"Are you alright, Andy? You really don't seem fine." She murmured after a few moments, reaching her hand out to mine and I clasped her offered hand, drawing more comfort from her and wanting to sink into that feeling. I blinked a couple of times before puffing out a slow breath and starting to speak in a small voice.
"Stop worrying about me, I'm alright." I said to her after a fleeting moment and the look that she gave me showed that she didn't believe me one bit.
"Is it your heat?" She asked and I watched as she pressed her second hand against my forehead in the next second, before I could start to speak.
"You're a little bit feverish, and you're breaking out a sweat again. Why don't you take the hoodie off?" She suggested and helped me in pulling it off after I had forced myself to sit up at her request.
She leaned towards me and sniffed the air around me a little, and realizations started to dawn on her face– which was when I realized that I had loosened a grip on my cloaking powers for only Luna knows how long, and the scent of my upcoming heat might have gotten to some people here in class as it is at the moment.
"Andy… it's your heat, now it's all starting to make sense as to why you're so snappy since the start of today." She stated and I gave a couple nods of my head as I tried to concentrate on cloaking my scent up once again.
"I wonder why I was unable to smell it since the start of today…" She started to mumble but Azriel cut into what she was saying before she could complete her sentence. "That's probably because he cloaked his scent from everyone, you know?"
"Oh, that's true." Ella gushed before letting a small pout settle on her face. "Sometimes I wonder why you're so lucky to be able to acquire a gift as huge as that." She continued and I glanced around instantly to ensure that people weren't currently eavesdropping on us.
The whole thing about my scent cloaking gift was kept as a huge secret. My parents even made me promise not to ever let anyone know about it before I had left fur college, for my own safety, but I just couldn't not tell them about it because I spend a whole lot of time with them, and at this point, they do deserve to know because we're really close friends and I trusted them.
"Don't be so loud about it, anyone can hear you." Azriel admonished Ella almost immediately.
"Oh, my bad. I'm so sorry, Andy." She murmured after a fleeting moment and I nodded my head at her really slowly, feeling a low throb start to thump against the sides of my head at that moment.
"It's alright, Ella."
"So how are you feeling at the moment?" Ella asked after a couple of seconds and I shrugged my shoulders before leaning backwards to rest my back against the back of my seat.
"A little bit better, I guess?"
"You don't have to come to school tomorrow, because your heat might come tomorrow, right?" Azriel started to speak and I turned my head around a little until I was staring at him.
"It's not due for a couple of days more, I might still come over to school tomorrow." I said to him after a few moments, allowing my eyes to slide close in order to try to focus my cloaking powers in doing what I wanted it to do, but it didn't seem like it was working all that much. If it was any other scent from this, it would have been able to be cloaked more easily… but this is always a lot harder and most times, completely impossible to cloak.
"I think you should stay home and try to rest, even though it doesn't come tomorrow. You seem like you need it so much." Ella started to speak on the other side of me and I turned my head around and peeled my eyes open after a moment.
"I don't know…"
"We don't really have important classes tomorrow, and we can help you write your name down on the attendance list just fine." She continued and I felt my chest start to feel like it was burning, tightening up at once, making me feel so overwhelmed in the next moment.
My friends are the very best.