She shakes her head, loose strands of red hair flying about her face. The classroom is mostly clear now with the end of the school day, and that helps some. “Something changed this summer,” she mutters. Relaxation comes by increments as she packs up her things, avoiding his gaze. She’s not really sure she wants to know his emotions in any greater depth.
Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she keeps her head down as she makes her way out the door. She mumbles, by way of excuse, “I need to get outside,” but that’s only part of the truth. The other part is that she’s embarrassed. Having a backlash episode in the middle of class only reinforces what Stiles said: she’s supposed to be better than this.
The way she shakes her head makes Stiles understand that she’s having a hard time grasping the current situation. She probably never went through this before, although Stiles is very familiar with his powers going off in class right at the beginning. It was exhausting. He scratches his fingers through his hair, attempting to figure out what she meant by that statement. She hadn’t seemed any different. “What do you mean?”
As he notices her attitude changing even more, Stiles follows her out of the class, attempting to be in the same situation as her. He got the concept of power issues, he’d dealt with it so many times after all. “Hey, come on! If you’re embarrassed, don’t be, this used to happen to me all the time.”
“It’s never happened to me before!” Summer can’t quite keep the snap out of her voice. “I’m seventeen, this isn’t supposed to happen. I’m supposed to know what I’m doing by now, not, not — ” She flails her arms for a second before shoving the outside door open. “Not being stuck listening to everyone else’s inner feelings!” she finishes finally.
“I’ve been able to shield /perfectly/ since I started here.” She drops her backpack on top of one of the senior lunch tables and sits with a dejected thud. “But now I can’t even tell if I’m projecting or not — am I projecting?”
