Felipe De Matteo
June 22, 2020 4:47 PM
I don't know what I'm doing. [Jessica] by Felipe De Matteo
Charities had put altruism back front and center for Felipe, and he wasn't sure how to feel about that. Leonor's recent behavior had emphasized that she was thinking much less along these lines, particularly when she put a charity up that seemed about as selfish as she could get away with being, and they had been talking less again. For all that Felipe would have made a lousy heir, he thought that Leonor might make a dangerous one. That wasn't something he could do anything about anymore, although there were other things he had hopes that he could go back and fix.He hadn't talked to Zara about this plan yet; he suspected he knew what she'd have to say about it. It felt sort of wrong not to tell her, but at the same time, he knew there were things he needed to do on his own. He wasn't attached at the hip - or the mouth - all the time. Just some of the time. Besides, Zara didn't know the situation or the people involved the way he did. Not that he could say he did either anymore, but he had more knowledge than his girlfriend in this area. Probably only this area, she generally was smarter than him otherwise.
Sitting in his dorm, Felipe constructed several drafts of what he wanted to say, playing both with full letters and with short talking points. He knew that there was a good chance this wouldn't go anywhere and also that he was pretty likely to be yelled at or disregarded. There was also a decent chance he might be punched or hexed, but that seemed altogether less likely than some of the alternatives, in part considering Crotalus values and in part considering the subject of his considerations herself.
Jessica was sitting in the Common Room when he decided he was ready to approach her, and he did so empty handed. Reading from a piece of paper, he knew, would only come off as insincere to her. This had to be from the mind, so he'd prepped, but it also had to be from the heart. If he was going to be rejected outright, it needed to be the case that he'd done absolutely everything he could to be real. He should be rejected, not his lame attempt at self-expression. Unfortunately, Felipe wasn't famous for his ability to express himself well outside of situations where etiquette alone dictated the next move.
It was a bit of a shame that she was sitting at the same table where he'd rejected Jessica last time, but he thought that maybe that meant it was a comfortable space for her and that was good. Besides, it meant there was a space to take a seat, and he wasn't in his pajamas this time, which was good. He thought about using Spanish for sake of privacy, but he thought that maybe that wasn't fair. It was not her first language, for one, but it was also a private language for her. It was a part of her life that was most often locked up behind steel bars and protection charms. It was inaccessible and the fact that Felipe had had a key at one point was almost purely coincidental anymore.
"I'm sorry," he said, promptly forgetting any formal preparation he had intended to rely on. "I hurt you and I was wrong, and I'm really really sorry. I can't make anything better actually, but I wanted you to know that I know I was wrong. That you were right. That I handled everything wrong, that I behaved wrong, that I did everything wrong and I'm so sorry."
Excuses blossomed in his mouth, ready to explain that he'd been anxious, under pressure, scared, betrayed, hurt, and maybe jealous, but he bit them back. They turned to soil in his mouth, drying his throat and making it hard to swallow. It hurt a lot more than he realised to do this. He wanted to search her face but didn't; he didn't have the right to do that. "I don't expect you to forgive me, but I wanted you to know. Do you want me to go?"
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Felipe De Matteo
I don't know what I'm doing. [Jessica]
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Felipe De Matteo
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Jessica Hayles
June 22, 2020 6:46 PM
I don't know what you're doing, either. by Jessica Hayles
Last year, Jessica had come to understand a fundamental thing about the wizarding world: that it wanted no more to do with her than she did with it. Out of everyone in Crotalus House, the only person she was reasonably confident didn’t hate her was Sadie, who she had to assume most of them hated as much as they hated Jessica. For most of them, this was a given because Sadie, like Jessica, was from a normal family, but for one of them, it was no doubt simply because Sadie was friendly with Jessica, and Jessica was, according to that one, the scum of the earth, the scummiest scion of what the great and flawless Saint Zara had called a crap family. Obviously, anyone who disagreed with Saint Zara on the slightest particular was beneath That One’s contempt, and Sadie clearly disagreed with the Holiest of the Holy on the subject of whether Jessica Hayles was a worthless excuse for a human who no self-respecting person would lower themselves by speaking to.The logical response to this knowledge of how very unwelcome she was in what was supposed to be her ‘home’ at Sonora would have been to withdraw completely from the life of the House, going out as soon as curfew lifted each morning and not coming back until the absolute last minute before it started. As Jessica considered herself fairly reasonable, this was the course she followed most days; there were whole days where she didn’t so much as see another Crotalus in the seconds she spent crossing their common room one way or the other. Every now and then, though, her pride flared, and she forced herself to sit in the common room, just as a silent middle finger to them all. It was an utter waste of time – she sank into herself too much, an escape from the discomfort of being utterly isolated in the midst of numbers – but worth it if it made even one of them a bit uncomfortable.
She had not, however, decided what she would do if one of them took a notion to confront of her over the issue again. She hoped it would involve remembering about that Furnunculus Curse she’d read about before she started crying, though. It would amuse her to no end to see Mordue running around screaming as his pretty-boy face morphed into something resembling a clutch of poisonous mushrooms. Detention would be worth it, especially since her permanent record was utterly inconsequential now.
