The headaches began on Monday. She’d overslept, was an hour late to work. Nothing made the pain go away. Not extra water, not pain meds, not even the Cup of Ramen she had before her Human Sexuality class. In fact, during class, she was fairly certain she became nauseous because of the noodles. Go figure.

The headache extended to Tuesday, to Wednesday. The only thing that got her out of bed at a reasonable hour was a text from the shipping department of her building stating she had a package. With barely ten minutes to spare before class started, Cat managed to finish answering the review questions required for Communications, and grant herself at least a little relief. Mentally, at least.

Thursday was rough. Despite her headache temporarily waning off, her anxiety was through the roof. English and Statistics were generalized torture. The afternoon sun beat so hot, part of her contemplated just skipping going to her PE class….

“One more day,” she sighed to herself in the mirror. She looked as exhausted as she felt, with her skin duller than normal, her hair messy and more unruly than usual. She’d managed to tie it into a bun to get out of her face, and eventually, she found herself walking to the enormous gym to check in for class.

Just like she had for every other week, Cat signed out a wristband that recorded her heart rate, wrote down the serial code by her name, and strapped it on. Just one more day.

It must have been over a hundred degrees out. Even though the thermometer outside the gym doors said it was only eighty, there just wasn’t a way. She sweat too much, and she wasn’t generally a heavy sweater, and despite already having two full water bottles before her run, she had to stop every minute or so to catch her breath or risk getting too dizzy.

The track she sort-of ran wrapped around a football field of sorts, which meant she had to run approximately four to five laps every week to equate to a mile. The electric heart monitor she wore tracked steps as well, so she never really kept track. But today...this was like pulling teeth.

Her usual mile was clocked in around nine minutes if she allowed herself a break halfway through. But this time, it took her over twice the amount of time just to feel secure that she wouldn’t faint. And she wasn’t about to do that while there were several teams playing various intramural sports on the football field.

One of the girls that she often saw at this time every week passed by her. “You okay?” she asked. She was built like a brick building, rippling muscles exposed with her runner’s shorts and a sports bra. Cat usually didn’t try to draw attention to herself, mostly to prevent any sort of embarrassment. But today she wasn’t so good at hiding. Granted, when she took a break, she normally found the pond and sat on one of the rocks in the shade. Today she didn’t make it that far, and just sat on the curb of the track.

“Rough day,” was Cat’s breathy reply. She gave a weak smile, and the girl frowned, still running in place.

“Don’t push yourself too hard. Burnout causes more injuries than anything else.” It would be sound advice for someone that was actually an athlete. Cat shot her a thumb’s up to indicate she heard, and the girl took this as a cue to leave.

One more day.

Cat told herself she would make up her abysmal mile time by studying extra hard for Communications. The professor still hadn’t assigned a topic for the debate yet, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t prepare.

So after she turned in her heart rate monitor with her recorded checkout time, she went straight back to the pond with her book bag. She would reward herself with a shower after she re-read the first two chapters of the book.

Cat settled onto the patch of grass that surrounded the little, three-foot deep pond. Her back against the giant boulder she usually sat on, her bag beside her, Cat let the quacking of ducks and croaking of the frogs keep her company. It wasn’t so bad in the shade. Still hotter than Hades, but bearable beside the water.

Concentration eluded her, though. Every other sentence, she caught herself staring into the murky pond, or staring at the people that played on the fields. The pools were just across the way, one designed for laps with those weird buoys as road markers, and the other, bigger pool was more crowded than she’d ever seen it before. There was some sort of water polo game wrapping up and bleachers filled with cheering spectators. Must have been quite a game, based on the crowd. She sat there with the book in her lap, full of envy. She should have taken swimming instead of this stupid running thing. Maybe next semester.

Studying! Right. Though the pond looked so peaceful.

When she got back on track, though, her bag rang. Cat marked her place, as pointless as it was, and pulled out her phone. Hannah.

“What’s for dinner?” her roommate asked cheerfully. “We could meet there when I’m done.” She must have been walking to her next class. Cat pursed her lips. What lie would work this time? She sighed to herself and rose to her feet, careful, using the boulder to steady herself. The heat plus starvation wasn’t a great mix, but she had to walk around whenever she was on the phone. She wasn't very good at being idle.

