Jane stared at the script. She really tried not to be too picky, or judgemental, but what was she reading?
"The magician can't be saying something like, 'I love you but I love my kingdom more!'" Jane said, her hand moved in frustrated gestures to keep herself from screaming. It was the second time she had gone through Melissa's part, and yet, nothing had actually been fixed.
Sitting across from her, Melissa's eyes had lost their shine. She was wearing a basic T-shirt with a raincloud on it today, her hair tangled and freed from its usual neat braid. Clearly, this project was taking a toll on both of them.
"Sorry. I haven't had much sleep," Jane said, softening her voice. Her reason sounded exactly like an excuse, and no one had to listen to it. "It's not that bad. You got the basic idea. I'll fix the wording a bit."
The basic idea was already her work to begin with, but she found the endless back-and-forth of giving feedback a waste of time. Melissa had tried her best. It just happened to be unacceptable.
Jane yawned, her eyes drooping heavily to conserve energy. Even the yawn couldn't chase away the heavy exhaustion weighing down her chest. It was early in the afternoon, a schedule worked perfectly for both of them, assuming Jane was functioning properly.
Another yawn stretched out all the muscle on her face, tears welling in her eyes, making the sunlight peeking through the windows a little less uncomfortable. She forgot to cover her mouth, but at least her excuse for the bad attitude looked believable now.
"Well… then you shouldn't be drinking this," Melissa said, gently sliding Jane's cup away and switching their drinks. "I saw you drinking milk tea on the day we first met, so I brought one today... but fruit juice is better for you right now."
The gesture itself was more refreshing than any kind of drink. Jane had noticed Melissa carrying a bag of snacks into the room and had guessed one might be for her, but she hadn't expected something so… thoughtful.
"Thank you," Jane said. The heavy frustration in her chest washed away, leaving behind a rare, soft smile.
"Oh, let's drink," she said, poking the straws through the lids for Melissa.
Melissa pushed her glasses up her nose and took a sip. She stared at Jane in a mild daze, mesmerized for a fraction of a second by the genuine joy in Jane's eyes.
"Don't work so hard, you know. We're actually way ahead of the deadline." Melissa didn't understand how Jane could work so fast. She was shocked when Jane handed them the outline just three days after their last meeting.
A flicker of surprise crossed her face. Did she look like she was working so hard? Her mouth hanging open, then closed, switching what she was going to say next with something else. "It's not that hard. Everything is in my head already. I just have to write them out," she smiled, tapping one finger against her temple.
"Here, eat this too," Melissa said.
A black packet with chili print appeared in front of Jane. It was one of those toxic-looking spicy sticks she used to sneak in the house behind her mom's back.
"Oh my god, where did you get these?" Jane said, her eyes lighting up like a kid with a new toy.
"My parents send me stuff every two or three months," Melissa mumbled, her words lost in the handful of sticks already in her mouth. "Take more. It only tastes good when you eat a bunch at the same time."
Melissa pointed to the two lonely sticks Jane was holding. Jane popped them into her mouth, chewing happily as she leaned over to open the window. It was the kind of food that tasted good, but left behind a pungent spice smell that not everyone would like.
Jane grabbed the wet tissue Melissa left on the table and wiped the oil from her fingers.
"Eat some more," Melissa said, bending down to her bag. "I have plenty more in my room."
"Nah, it's fine. I have to leave some room for dinner." Jane said, hugging her barely-full stomach. The corner of her lips pulled a smile as heavy as a puppet. Melissa was nice, but if she ate more, she might crave it.
The door was pushed once again. Must be Chase. Ryan had already handed her the first part of the play on a random evening. Must be the heat that got into her head that day, but all the shyness disappeared when she knew he didn't like her.
"Here's the outline. Your part is the first part. Please finish it no later than Friday and hand it to me."
Then she left the room, wondering if using the word please was the right move when her face didn't match it at all.
"You can start typing the first part. The second part needs some fixing." Jane said, handing the pages across the table to Chase.
"Already?" He asked, putting the paper next to his side.
"Yeah. The faster the better." Jane replied. But Melissa's earlier words echoed in her head, so she quickly added. "Or you can start in two or three days. We have some slacks."
"Okay." Chase answered, immediately reaching for the new bag of spicy sticks on the table.
Jane knew for a fact he wouldn't start typing anyway. She shouldn't have bothered adding that last sentence.
But finally, this was all about to end. Her eyes slowly relaxed, losing their wide shape as her eyelids grew heavy. Her chest felt heavy and tired pressing against her ribcage, yet, it still wasn't bringing enough oxygen for her brain to function. Jane closed her eyes to chase away the stinging dryness and opened them again just in time to pass it off as a long blink.
Right beside her, Chase and Melissa were talking. She could hear the sound of them speaking, but it felt like listening through a glass wall. Their voices traveled through her head but her brain simply couldn't manufacture a response. So she just sat there, blinking as her posture slowly slid down the back of her chair.