When she saw someone approaching her table in her peripheral vision, though, she assumed it was Sadie, mainly because she assumed that anyone coming at her to cause trouble would start before they actually arrived in her corner. When she looked up from her book, though, her mouth half-opened in something close to shock. Seeing Felipe – or rather, a patch of air that was curiously difficult to see through – was an everyday occurrence, but it was not usually at such close range. Why would it be? He wouldn’t want to risk getting mud on the hands dedicated to the gropey worship of Saint Zara, and she would die of dehydration in the full knowledge he had a bottle of water on hand before she acknowledged his existence again, unless he first –
"I'm sorry. I hurt you and I was wrong, and I'm really really sorry."
…apologized.
Jessica stared blankly as he went on, saying things she once would have given a small fortune to hear, trying to figure out why actually hearing them, rather than giving her any satisfaction or even leaving her in the state of indifference she had so carefully cultivated for the last year, was instead making her angry.
“You can do what you want,” she said when he appeared to be done. Her tone was slightly cool, indifferent to whether he stayed or went – she could at least control that. “Though I am curious what brought this on.”
Ten to one, she thought, Her Excellency had thrown him over, or else turned her nasty little lying problem against his family this time and provoked whatever sliver of shame he still had left, so now he was crawling back on the assumption that Jessica had just been pining for his affection for a year and would soften up the moment she heard what he thought she wanted to hear. He was in for a rude surprise if this was the case, she thought. He’d believed Zara in their second year, six months before he had stabbed her straight in the chest when she had still been stupid enough to trust him with something important. He had good reason, she had to admit, to assume she was stupid because she had done that, but he was stupider than she was if he thought she was too stupid to learn from being openly treated like Caesar on the Senate floor….
Yes, that fit nicely, she thought, thinking back to reading Shakespeare’s Roman Tragedies over the summer. She hadn’t been able to make head or tails of Antony and Cleopatra and Titus Andronicus was ridiculous, but the other two had made sense to her – especially Julius Caesar. If she was Caesar, then he was Brutus, and that two-faced liar Jackson was Cassius. Perhaps she had been ambitious, but compared to those two, she was downright noble. Pity, really, that she didn’t have an Antony to whip the commons into a mob against them. Perhaps Mara could play Octavian, though, and see to it that the traitors got theirs sooner or later.
For now, though, she just looked at him as impassively as she could, waiting to see what it would enter his head to do next. No point guessing, really. He had already proven himself utterly unpredictable, as steady as a weather-vane in a hurricane.
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Jessica Hayles
I don't know what you're doing, either.
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Felipe De Matteo
June 22, 2020 11:02 PM
You don't have to go making it more difficult. by Felipe De Matteo
Felipe had prepared for this, and his face didn't change. He was going for contrite, and it wasn't hard to do when he knew he was in the wrong. He was often wrong, but this felt different. When he was wrong with Zara, she would tell him and they would talk about it and then it would be fine. Zara was few things if not direct. But he and Zara were less similar than he and Jessica, which he didn't like to think about because Zara currently liked him and did not like Jessica and he did not like to think of Jessica and Zara making out, and he understood that being wrong didn't necessarily mean it could be fixed. There was some degree of irritation towards Jessica for making this so difficult, but he had discovered even as her friend that she did that well, and he knew that she was hurting. Merlin knew he knew that. He could see it, probably better than anyone but Mara could. And it was his fault in part. Actually, if Felipe took himself and Leonor and smushed them together, he thought that maybe that might be Jessica. Brave and strong and full of anger and anxiety. She was better than they were though. She was definitely not perfect and Zara hadn't been wrong in saying that Jessica really screwed up sometimes, but Felipe thought that she might be a better person than he was. Maybe less altruistic? But definitely more strong and smart.He considered her . . . well it wasn't technically a question, but it was a question. It was one of those sentences that needed an answer. He figured she was suggesting he stay at least long enough to answer it by bringing it up, so he wanted to provide a sincere response. This was something he had considered as well, but he wanted to make his words say what he wanted them to. "With the charities going on, I've been thinking more about what it really means to be a good person. Everything... sort of turned upside down for me. That was my fault," he acknowledged quickly, his eyes widening for a moment. He didn't generally drop eye contact so are was nowhere to glance up to or from, but it was clear that he was emphasizing that point. "I haven't been a good person, and things being upside down weren't an excuse. I want to be better, and that meant acknowledging that I wasn't good to you, even when you were good to me."
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Felipe De Matteo
You don't have to go making it more difficult.
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Jessica Hayles
June 23, 2020 5:23 PM
Just being honest. by Jessica Hayles
Jessica remained impassive for a moment as her question was answered, and then her head dropped, concealing her face. Her hands rose to cover it more thoroughly, then ran through her hair until she straightened up again and looked at him.“Oh,” she said, propping her chin on her hand and smiling ruefully. “Wow. For maybe fifteen seconds there, I thought you might actually be sorry about hurting me because you hurt me, and not because of how it made you feel about yourself.”
She shook her head slightly, her pale face flushing further as the sarcastic smile faded away.