“Oh, I had a really big lunch after Stats, I don’t know if I’ll be hungry,” she settled with. Hannah hesitated on the other line.

“Are you mad at me?”

“What? No, why would you say that?” Cat pulled at the hair tie on the back of her head to loosen her bun, more for something to do with her spare hand than anything. She knew why Hannah thought she was mad.

“It seems like you’re avoiding me. Did I annoy you or something? You can tell me. I won’t get upset.” Cat’s protests went ignored. “I mean, you even sorta-dumped Cam! Are we all annoying you? Are we too much?”

“Hannah--,” Cat interrupted before she could get going. “No, really. I’m just trying to find a balance, is all.” Not a total lie. “I saw my grades dropping, and I can’t let that happen if I want to keep my scholarship.” It was really only half the reason. But it absolutely had nothing to do with Hannah, Cam or Kelsey being too much or anything of the sort.

“Oh. Are you sure?” She sounded unconvinced.

“Yes, I’m sure. I promise. Maybe this weekend we can have a girls’ day? Nail polish and rom-coms on your computer?” And food. Lots of snacks.

Hannah exploded through the phone, to the point that Cat had to hold her phone away from her ear. “Absolutely! Yes! I need that. My god, the stuff I have to catch you up on.”

“Okay, then good. Saturday night, you, Kelsey, me, and Colin Firth.”

“The guy from Daredevil?”

“That’s Colin Ferrel. Colin Firth is William Darcy.”

“Omigosh, that’s right.” And so, after a few more minutes of working out Saturday’s plans and mindlessly braiding her hair with the help of the pond’s reflection, Cat seemed to help put her roommate into better spirits. They hung up shortly after figuring out which Colin was the one in Kingsman even though neither of them had seen it, and Cat stood at the edge of the pond, staring at the turtle on the rock just a little ways away from her. It was a little baby turtle, climbing out of the water to rest in the tiny patch of sun the canopy of the trees let through. Maybe she should have leaned on Hannah more with this whole issue of balance, money, food.... She wasn’t a snob, didn’t judge people like Cat was so afraid of….

“What are you doing outside?” For crying out loud. Really? At the sound of Peter’s voice, Cat felt herself tense up. “I thought vampires were allergic to sunlight?” Cat clutched her phone in her hand tightly, and twisted around to face him.

Well, she certainly twisted. Her foot slipped on the moss of the pond. The “oh shit” drop of her stomach happened before she even felt herself falling backward, into the pond. For a moment, she watched Peter’s dimples disappear from the mocking grin to more of an expression that matched the feeling in her stomach. But after that, she couldn’t see.

She heard the splashing of her body falling into the water. The shouting. Someone swore, Peter called out to her. And then she heard a crack. More splashing. Her eyes were open, but she could only see darkness. For whatever reason, her mind jumped to, “Did I hurt the turtle?”

Everything faded into some sort of foggy, vague feeling. She was aware of every movement, but powerless to do anything but observe. Water in her mouth. Gross, muddy pond water. She wanted to spit it out, but the earthy flavor only intensified and entwined with some sort of rusty aftertaste. She was aware she hit her head on that rock, and somewhere in the fog, she could see bits and pieces of the world come into view.

Water. She needed to get out of the water. But by the time the thought came into her mind and her arms started to move, something was heavy, wrapped around her. The water was gone from her tongue; she still breathed the hot and heavy air. She couldn’t make out what was going on with all the shouting, but her vision started to return, blurry and splotchy, but there.

“Did I hurt the turtle?” she managed to ask. She could imagine the rock she’d just been staring at, the little turtle wondering why the mean human would try to crush it when all it wanted was some warmth. The scent of chlorine attacked her nose; there was harsh pressure at the back of her head; everything else was gentle compared to whatever pushed against her.