"Jane?"
Melissa's voice.
"What?" Jane blinked again, the room began to pull back into focus. Both of them were looking at her.
"What are you doing on the twenty-eighth?" Melissa asked.
"The 28th?" Jane's mind was lagging. She had been living with only the twenty-ninth in mind, the day of the hunt. "Oh the play. I don't know, sitting and watching?"
"Of course you'll. I'm talking about the campfire afterward. Do you want to sit with us?" Melissa asked. Her cheerful smile was like a cool, refreshing stream of water pouring in Jane's eyes.
"Yeah, sure." She had no one else to sit with anyway, but they didn't need to know that.
***
The room was quieter with only her inside. It wasn't like they would gather in the living room and talk, they had enough of it outside, but still.
Jane skipped the bathroom and went straight to her bedroom. The lamp on her desk was once again turned on.
She really tried not to do it in class again, so she did it in her head. The lie she told Melissa came true. Everything was really in her head now, and she only needed to put it on paper.
It took her two hours, would be one if Jane didn't constantly switch to doing her schoolwork. But she finally did it. The last thing to do was to hand it to Melissa. One, she was still responsible for this part, and two, so she would hand it to Chase.
Jane dropped her pens in the pen holder and cleared the surface of her desk. She pulled out the books she no longer needed, and put those for tomorrow's classes in.
The wave of sleepiness had left her. She sat in front of the empty desk, her mind briefly looped back in time, 7 hours ago, when she visited the guard station.
"Are there any calls for Jane Lucien?" She asked, her voice carried a nervousness she hadn't noticed herself.
The guard checked the logbook, his eyes scanning quickly across the pages, but that small flicker of satisfaction when a name was found never came.
"Can I borrow the phone?"
So she stood there, waiting and waiting for the constant ringing to stop. It did eventually, she hung up. It was 6:30 in the evening, and her mom always stayed at home. Maybe she went out to talk to the neighbor, or was in the bathroom.
It wasn't like they had a lot to talk about anyway.
Jane dropped her body on the mattress.
Inside her chest, she thought, had to be a switch. The poor-quality kind, the one that bounced back when it was flipped, the kind that needed to be turned over and over again until it worked. Sometimes it stayed, but there was no way to tell. Luck, it all depended on luck.
Tonight, it was on her side because tomorrow was Saturday.
The bed was big enough for two of her, but Jane only took up a small spot near the bottom. She crawled and curled herself like a dog under its owner's feet, her wrists bent under her chin while her feet hanging off the bed. A few inches moved upward, and they could perfectly rest on the mattress. A few more inches and the pain at her waist would disappear, but she had been lying there for one hour.
She stared on the floor; there was nothing on the floor, not even a single strand of hair. Just this morning she had dragged her feet across the wooden surface to collect all the dead hair.
Exhausted? No, she wasn't. She had a full meal of meat and vegetables, things she rarely touched. She had a good day today talking to Melissa, but what was this that she was feeling?
Her mind felt dull. Thoughts ended mid-sentence but they never actually stopped. Then the wave of self-pity arrived. She squeezed her eyes shut and pursed her lips together, waiting for the tears to fall, but they never reached the breaking point. All dried up again.
The kind that felt too embarrassing to ever be caught listening to, but it landed perfectly between too melancholy and too happy. She knew listening to it only made her state worse, but listening to something happy felt like the world was partying around her.
She missed her special books too. The one that she saved for this occasion only, for when she needed something to cry about. The library had books, but none she wanted to read.
Jane was confused. She was sad over the friendship breakup, but she had recovered. And it wasn't the first time she'd been through such a thing. Besides, she had only known them for a month. Her mother hadn't answered the phone, but she was probably just busy. So why, what was this empty knot inside her chest, weighing her down, draining everything but her mind?
Just one hour ago, she wasn't this way. What went wrong?
She squeezed her eyes again, the vision blurred, but that was it. The night was long, would she just lie here till the sun came and blessed her with rest?
She could try drawing, one of the best medicines for the soul, but she was lazy. Someone once asked her, Why are all your paintings so happy? This, this was why. She never drew when she was unhappy, she just lay there staring into whatever was in front of her. And when the energy was back at the tips of her fingers, she didn't want to draw anything that would remind her of this period.
Why was she this way? Always so full of negativity and pessimism. Amelia wasn't wrong; she was no fun. Jane guessed she reacted so fiercely at the sentence because of how accurate it was.
Jane knew there was something wrong with her, knew she wasn't in the right state, and in order to fix it, she just had to stand up, and go wash her hair. But she couldn't bring herself to do it. Her body was no longer her body, and it wouldn't move even when she knew it was the thing to do.
But there is something wrong with everybody. Do they all just cry and make it about themselves? No.
Tomorrow would be a new day. She just needed to go through today. It would come, it would, she promised to herself, and she never broke a promise.