“You behaved wrong,” she quoted him. “You handled things wrong. How do you wish you had behaved, then? Explain it to me, Felipe. Did you ever actually give a damn about me, or do you just miss having someone around who you could treat like a charity project? Don’t worry about hurting my feelings, or what I’ll think – I don’t really get off on judging other people. I’d just like to know, and I think you owe me that much, just for all the sleep I’ve lost over the past year, realizing I was stupid enough to trust you with something that could – !” She had begun talking very fast about halfway through that sentence, and her voice was threatening to crack. Her nails dug into her palms, but it was too late, and she dragged a sleeve across her eyes angrily.
“Just explain it to me, if you can," she said, trying to collect herself and regain the high ground. "Please.”
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Jessica Hayles
Just being honest.
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Felipe De Matteo
June 23, 2020 5:50 PM
You're being something. by Felipe De Matteo
CW - panic, anxiety, and suicidal thoughtsFelipe blinked, surprised. He wasn't surprised she was mad. He wasn't surprised she was hurt, although it hurt him to think he had hurt her. He had expected to botch this and to upset her, and this was no surprise. His surprise came from the fact that she thought he didn't care.
He paused, thinking through his response, and ran a hand through his hair to give him something to do with his hands. Of all the things he'd prepared for, this wasn't one of them. She'd lost sleep over him? She thought he didn't care about her? She thought he thought she was a charity case?
"Jess, that's the only thing I cared about. That's why I stopped trying to talk to you; I didn't want to do any more damage." He sat back and tried to breathe. Luckily, anxiety hadn't seemed to be a recurring problem for him, but he could feel it now, building in the pit of his stomach like a molten stone, ready to burst from his chest and consume him. The idea was terrifying and the only thing he could call the feeling that made him ball his hands up under the table was fear. Anxiety. Terror. Panic. "Every time I tried, I only made it worse. I didn't want to keep doing that." His voice dropped and he thought of Zara again, wondering what she'd think if this conversation got back to her. "I . . . cared a lot about you," he said in a strangled voice, opting for ambiguity.
Pushing that aside, he focused on the tangible. "I wish that I'd listened and been understanding and been considerate and had grace for what must've been a very difficult situation for you to be in as well. I wish I had recognised that you were doing your best and that you were letting me in, not trying to keep me out." He closed his mouth with a snap, his stomach rolling. He had known he'd screwed up, but not this badly. "I always cared about you, first and foremost. It didn't take me screwing things up to know that I am not a good person."
He focused on her eyes, and not the spinning sensation in his gut. I'm not good enough. I'm nothing. I'm only making this worse for Jessica. Zara could do so much better and I should just break it off now so she's not stuck. I'm not worth it. I'm just a mess. I'm half a human who couldn't manage his role and now I've got nothing to offer anybody. Zara only thinks I'm nice because that's the only thing I know how to be and I don't have anything else I can be, except I'm not good at that either. I'm nothing. I'm nothing. I'm nothing. He forced that voice in his head aside in favor of trying to listen to Jessica, but she hadn't spoken yet. He was supposed to be speaking. He was supposed to make this better and he couldn't. There was nothing he could do. This is why Leonor is the better choice for heir. You're weak. You're pathetic. Even if Leonor is headstrong, at least she has a personality. At least she can do things. You can't even handle a conversation with an old friend. You wouldn't even have to be in this situation if you weren't so pig-headed and cruel. You're a coward. You're a pathetic, weak coward. Everyone would just be better off without you.
He stopped. Everything stopped, except the cold sweat that had broken out on the skin on his neck. That wasn't a thought he'd had before. Not in so many words. But it was true, wasn't it? It was absolutely true. Why did he even bother to keep talking? He should accept Jessica's insults and comments - he deserved them and she deserved the space to hurl them - and he should leave. Everyone would be better off. Leonor, his family, Jessica, Zara, even Jeremy. What kind of a person was he if everyone across the board, family, friends, and enemies, would be better off without him?
"I can't fix it," he said in a low voice, almost a whisper. "But I had to say I'm sorry."
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Felipe De Matteo
You're being something.
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Jessica Hayles
June 23, 2020 8:16 PM
We both are. by Jessica Hayles
Jessica did not know what answer she had actually expected, but if forced to speculate, she thought she would have guessed something along the lines of more platitudes about being a good person and otherwise acting like a robot trying desperately to imitate an actual human. She would not, she thought, have predicted a response so incongruent with her memory of events that it startled her out of being angry in favor of just being confused.“Okay,” she said slowly, deliberately, not addressing his actual last point. “Can we review what happened and make sure one of us hasn’t been hit with one of those memory spells? Because the way I remember it? The last time we were in this corner here? You told me that you weren’t even angry with me anymore, but that I wasn't to talk to you again unless I was willing to say that my parents are horrible and start being ashamed of myself and pretending that I’m someone else. And that was the first time I even really got angry with you, because that’s not damage control. That’s a mean, lowdown, nasty, manipulative ultimatum.” A thought occurred to her and she crossed her arms. “Pretty much exactly the kind of ultimatum a mean, lowdown, nasty, manipulative little liar like Zara Jackson would give someone about being friends with her, actually. Is that where you got that one from? And – “ she broke off and then said instead, in a very different voice, with a tone of sudden, habitual concern, “are you okay?”
