There was only one thing worse than a friendship breakup: living under the same roof with said friend.
Their rooms stood across from each other. The chance of both doors opening at the same time was low, but unfortunately, still higher than her chances of winning the lottery.
Click. Their eyes met for one second before immediately parting ways. Amelia went straight to the bathroom while Jane retreated. She swore she wasn't scared. There was just no point in going out now that the bathroom was taken.
Jane leaned against the door, her hands tied behind her back, while her head tilted toward the ceiling. The courage she had seemed to vanish overnight.
She sat back on her bed, her eyes aimlessly wandering to the window when she saw the lipstick standing upright on her desk.
Amelia's gift.
A lot of things were clearer now that her head had cooled down. Every hunt needed its hunters and prey. Again, it was that damn pin that secured her a slot, not Rose and her friends. She would still be in this event, with or without them.
But that was it. She couldn't deny the times they had teased her, hidden her things, or treated her like an idiot for saying one wrong word. At that moment, she had thought it was how friends teased each other, but now she wasn't so sure.
Jane sighed and let herself fall backward onto the mattress. If only things could end softly like this. Her mind played back the previous night for the millionth time, entering the room, nervously asking about the event, losing control of her own emotion, and then what she said—
Nope. Not thinking about that sentence.
Even though she got to clap back at Amelia, she only felt exhausted. Thinking about that moment felt almost embarrassing. Not almost, absolutely embarrassing. The kind that made her want to move to another class so she never had to see them again.
"I hate my life," she mumbled, her hands spread wide and her legs dangling off the edge of the bed.
At least she would never have to hear about Ryan again.
You killed me, and now you don't even want to think about me?
He haunted her in her dreams, though she doubted it was purely a work of her imagination. Vampires didn't have souls. Or did they? She had a soul, didn't she?
Jane scoffed at her own stupid thought. Every once in a while, she would hear about how the Hastings family offered rewards for information on his whereabouts, followed by their disappointment when the clues turned out to be useless.
Click.
The sound of one door closing and another opening traveled to her ears. The image of Amelia going back to her own room flashed in Jane's mind. Her senses were getting sharper, and with it her body's inability to produce its own blood.
Jane sat up slowly as dizziness flooded her head. She closed her eyes and bowed her head down, waiting for the back of her head to stop echoing. She needed her pills, but not before she brushed her teeth.
The shared living space was empty; the path to the bathroom was clear. In four strides, she grabbed the handle and twisted it very carefully, her fingertips turning white from gripping it so tightly. She didn't want Amelia to know she waited for her turn to go into the bathroom.
Jane looked down at her feet; on them were a pair of white bathroom slippers, embroidered not so neatly with the letter "J". Next to the shower sat another pair of plain white slippers with no distinguishing mark.
Near the faucet was a small clump of blonde hair, a thing Amelia never got rid of. They got room service once a week, and so Jane would have to wait until then for the hairball to be gone.
Her finger glided through her own hair, separating the tangles until it was no longer a mess. On top of her head, new strands of baby hair poked straight up into the air. Her hair had been falling out and regrowing like crazy, as if inside her skull was an infinite supply of hair.
Jane looked into the mirror, tilting her head at different angles. It had been a long time since the last time she watched her face this closely. Her fingers ran across her cheek, feeling around the dry and tight texture that only seemed to improve at night. Her eyes looked sharper, less dull and vacant, making it seem like she had actually gotten twelve hours of sleep. Even the dark circles were nothing more than a shadow embracing her eyes.
Her index finger and thumb made a ruler, measuring the gap from her nose to her cheekbones. Structurally, nothing had changed; one side was still smaller than the other. But something had to change, even if she couldn't quite figure it out. Could it be that she had lost weight, making the edge of her face more refined? Or was it that her skin had taken on an ashen, greyish tone, making it the perfect canvas for her black hair?
Jane pulled herself away from the mirror. Her left ear twitched slightly as a small smirk appeared on her lips. She didn't know exactly what had changed, but she liked it. Maybe she could even grow a few inches taller, her eyes sparkled.
The excitement only lasted for an afternoon. It ended the moment she saw Amelia again in the school cafeteria.
Jane had started her day the same way she had been for the past month. And it was Amelia's schedule. Hanging out with them meant staying up late into the night, waking up even later in the morning, and having dinner at this exact hour.
Amelia walked in, surrounded by a group of people Jane had never met. Her hair was put into a ponytail, trapped beneath the arm lying over her shoulder. Ah. She recognized that one, the one with short red hair and a stud piercing. That was her boyfriend.
And how unfortunate, she was sitting right by the aisle. Jane instinctively straightened her back, dropping her gaze to the piece of meat on her plate, brown around the edges, juicy red in the center.
It was her last piece of food. Three quick bites and she could avoid this awkward situation. But why did she have to be the one who ran away?
A stubbornness rose, and she poured it all into the steak. Her fork pinned the meat down while her right hand dragged the knife through it, slicing it into three more pieces. Her wrist hovered high above the table, the last rule she remembered from her piano days. She gave up that hobby for math when she turned six.
