Chapter Twelve - Senna

                                    

                                          
Senna poked at her lunch, absolutely miserable. She was already only one point away from her second detention and she didn't even want to think about how a parent teacher meeting would end. She wanted to go home—and not home to the Tower, but home to the Rim. She wanted to complain to Wrench over the smell of metal and the sounds of work.
                          
She pressed her hand over the lump of the necklace that she still wore hidden under her school uniform, trying hard not to cry at the thought of her old mentor.
                          
Why would she have given her the necklace of a dead terrorist? It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense anymore.
                          
"Hey, I'm lookin' for a girl, perhaps you've seen her. She's this way too happy super naive girl. . . her name is Senna. I can't seem to find her anywhere," Nigel greeted as he parked his tray right across from hers, taking a seat at the otherwise empty table. Senna's response was to slide her tray to the side so she could flop her head down onto the table. "Wow. What killed your spirit?"
                          
"Everything," Senna groaned. "I overheard mom fighting with Zed over me being 'matched' and as it turns out, everything I've ever known is wrong. Except for machines. I still know those."
                          
"That really sucks." His voice was sincere, quiet even. "I know a thing or two about parents fighting. Do you know who you were matched to?"
                          
"No. They haven't even told me yet. My mom said something about arguing with the Council, whatever that means. And it doesn't matter who it is anyway, I'm not interested."
                          
"Yeah, I get it. I wouldn't be interested in being forced into a relationship, either."
                          
"No, I mean, I'm not interested in a relationship at all," Senna sniffed out. She could admit that what her mother and father had looked nice. They laughed, danced, and were always there for each other. That would be nice. But marriage? Sex? She wasn't interested. Not disgusted or anything, but not interested. Back on the Rim everyone had joked that she'd end up with one of the Farmer boys with all the time she spent over there, making comments about their roughhousing and somehow relating that to a 'crush', but Senna had never felt that way about any of them. She had never felt that way about anyone.
                          
"So you're asexual?" Nigel asked and Senna groaned.
                          
"No. I'm not an earthworm."
                          
"No I mean like... ah... nevermind," he tripped awkwardly over the words, but Senna didn't even bother to lift her head from the table. "Okay, look, forget about all that. Would it make you happier if I invited you over to my place to hang out tomorrow?"
                          
Senna turned her eyes back up to him without lifting her head from the table, her chin still resting against the surface.
                          
"I thought you didn't want to hang out with me."
                          
"Never said that, cellmate. I said that if I went over to your place your parents would kill me. But I'm inviting you over to my place—which is clearly a different matter altogether." Senna leaned back into her chair, dragging her head up off of the table and eyeing him for a moment as he smiled with a sly sparkle in his grey eyes. "I mean, we don't have much—but my Mom would likely be thrilled if I brought a friend over for once. Whatd'ya say?"
                          
Senna nodded with a sniff, warming to the idea quickly. She didn't care if they didn't have much, she was used to that. All she wanted was a friend. Someone who didn't look at her like she was a stain on their favorite dress.
                          
"Great! Now uh... to get there we're going to need to go to the ground floor, but I figured that wouldn't bother you much. You might wanna bring a change of clothes, though, so you don't get your uniform dirty and freak out your parents."