Because, she noticed, he abruptly didn’t look okay at all, and she was glad she had put her book aside. The last time that had happened, at least to her knowledge, he had puked all over Professor Xavier’s shoes, and while her shoes were probably safe in their position under the table, she would rather not explain puke to the librarian when she returned one of his volumes.
Maybe, she thought, Felipe literally puked or fainted or something whenever he heard anything he didn’t want to hear. An unfortunate flaw, if he had it, but she wasn’t sure how she should respond to it. On one hand, it would be hard to control something like that without actually sticking a finger down his throat, which meant he probably wasn’t faking it, so she couldn’t properly hold it against him. On the other hand, though, what was she supposed to do with someone who couldn’t hear anything he didn’t like without falling out? She was bad enough with how hard she found it to avoid crying sometimes, and that was significantly less bad than actually becoming ill every single time something went wrong. Forget running a family operation someday, she was pretty sure someone who couldn’t hear criticism without vomiting over it would struggle just to do…anything at all.
"Look," she tried. "I don't know if things could - I don't know - go back to how they were before, if that's even possible. But if you want me to forgive you, fine - all I ever wanted you to do first was admit you weren't fair and all that awful stuff you said to me wasn't true - and not make it all about whether what you're saying or what you said makes you a good person or a bad person or any of that stuff. We both said and did stuff we shouldn't have, it doesn't mean we're going to hell in handbaskets. It's just - stuff people do. Unless what makes you happy is turning everything into some huge thing and getting all judgey, but you really don't look like that's working very well for you."
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Jessica Hayles
We both are.
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Jessica Hayles
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Felipe De Matteo
June 27, 2020 8:04 PM
Mostly me. by Felipe De Matteo
"I'm not upset with you, but I can't-- I can't be your friend until you figure that out, Jess. I'm so so sorry."The conversation played through his head like it had just happened, despite about a year between now and then. Jessica was talking and saying things and he wanted to respond. For one, he wanted to defend Zara. Also, he was sure he hadn't said that her parents were horrible or to be ashamed of herself or to be someone else, but he must've looked worse than he realised because Jessica interrupted herself before he could.
"I didn't say that," he murmured very quietly, going with the first thing that came to mind. "I said I couldn't be your friend. That you had stuff to sort out. I did too. I still do." What was that feeling in his throat? It was like he'd swallowed a snitch and it was beating its wings around inside him. "I'm really sorry," he added again, frowning. "I shouldn't have said that."
Why was he apologising? He absolutely should've said that. He had meant it, hadn't he? He had known that he couldn't be friends with someone so much like him. He did enough beating himself up over everything, how could he add another person into that? How could he keep letting someone down like that? But what did that mean he thought about Zara if he didn't think he was letting her down. This wasn't a feeling he ever got around Zara though. He trusted that she really did like him. Or at least . . . she liked kissing him . . . but they'd been friends before that, so that couldn't be the only thing, right?
"Forgiveness," he repeated, scoffing softly. "I haven't earned that." He thought about things going back to how they were before and knew that wasn't possible. It really really wasn't possible. "Jess, Zara and I are dating," he said more quietly still. "I can't imagine you'd want to be my friend?"
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Felipe De Matteo
Mostly me.
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Jessica Hayles
June 28, 2020 9:48 PM
I thought you thought it was me? by Jessica Hayles
“Guess you’re feeling better than you look, if you want to play semantics games,” said Jessica. “The entire conversation before that part was you saying that that I had no right to take my own time about deciding when to tell you something extremely private – that doing that made me a bad person. And that there’s something wrong with my family just because we’re not just like yours. Maybe you thought you meant something else, I don’t know – but all I heard was that you thought you were too good for me.”Something which still…it wasn’t even hurt, really. The burn of anger that went along with it was painful, yes, but in a different way. It was the same anger that made her want one of the other Crotali to tell her again that she wasn’t welcome here, or for Zara Jackson to so much as look at her for too many consecutive seconds – the rage she was beginning to think she could never really get rid of until she found an excuse to find out what happened if you cast six or seven different hexes on the same stupid person within the space of about two minutes….
Did she want to hurt Felipe specifically, though? God knew she had thought about it often enough over the past year, when she had imagined him laughing at her with that – that – his pond scum girlfriend. At the moment, though...she could hear that she had sounded sad again, saying it out loud like that. Also at the moment, he was behaving so pathetically that she couldn’t imagine it would actually help her to hurt him. It would be on par with hexing poor little Sadie.
Why did you have to do this? she thought bleakly. Why now?
“I would rather cut off my own hand than let…her – “ her lip curled involuntarily in disgust – “be the deciding factor in anything I ever do,” she said flatly when he cited Zara as a reason why she might not want to be friends with him anyway. “She doesn’t get to decide who I’m friends with or not friends with, and she never will. Just ask Johana Leonie. The fact she hasn’t turned on you yet is completely irrelevant to this conversation.”