They walked past her table. Amelia stopped smiling. Her head locked straight ahead, her chin lifted like an arrogant swan. From the corner of her eye, Jane saw the boyfriend drop a look in her direction before they all disappeared behind her.
"Isn't that your friend?" he asked, his hand catching Amelia's chin.
She couldn't hear Amelia's answer, or there was no answer at all.
Ten more minutes. Ten more minutes before she could stand up and stop sharing the same air with Amelia. If she went away right now, it looked like she was so scared of them.
Jane chewed the small bite of food, her teeth shredding it into a bland and diluted paste.
This is stupid.
She pierced through the last two pieces with her fork, shoved them into her mouth, stood up, and left.
Fresh air filled her lungs the moment she stepped out of the cafeteria. Normally, Jane would go straight to class, but today, she planned to arrive exactly on time. With that in mind, she went down a different path, the longer route.
She arrived at 6:55 pm, five minutes early.
Inside, Alice was talking to Amelia, leaving her sister sitting alone near the front. Rose was nowhere to be seen. If she hadn't arrived by now, she wouldn't come even later.
Come to think of it, Jane still didn't know what would happen on the third day of the event. Maybe Rose didn't bother to tell her because she would need to live past the second day first.
Jane moved in the opposite direction without hesitation. There were no other empty seats in the class besides her old one.
As she slowly made her way down the aisle, her hands and legs suddenly felt clumsy under his attentive gaze. What did he think of her? Did she look like one of those girls who joined the popular group and got kicked out?
Jane was scared he was going to say something, get out of my seat, or why are you here, but he just watched in silence as she sat down next to him.
The teacher walked in, finally drawing his attention away, but not hers. Jane found herself constantly distracted by the smallest movements from her former friends. Every twenty minutes, her eyes darted to the other side of the room. Her ears raised every time she heard a voice, only for it to be Alice asking to borrow a pen.
You can't live like this, Jane. She pulled herself together and kept her gaze limited to her seat. Out of the corner of her eye, Ryan's face and hair seemed to practically glow under the classroom lights.
She rested her head on her right arm, attempting to block him out of her vision, but once in a while, her arm had to be put down to write. Jane had never wished she were left-handed more than she did right now.
Ryan. Why did his name have to be Ryan? She blamed the weird sensation inside her stomach on the coincidental name. Every time she heard it, her instinct was to run.
But also, there was something about him, something that she had totally forgotten…
The play!
Jane hurriedly pulled the half-written script out of her bag.
She quickly glanced at the teacher and set a new deadline for herself: this must be done today, so she could pass it on to Ryan before the class ended, which would save her time tomorrow.
Her hand moved frantically between the notebook and the script while her eyes kept guard on the teacher. Most of the faculty here were chill; they turned a blind eye as long as no one did anything outrageous. When she was still sitting there with the group, she was afraid every time they laughed too loudly, but the teacher had always acted like they didn't see a thing.
Yes, when she was with them.
"Jane Lucien!"
The most sleep-inducing voice could sound so scary when it delivered her full name.
"Read the next passage for me," the teacher demanded, already towering over her desk.
Jane looked down at her textbook, which was still open on the first page. This was the absolute worst time to be called on. Her eyes darted to the side out of pure habit, desperate to escape the death stare coming from the opposite, when she noticed a finger tapping on an open page.
A fleeting rush of shock and gratitude swelled inside her. Swallowing hard, she shoved those feelings down and quickly read the line Ryan was pointing to.
"I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars. Did wander darkling in the eternal space. Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth—"
"That is not where we're at," the teacher interrupted, her voice as cold as iron. "Start from the pall of a past world."
They both froze, though Jane couldn't see it standing up. Ryan's finger was still resting on the wrong page. He calmly flipped to the next one, the one he would have been on if he hadn't been dozing off himself.
He turned to look at Jane, his head resting against the palm of his hand and his body angled toward her. She had already buried her face back in her notebook, completely unbothered by the small incident.
Helping people was not his thing, especially not someone who hung out with that crowd. He didn't know what had gotten into him. Maybe it was seeing her crawling back like a deflated balloon, or watching her sneakily juggle between two notebooks. Her eyes were glued to the teacher the entire time, looking exactly like she wanted to get caught.
Ryan rubbed his nose. An explanation was probably unnecessary anyway; it was just a small mistake.
But he clearly underestimated Jane's state of mind. The logic might have worked on a normal person, but not on someone who had just gone through a betrayal.
Jane stared at the words until they blurred and dissolved into the teacher's lecture. She wasn't angry, just defeated. On one side sat her broken friend group, probably satisfied with what had just happened; on the other sat him, still watching. A strand of hair draped down near her temple, itching her skin, but she couldn't bring herself to move. If she tucked the hair behind her ear and peeked, would she find a cruel smile waiting?
The familiar spiciness spread across her nose bridge. Why did it feel like the world was ending when this was only a small inconvenience? A familiar lullaby began to ring. Two plus two is four,four plus five is nine, and by the time she finished, her tears would dry. A small trick she saw on TV when she was little, and it stuck with her ever since.
Jane looked up from her desk. Her face was indifferent as the heat and tension withdrew. There was no time to waste. She needed to be done with this play and move on with her life, or rather, a way to save it.