I'll Never Be Little

Alex's POV

The meds absolutely sucked.

I didn't have problems with almost slipping anymore, but I was stuck between being numb or just dead tired.

I came early as usual and sat in the crib, Nathan sat annoyed at one of the desks, still grumbling about me coming to school this early.

I watched as my classmates filed in. Gabriel and Ethan came in first. They looked much less like they wanted to kill each other compared to last week, which was good.

But Ethan still insisted on playing with me every day. Especially when he was in his headspace. I was never in the mood for him. However, unlike before, if I insisted, he'd play with Gabriel instead. Finally.

Nikki and Joshua came in not long afterwards. Joshua had been acting odd recently but I never pushed them for why. Nikki was just being Nikki, but looked a little more dead, but I mean, so did I.

I guess Joshua was facing the same thing Gabriel did earlier. If so, we had to work that out.

With Nathan, he already knew I wasn't really into that, but to make sure it wasn't at his expense, I agreed for an hour each day when we'd craft together. However, I could tell he wanted to do more and it wouldn't be fair to keep that from him.

That was where the suppressants came in. I could still participate in those Little activities without dropping. Everybody wins.

I already discussed this with Nikki so why she was still holding back from Joshua was beyond me.

When the lesson started, I got out of my jail cell and went over to hers. She was sitting cross legged, leaning her head on her hand.

"Hey, what's with you and Joshua? Why are you still pushing him away?"

"I can't do it!" she exclaimed, tugging her hair. "Even with the suppressants I don't trust myself to let myself be cared for without dropping."

"It doesn't matter if you think you can't or you can. You can't do that to some-"

I was cut off by Joshua yelling at Ms. Andreas.

"I don't know, okay?! I can't even think of anything!"

"Joshua, that doesn't require you to scream. Let's go over it one more ti-"

"Well I don't wanna! It's stupid and dumb and I'm not going to do it!"

"You can't decide not to do the work because you don't like it. Besides, we'll get to a point where it'll be easy to do, just watch me do the first question, okay?"

He turned his head away. "Not interested."

"Joshua, you're being ridiculous. Imagine if your Little saw you acting like this?"

Nikki and I were watching, so it was already kinda too late for that.

"Just leave me alone, alright? I don't get it and I never will. Now go AWAY!"

"How about we try a different question then-"

"I don't know! I told you already! I just-" Joshua suddenly stopped, noticing that everyone in the class was staring right at him.

He stood there, frozen, before he suddenly bolted, leaving the class in two seconds.

Ms. Andreas looked between the now open class door and Nikki before coming over to us. She squatted beside Nikki, face calm and soft.

"Alex, can you leave us for a minute?"

"Uh, if so, can I go look for Joshua?"

"Sure, but don't do anything else," she replied sternly. Yeah, no ice cream trips. I got it.

I gave her a salute and left the classroom. This wasn't the first time Joshua just gave up and left a classroom, but it hadn't happened in a long while. Nikki, I swear...