She declined to mention that she suspected it might be a moral obligation to be nice to him again now, to undercut the narrative of you have to stay with me and kiss my butt all the time because nobody else could possibly like trash like you which she was sure Zara fed him at every turn. She also refrained from explicitly adding the implied next sentence: So don’t use her as an excuse to have your cake and eat it too and blame me – or even her – for doing exactly whatever the hell you want to anyway. There was only so far she was willing to go to help him, after all; he was a long, long way from far enough back into her good graces for her to risk having to deal with the blowup when someone histrionic heard something they didn’t want to hear, however much they needed to hear it.
“Except…is that why you believed her instead of me, back in second year?” she asked, with genuine curiosity. She was surprised herself by the lack of anger in her voice now. “I always wondered about that – I didn’t have the guts to say anything because you were literally the only person here who was nice to me back then, but I wondered. I mean - forget what was true or not, and forget that I would have cut anyone who talked to you the way she talked to me, back then. Why would you - or anyone - want friends whose solution to not liking someone is to run around tattle-telling to the other person's friends behind their back? But then you acted like you wanted to believe her instead of me even on top of that. Is that really all it was? That you were...already into her, or whatever?"
It was, Jessica thought, a great failing on the part of sex that it was nearly impossible to talk about without being vulgar. She could not think of a way to really drive the point home - you really started the process of throwing a pretty good friendship out the window just because you wanted in some low-rent snob chick's pants? - without being vulgar. This was unfortunate, as it forced her to end her statement on a weak note. Poor form, that, and she had standards. Her whole family would be disappointed in her, ending on a weak statement....
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Jessica Hayles
I thought you thought it was me?
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Felipe De Matteo
June 29, 2020 1:14 AM
I'm usually wrong. by Felipe De Matteo
Was that really what he'd said? Or at least, is that really how he came across? Ugh, he was awful. "I have never ever been too good for you," he said gruffly, uncomfortable with phrasing it that way but not coming up with any better options on the spot. "I'm sorry. I-- I shouldn't have said what I said."The anger returned to his stomach for a moment when Jessica said she'd rather cut off her own hand than be influenced by Zara. He'd give her that he was a mess, but Zara? She was sunshine and gold and soft kisses and rough kisses and she was his adventure buddy. His frown shifted towards a scowl for a moment but he regained composure then and settled back on sad; this was meant to be an apology after all.
He visibly grimaced, however, when Jessica asked about second year, and believing Zara. There was no good way to answer this question and there was a good chance he was about to undo his apology. "I believed both of you," he said, shrugging awkwardly. "Zara came to me because she was sad and worried about me. I thought . . . well, I thought you didn't come to me because you were trying to keep me out. I believed that you both really thought you were right and that you were both telling the truth the way you saw it." The details were hazy now, but he knew it was a matter of diplomacy to see problems this way. "Maybe that's just how my dad would try to think through things? But it sounded like you went to Zara thinking you were asking one thing and she perceived it another way. Which is something I've done several times and I believed that it was possible. I didn't think you were doing anything on purpose to be mean."
He wasn't about to bring up the fact that impact mattered more than intent. It mattered almost exactly zero percent what Jess had been trying to do. The result was that she'd hurt somebody and made them feel pushed down and small. That wasn't okay. And it wasn't okay of Jess to brush it off just because she didn't agree that that's what she was trying to do. It wasn't okay that Jess left her life unexamined because that was the way things were and it was easiest that way. Part of the problem, of course, was that Felipe had hurt Jessica. He hadn't meant to, but intent wasn't that important. The truth was that he had done. So now where did that leave them? Right here, apparently.
"I . . . wasn't 'into' anybody back then," he added, blushing. That wasn't precisely true but again, that wasn't information to highlight now.
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Felipe De Matteo
I'm usually wrong.
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Jessica Hayles
July 01, 2020 11:10 AM
Consider reflecting on your motives. by Jessica Hayles
Jessica could feel tears starting to swim in her eyes again and hated herself as much as she hated everyone else for a moment. Why could she never quit doing this? Her parents were better off without her, she would have been useless anyway, even with a good education, if she was fourteen years old and still couldn’t stop tearing up when the least bit upset….“But yet when I told you she actually was mean to me, no two ways about it,” she said, a little thickly. “Even then – I was still the female dog who just didn’t value your friendship enough – and she was still the – “ Jessica managed to drop her voice into a slightly mocking little girl tone, despite the sharp pain in her throat – “poor, sad, innocent, concerned little angel?” She jerked her chin irritably as she returned to a more normal, if slightly blurred, voice. “It never crossed your mind that she might be playing you? Or to even ask me what happened before you decided whether to believe either of us? Or why if that was what happened, why she wouldn't hear either of us out about it and try to sort out the misunderstanding? Because she wasn’t the least bit sad and concerned when she was talking to me.” Jessica wrapped her arms around herself. “It's really amazing, though, how the minute she was with a man who thought it was his job to be altruistic and take care of other people, though, suddenly she wasn’t calling people crap and being all aggressive. Because that’s how she was in that library, and if you want to, we’ll go straight down to the Potions office right now and ask the professor for one of those truth potions, and I will drink it, and then I’ll tell you the same thing about that again,” she said fiercely, and jerked her hand across her eyes again to facilitate more effective, merciless eye contact, daring him to take her up on that offer.
