Lulu shifted, squatting away from the wall and shielding herself as the remaining books on the shelf fell to the floor in a tumbling cascade. Earthquake? she thought to herself. The world seemed to answer as the vibrations grew more violent. Lulu gasped as an entire oak shelf fell off the wall and shattered. The furniture was shifting and above her a chandelier began to shift in a circle so violently that it crashed into the ceiling, which promptly cracked. Panic began to set in. Oh my God. Oh my God!
Having grown up in an earthquake zone, she knew that her safest place to be was outside. She looked outside the common room windows. She was on the second floor but the roof was flat, the rooms were grated but they didnāt open. Shielding her head, she grabbed an encyclopedia from the floor and hurled it at the glass, hearing it shatter as she shielded herself from the glass that sprayed out. She ripped her shirt off, feeling her heart race in her chest. More things began falling and the groaning of the building made her begin to hyperventilate. She feared for her life in those moments as she wrapped the fabric of her shirt around her arm and punched out the remaining glass, clambering through hurriedly. As she gripped the top of the window frame she felt her unwrapped arm catch a fragment. The pain was so sudden and gripping. Her heart stopped and she suddenly felt so out of control in that moment, wanting nothing but to be safe, to come out alive. She heard the screams and suddenly she was falling backward off the roof. Her heart lept into her throat and her breath seized in her chest. When she closed her eyes it was like Grey was at her throat again. She was completely out of control of her fate. And everyone elseās. Fear. It gripped her. She was going to die. Lulu knew it.
Something happened that she couldnāt quite describe. As she felt back through the air it was like her body sent out a radiating pulse, the air rippling and electric. It surged out of her finger types and expanded beyond her. She didnāt know how far it went but suddenly everything was different. She was suddenly falling but not into the nearby bike racks or dangerous fence posts. Instead she fell into a garden, her fall broken by a series of globe cedars. As she stared up into the sky, Lulu felt herself breathing rapidly, her entire body feeling like it was being pricked by pins and needles. Her head spun as she sat up but cleared and suddenly she felt incredibly energized. She had only felt like this once before. When she had cursed Grey.
As she looked beyond her vantage point she saw dozens of students pouring out onto the fields behind her. As she stood up, she checked her arm. She was faced with a cut that needed stitches. Lulu shifted, brushing the dirt and cedar bits off of her torso, thankful she had picked a tank top to wear underneath. She wrapped her shirt around her bleeding arm, turning as one of the other students brought a limping friend through the doorway, one arm slung over theirs. Lulu looked back at where she had fallen and the objects that surrounded her, all things that would have undoubtedly impaled her had she not fallen just as she had. It wasā¦remarkably lucky.
Then it dawned on her. She hadnāt cursed anyone, or even blessed herself. She had sent out a radiating wave of fortune to everyone in the school. But howā¦? She stumbled back, with one of the other girls asking her if she was okay. āYeah,ā she murmured, gaping as she looked back at the school, feeling the ground still shaking beneath her feet, praying that her powers were doing the good she thought they were and for the first time.