“...you hear me?” came a distant voice. Cat blinked at the blurred shape overhead. It was like her eyes couldn’t figure out whether to focus or not. Something dripped on her face, cold. Different from the water she’d just fallen into. One blink, everything was fuzzed together. Another, everything was too bright. Then, she could suddenly make out Peter’s big head hovering over her, and a couple faces somewhere in the edges of her vision. His hair was wet, dripping on her face before he brushed it back. His hand held her head up; she was aware of it, based on the strain in her neck, but she couldn’t feel the contact of his hand in her hair. Somewhere in the edge of her consciousness, she could hear alarms blaring, but the rest of her wouldn’t respond.

“Did I hurt the turtle?” she repeated. Someone had to know. If there were three of them, staring at her, making her head pulsate with her heartbeat, one of them had to see where the turtle went.

“No one cares about the stupid turtle--answer the questions. What is your name?” Peter was being really rude.

“Fuck you, Peter; I care about the turtle.” Her words were so much slower than she meant them to be. This, for whatever reason, brought the dimples prominently to punctuate a genuine smile from him. Despite the urge, she couldn’t find the energy to smile back. And at that moment, she knew she hit her head hard. Why else would she want to smile at Peter?

“You’re going to be alright. We’ve got a golf cart coming up right now so we can take you to the Health Center.” Another blink, more focus. Peter hovered over her the closest, dominating her view and blocking the sunshine. His free hand reached over to one of the onlookers to grab their swim towel, staining the white cloth red.

“You’re bleeding,” Cat mumbled. Everything about this all felt so wrong. Maybe it was a dream. But Peter took the towel and put it behind her, pressing even more into her head. She should have felt something, but she didn’t.

“I-I’m not bleeding, Cat,” Peter said shakily. He looked away, and suddenly she became very aware of her breathing, shallow and fast. “There they are! Finally! Come on, can you sit up?”

The most curious onlooker, the one that handed Peter a towel, reached toward her shoulder. He was tanned and had marks around his eyes from goggles that were too tight. When they pulled her up, blinking made her vision flicker.

After another jolt, Cat groaned. Her head was so heavy, ached and lolled to one side.

“Almost there,” came Peter’s quiet voice. Almost where? When she opened her eyes this time, she was mostly sitting up, between Peter and the guy with faded goggles marks, in the back of a golf cart usually reserved for football players. Everything was so bumpy.

Her eyes drifted downward. Her workout pants were wet; her shirt had streaks of blood on it--her blood. From the corner of her eye, she could see that in the lap of the Goggles Guy was a towel that was still partially white; the rest was soaked in blood. His jeans and tee seemed mostly unscathed, at least. On the other side of Cat’s vision sat Peter, his white gym shorts and shirt stained with red while he held an additional towel firmly against the back of her head. It was wet, soggy against her neck.

“Oh my god,” Cat murmured to herself. “That’s a lot of blood.” Was she going to die like this? Was her cause of death really “turned too fast, fell in a pond and murdered a turtle”?

“Head injuries bleed a lot,” Googles Guy said, his voice deep and calm. She stared at him a moment, using the counterweight of Peter’s hand against her head to turn.

“Who are you?” The members of her rescue team laughed nervously, as if she said something funny.

“Nate. And that’s Martin.” The faceless driver gave a wave with his hand, but quickly returned it to the steering wheel of the golf cart. He didn’t have any blood on him. He was tan like Nate, but with long hair tied in a ponytail in the back, wet like Peter’s and Nate’s.

Another bump in the road left a searing jolt of pain at the base of her neck. She winced, hoping it would go away, but it only intensified. Goodbye, adrenaline….

How long did she have? Were these her last moments? With the blood and the pain, was this it? No flashback to her childhood, no faces of her lost loved ones?

“You’re hyperventilating,” Peter said. Cat grit her teeth as the air escaped her mouth. The golf cart skidded to a stop beside a curb she’d never seen before, lined with large oak trees that disturbed the pavement with its roots.

“Come on,” Nate sounded. She tried. She tried listening to Peter’s counting, breathing in and out when he told her to; she tried to follow Nate’s warm and gentle nudge to one way of the cart to exit, but by the time they’d managed to coach her into trying to set one leg down on the pavement, a high-pitched screech overcame her, and everything faded to white.