“You can say a lot of things about me, but not that I ever played that kind of game with you. Maybe you would have liked that better, but I doubt it – considering that when I did try to open up to you about something, your reaction was to throw the entire friendship out the window, and then go…go....”
She trailed off as a thought occurred to her, and then all the blood drained from her face. “What did you tell her?” she asked quietly, and her tone, for her all her efforts to restrain it, was now one of barely suppressed fear. “She had to be curious why you were suddenly willing to drop me, after all...that, the year before. What did you tell her?”
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Jessica Hayles
Consider reflecting on your motives.
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Felipe De Matteo
July 01, 2020 12:16 PM
I'm motivated to despair right now. by Felipe De Matteo
Felipe was surprised that so many of the feelings in his stomach were rolling around and turning into just anger and frustration. And . . . betrayal? He had zero reason to think that Zara was a problem. He had zero reason to think that she'd been mean. She'd never been mean to him. He'd only ever seen her stand up to and for things when it was appropriate to do so. If that was the case, and Jessica really could've done exactly what Zara said she'd done, then it was more likely that Jessica felt offended rather than that Zara had actually been offensive, right? But that didn't seem like a good way to decide who to "side" with, and really, Jessica was the only one asking him to take sides. Maybe that was because she felt like he already had and Zara didn't need to ask. He wondered idly what Zara would think of him even talking to Jessica again. He knew she didn't like her, but she didn't generally talk badly of her. Jessica was a topic that they didn't bring up. But Jessica couldn't stop bringing Zara up. It seemed like the only thing she wanted from this was for Felipe too . . . what? Admit that Zara had screwed up? Why did that matter so much to her?"I don't think that Zara is perfect, Jess," he said in a low voice, struggling to keep himself from shaking. He felt like a threat, like he was violent. It wasn't because of any real urge in himself, but he felt angry and he was watching Jessica curl in on herself. Was he dangerous? Is that what she thought of him? He was sure she knew of his fight with Jeremy but it's not like he had any sort of track record to make it look like he was likely to do the same to her or something. She had to know he would never do that, right? "But Zara came to talk to me. You didn't want me to be part of it, so I wasn't. I stayed out. I didn't take any sides at all. When you did come talk to me, you asked me if I even wanted to be your friend and put me in the middle.
What did you want me to do? Intervene on your behalf? On hers? I wasn't going to do that so I stayed out completely. I was friends with both of you and I cared about both of you. That never changed."
He ballad his hands into each other under the table, out of sight of Jessica, except for his tensing arms. He felt like the muscles under his skin were rolling around like snakes.
"I was never upset that you opened up to me," he added sharply, really really sick of that argument. "I was upset by the way you did it."
He deflated rapidly when Jessica turned paler and asked about what he'd told Zara about Jessica's sister. About everything. The feeling that it would be better for everyone if he just stopped existing came back and he nausea swirled with his anger as the latter redirected inwards. Unfortunately, this was one area Felipe was pretty sure he had not only screwed up but that he couldn't fix. At the same time, he was having a hard time answering for this because he had gone to a friend in his time of being hurt. What was he supposed to have done? He'd been bottling everything up for his whole entire life and he'd seen in an embarrassing moment in Herbology how well that worked out.
If there was anything he'd ever learned, though, it was that excuses did little good for anyone. Trying to say why he'd done what he'd done wouldn't help anyone. And he was well beyond helping himself. "She knows Mara is your sister," he said quietly. "She doesn't know all the details behind that. She knows how I felt about finding out the way that I did."
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Felipe De Matteo
I'm motivated to despair right now.
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Felipe De Matteo
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Jessica Hayles
July 01, 2020 3:44 PM
You don't get despair privileges after that. by Jessica Hayles
OOC: Depiction of anxiety ensues. BIC:“Honestly?” asked Jessica when he asked what he seemed to think was a rhetorical question about what she had expected him to do (poor him!) back then. “Once I told you that she compared my family to manure? Yeah, I kind of did expect more than what I got from someone who said he was my friend. I expected a lot more than you telling me to my face that you didn’t believe she’d said what I told you she said,” she added in a particularly furious whisper. “You see, I would have done a lot more on your behalf, if someone had said that to you back then.”
Thank God she hadn’t, she thought. Thank God she had never been put into a position where she put her neck out for him – well, aside from foolishly vouching for him to her parents. It was so impossibly obvious, now, that he had never really cared about her as anything more than something he thought he could use to make himself feel better – it would have been such a waste, causing trouble on behalf of someone who so manifestly didn’t deserve it. The fact she had been alone in the midst of numbers had made her stupid, true – if she hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have been stupid enough to forget that nobody was ever going to express concern for her when they didn’t expect to get something in return – but that hadn’t made her a toy which was only there to boost up some guy’s self-esteem. If his ego was so fragile that it took damage from very concept of a girl who wouldn’t agree with everything he said or run to him for solutions to everything, then she was infinitely better off without him.
“And as for putting you in the middle? She’s the one who brought you into it. I knew you were friends with her – for whatever reason – so I was going to leave you out of it. She’s the one who went scurrying off to spin her version of the story. So was I a bad friend for not racing her to lunch to plead my case, or was I a bad friend for talking to you about what happened later? Because you can’t have that both ways.”
