Of all times to get a break in my block, it happened when i'm touring Asia. i'm in Wuhan, a city that contains nothing... it's where the 10-10 Uprising began which was when the Republic of China was created but yeah. Been writing a hard copy during class and the next chapter is already starting.

Anyway, i hope dearly it's up to snuff. Planning relationship developments of two kinds in the eighth. But it's 10.52 right now and i need to medicate and attempt to go into happy dreamy land, but it's not looking good.

audi

It’s cold. And frosty. Like hot chocolaty cold. I’ve never really cared for hot chocolate. The cold makes me want to sit alone, huddled in a blanket. Y says it’s to do with the sun, but I never go out much anyway. Well, there are a number of UV bulbs around campus, seems it’s common for people to be effected by the sun. Makes us sound like, I don’t know, vampires.

I still don’t like how easily it’s been to asimalate assimilate to this place. The real world seems like a scary place. It is.

Thanksgiving was coming, in a week exactly. Tricia knew not by happy Pilgrim and Indian cut-outs or cornucopias but by Alexa’s daily countdown to the large red-circled date on her calendar. It wasn’t the turkey and pie, she told Tricia, but the going home for a long weekend.

Boarding school such as theirs didn’t offer many chances to visit home, but they did have a four-and-a-half day weekend for those who wanted to go home for the short vacation. Alexa was going home, about half their class was. Tricia couldn’t go if she wanted to. Yvonne told her in their latest session that she couldn’t visit home until she’d been at the school for a full month. Tricia didn’t bother to mention that Thanksgiving would be a month exactly, she didn’t want to go.

‘Chilli night!’ Alexa called, bouncing into the room with her normal energy. She was closely followed, as she often was, by Joy and Eris.

‘And this is a good thing?’ she replied cautiously.

‘They make awesome chilli, ‘Lexa eats like ten portions every time,’ Eris answered and received a half-hearted punch for her efforts.

‘I like chilli,’ she protested.

‘They have chilli night maybe once a month until spring,’ Joy explained. ‘Sign you’ve been here too long.’

‘Chilli night!’

Eris grabbed the nearest book, Tricia’s journal, and whacked Alexa on the head. Tricia jumped to retrieve the book, and held it protectively against her chest and she eyed the three, especially Eris. ‘Don’t… Please…’

‘Shit, Trish, I didn’t realise,’ Eris reached out a comforting hand, to lie on her shoulder – Tricia inched backward. She groped for a desk drawer into which she shoved the book she’d come to treasure. Eris engulfed her in a loose hug:

‘Sorry, really. I would freak if someone touched mine.’ There were nods of agreement throughout. Tricia didn’t want to want to protect the journal. It wasn’t as if she had truly succumbed to writing everything in it. Her thoughts were her own, and she didn’t feel safe putting them somewhere everyone could potentially have access to. Yet it sat there, looking at her, reminding her to use it at least weekly. She knew that was the intention behind the journal. Next thing she knew she would be writing multiple page entries. Of course, as soon as she wrote something about someone that someone would “find” the journal. Not like she was crushing over any of Harris’ boys.

Tricia perched on her desk chair as Eris had occupied her bed. Predictably a movie was being started but when she made to pack up, Joy stopped her:

‘The Princess Bride,’ Tricia blinked, ‘It’s a movie—‘

‘—and a book—‘

‘—and a book. It’s funny, watch.’

‘Homework,’ she protested weakly.

‘You finished already. Sit, Trish. Watch. Enjoy. Then chilli.’

Realising her protests were mostly an act—but for whose benefit?—she moved to her bed, Eris had so graciously made room for her. She half-heard Joy tell Alexa to stop with the chilli as the film started with a—video game?

‘It wouldn’t be the same without Cary Elwes,’ Alexa was explaining as she piled cheese and onions on her already doctored chilli. ‘He’s in Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Let’s watch that later!’