Why, she wondered vaguely, had she thought it would be wrong to try to hurt him a minute ago? It felt pretty good right now, even if he was proving so whipped that it was hard to make much of an impact. At least she was making him angry, causing unpleasant feelings, even if he was still angry with the wrong person….
…the person who, it turned out, he had so completely betrayed her to that said person could now easily destroy her and her entire family.
“She doesn’t know the details?” Jessica asked in a whisper. “She doesn’t know the details? How many more details do you think there are for her to know?!” Her voice had grown high and thin, her breathing rapid and shallow. She did not feel any need to comment on how he’d felt about the situation; his feelings were not something she cared about now, and even if she had, the middle of a crisis was no place to put a priority on someone else’s feelings.
It was also, for that matter, a really bad place to put any priority on her own feelings, but the problem was, controlling them was becoming much more difficult.
Her hands rose to partially cover her face again, fingernails digging hard into her cheekbones as she fought not to hyperventilate. If she lost control, she couldn’t think straight. If she couldn’t think straight, she couldn’t try to figure out how to fix it – but there was no way to fix it. She had ruined everything. It was all her fault. All her fault…
Out, out, out, I have to get it out, it has to get out, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!
“You – you – “ she managed to gasp in English, before abruptly switching to Spanish. “I trusted you – you – you – oh God. Oh God. God help me. You backstabbing - I trusted you!” She dragged her nails down the sides of her face, seeking vainly to regain control. “Oh God. Oh God. Oh God, Mommy, I’m sorry.” This last part was so breathless and high-pitched it was possibly incomprehensible, if Felipe wasn’t listening closely to her babbling. She gasped for air, forcing her hands into her hair again, then managed, “I think I’m going to be sick.” She curled in further on herself, pulling her hair as hard as she could at the roots, squeezing her eyes shut, and thus forcing a wave of tears down her face at last, and trying to breathe.
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Jessica Hayles
You don't get despair privileges after that.
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Felipe De Matteo
July 01, 2020 4:11 PM
Says you. by Felipe De Matteo
Oh she would've said more on his behalf, would she? Funny, since he was pretty sure he remembered getting into more than one debate about how archaic his family structure was, how unacceptable their ways were, how awful it was of them to put expectations of inheritance on his shoulders . . . right up until he was given an out and then suddenly he had been the bad guy for Leonor stepping into a position she'd always wanted.And then there she went again, refusing to acknowledge any of her part in any of this! Felipe knew he was wrong - it wouldn't take knowing someone from Adam to know he wasn't perfect - but he couldn't be wrong all the time probably. And even if he was wrong, others could be at the same time. But Jessica couldn't just admit that? Couldn't admit that maybe her family pushed her to do things that weren't okay? Couldn't admit that maybe she had done harm too? No, if Felipe's apology wasn't perfect, then it wasn't any apology at all. Since he couldn't take back any of the mistakes he had made, owning up to them was his only option. Since that apparently wasn't going to cut it, with or without reasons and explanation, then what was he supposed to do? Was it a mistake to even come talk to her?
Before he could decide what to say, his anger and shakey hands were replaced with cold fear and surprise, his eyes widening as he sat back in some horror at Jessica's reaction. He would never again complain of having any sort of anxiety (not that he'd been proud of the diagnosis in the first place) knowing now what it could really look like. He thought that he probably shouldn't ever complain about his family background either, as they had either put less on him or prepared him better for it. Jessica seemed very fragile then and he almost had the instinct to hug her and keep her safe from herself, but decided that would probably make things worse. Running away from the scene would probably help in terms of his own comfort and may be effective in helping remove the stimulus for Jessica's anger and anxiety, but it didn't seem right to leave her alone right then.
He thought vaguely of hexing her. A body bind curse would at least keep her safe for a moment while she relaxed, although he supposed it wouldn't be terribly easy to relax like that and it would certainly draw a scene. But he was stronger than she was. Could he just . . . not let her hurt herself? The thought of Jeremy coming into the Common Room right now and seeing the situation made his stomach roll, more for Jessica's reputation than his own at this point, and he knew he had to act somehow.
"Jess, Jessica," he began, joining her in Spanish as he moved from his seat to kneel by her side. He was probably going to get hit. Taking one of her wrists in his hand - Had she always been so small? Why were all the girls at school so small these days? - Felipe pulled it gently away from her face and made shushing noises as quietly as he could. "I know it doesn't seem good right now and you probably hate me, but everything is going to be fine. Everything will be just fine. Your secret is as safe as you keep it now, no one else is going to say anything. Jessica, I'm sorry. I'm really really sorry." To both his anger and embarrassment, he found himself tearing up, too, and as he spoke a few drops even came free of his eyes. He had done this. He had hurt her. "Jess, please," he said quietly, almost a whimper.
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Felipe De Matteo
Says you.