Stirring her own, Tricia asked, ‘where does she get that energy?’

‘Happy pills!’ she V-signed, ‘and chilli!’ She took a bite, ‘spicy!’

The others blanched.

‘Can’t be happy pills,’ Trent confided in a whisper, ‘we’re on the same ones and I’m not all crazy-like… Am I?’

‘Now that’s the real question.’

The conversation went downhill from there, as if they were “normal” teenagers. Maybe the chilli was spiked? They could relax because they were all in the same situation. We look out for each other.

‘So, Robin Hood, members only or can anyone not do homework with you?’ Oliver asked as he wiped his third bowl clean with corn bread.

Eris eyed him, ‘I don’t know. Might be too intelligent for you to follow.’

Oliver raised an eyebrow.

Two movies of that genre back to back made her head spin. And it wasn’t even movie night. Someone wanted to screen a TV show of some kind the next day but she wasn’t planning on attending.

Even though she liked the people around her, Tricia needed alone time. Yvonne told her, upon hearing that confession, that she encouraged alone time, so long as it wasn’t for an extended period of time. She said that she, too, needed uninterrupted quiet time. It was healthy, so long as one didn’t avoid people too often, she explained. Yvonne had given her a psychological excuse for what she wanted to do.

Her CD ended and she stowed her Discman, only it wasn’t silence or soft snores she heard but masked sobs. Quiet, muffled. Unmistakable. Alexa.

Alexa the rock. The energetic ball of happiness. She froze, wondering if it was real. It was. She was at Harris’, and on happy pills so it shouldn’t be hard to believe. And it wasn’t that she didn’t believe it, she didn’t want to believe. It showed that she could never be fixed, not if a veteran of a year wasn’t cured.

Not even bothering to debate it, she padded over to the other bed, as Alexa had done for her. Alexa clung to her. Tricia soothed as best she could. Her tears subsided, her grip did not. Not alone, Tricia fell slowly asleep.

Where else could Tricia find solitude on a Friday afternoon than the library? Cosy chair, relaxing music, a good book. All if which made for a good time. Past “quiet times” did not include books but she thought less when she was focused on someone else’s failures and triumphs.

‘Good book?’

Tricia raised her head to the eyelevel with Mr Wynter, an older man with peppered hair and short wiry facial hair. Tricia, as most students, found his classes dry. It was clear that he found history fascinating, but his interest didn’t transfer. Like all the staff, he had studied psychology, adolescent psychology. But Tricia knew no one that truly enjoyed his presence. It was as if he was the estranged student of the faculty.

She nodded cautiously.

‘It’s Friday.’

‘Yes.’

He shrugged then and sat down an open box of Chis Ahoy on the table next to her chair and a fresh bottle of water before taking an adjacent seat. Mr Wynter snatched a cookie and opened his book.

Tricia blinked a few times before returning to her own book. She finished the third one but didn’t switch to the final. Nibbling at a cookie, she looked at the bookshelves and the books. Not really noticing the books themselves but more looking through them. Looking without seeing. Living without being.

‘Don’t think so heard,’ Mr Wynter advised suddenly. He was standing, half empty bottle and book in hand. ‘Occupy your mind in other ways.’ With that he left.

Half puzzled, she began the next novel.

Alexa was in bed already when she returned. Tricia’s bedside lamp was left on so she didn’t trip. Following routine, she changed and crawled into bed and switched off the light. Duvet pulled up to her chin, she settled in and let herself drift.

‘Trish?’ a gentle call, soft. She was so close to sleep that she wasn’t sure she heard it. Her reply was an inquisitive grunt. ‘Trish, sorry ‘bout last night.’

‘No problem.’

‘Sorry but… would it be wrong to ask if… well, if we shared, again?’

Tricia couldn’t deny that she found comfort in not being alone the night before, and, well, hell, what was she thinking so deeply for anyway?

‘Night, Tricia.’

‘Night, Lexa.’