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Jessica Hayles
July 02, 2020 9:24 AM
And then it got worse. by Jessica Hayles
Jessica wanted to fight and pull away, but by the time Felipe started trying to pull her hand away from her, she was in the Bad Place – the one where it got hard to actually move much of her own volition, where at home, even Carmela and Mara and Robert would have known that the only thing to do for her was back off and let her get it out of her system. Somehow she had, before Sonora, always kept it away from her parents, kept herself together whenever she was around them, but the result had been even more breakdowns with her shadow family – the one where she knew she was still disappointing them by being such a basket case, but where at least she wasn’t disappointing them in a very specific way, the way she had disappointed her parents when they had found out she was like this. General disappointment, rather than specific. Somehow, that seemed better.She felt as though she was no longer really part of the scene – somehow, despite the fact she could not actually see herself, as if she was standing off to one side, watching some other girl act like a crazy person in public with only very mild interest and perhaps a trace of exasperation, the last rearing its head in particular when the Other Jessica began to sob – why did the little fool always get worse when people tried to help her?
Oh, well. Nothing for it. It would be over in a few minutes. She already knew that all the silent shouting she could do at the Other Jessica to cut it out, that she was embarrassing herself and being stupid, would make no impact – wasn’t like she hadn’t tried before.
“I tried,” the ugly-crying disaster was trying to say – oh, dear God, the thing was whimpering now. “I tried – I can’t – I tried – you wouldn’t listen – nobody would – I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I tried. I'm trying. I can't. I'm sorry.”
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Jessica Hayles
And then it got worse.
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Felipe De Matteo
July 02, 2020 1:34 PM
So much worse. by Felipe De Matteo
Felipe wasn't helping. He wasn't doing anything right today and he couldn't even be sure where to start fixing it. When he got her hands away from her face and found an utterly horrible expression carved into it, he felt a bit like the people he'd read about in war time, who would try to scoop their entrails back into their bodies as they died; all he could do was try to wipe the tears from Jessica's face, knowing full well it wouldn't help. That he couldn't stop her crying.He wasn't sure who she was apologising to, and he wasn't sure whether her switch back to English was good or bad. He dropped his hands to the arms of the chair and leaned back, putting his forehead against his own arm to keep himself steady. Pushing himself up again, he tried to just sort of hold Jessica as gently and as least "I'm holding you" as possible. He put one hand on her hair, not quite cupping her face, and the other on one of the knees that was still curled up against her.
"Jessica, you don't have to be sorry," he told her softly, blinking to try to clear his eyes, but to no avail. "You don't have to be sorry." He remembered when he was little and his Mama would sing to him. It always made him feel better. He couldn't quite say why the memory came back then so vividly but without anything else coming to mind, he hoped it would help. As quietly as he could so that no one else would hear him, he began singing Los Pollitos Dicen. It was about cold baby chickens getting warmed up and fed by their mother before sent to bed and it seemed like an odd choice, but it was all that came to mind.
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Felipe De Matteo
So much worse.
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Jessica Hayles
July 02, 2020 9:38 PM
I'm tired now. by Jessica Hayles
There was nothing to do once it started, really, but to just let go. Fighting would only make it worse, would only prolong the whole miserable episode. It had been a long time, relatively speaking, since it had last happened, at least this badly, but she still remembered that much. Later, the memory of what had actually happened would be…blurred, and hard to make much sense of, but she had done this often enough in her life that she knew that trying to pull herself together by force wouldn’t work, so she just let herself cry.Slowly, her body started feeling like something related to her again; she felt things. Her temples were already pounding – painlessly, but steadily, the pulses roaring in her ears. Something fluid on her face – water. Everything tasted like salt. Air still didn’t seem to want to quite come out of her throat right; the shuddering gasps were growing less violent, and she had managed to stop babbling, but breathing was still a conscious effort, still something that felt as though it was throwing everything beneath her skin around like beads inside a rattle. And there was something warm near her knee – but that wasn’t right –
The little chickens say pio, pio, pio, They have hunger, they have cold, the hen is stirring….
A children’s song. Sweet little thing – her eyes filled again at the image of the little birds being hungry and cold, though those tears were able to run down her face without any sobs rising up to go with them. It felt like lead plates were inside her throat and resting on her chest; moving seemed just as impossible as it had before, but more because of the unnatural exhaustion which always followed these episodes than because she was too dissociated to send commands to her limbs. Slowly, she began to quieten, her most knotted and frozen muscles to relax slightly.
“Yo te extraño,” she said quietly, for no particular reason, before her eyes tried to focus on the end of her own nose, then on figuring out which of the two doubles she then saw was the real one, and on listening to her breathing.
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Jessica Hayles
I'm tired now.
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Felipe De Matteo
July 03, 2020 1:19 PM
Me too, old friend. by Felipe De Matteo
Jessica calmed down. She was okay. But she wasn't really, was she? And that was his fault. He withdrew some as she seemed to come back to herself, not wanting to make her feel crowded, but he stayed by her side."I miss you."
Felipe wasn't sure what to make of that. He blinked in surprise and his singing stopped. Jess seemed very small and very fragile. Who was she talking to? The obvious answer was himself, both because she'd spoken in Spanish and because he was the one right in front of her, but she'd been talking to her mother a moment ago so there was no saying for sure. He also wasn't sure who he wanted her to be talking to. What did he feel? Did he miss her? Sitting there, closer than they'd been in years at this point, watching her be sad and small and broken because of him, he wasn't sure it mattered. Whoever Jessica missed, it wasn't the person who had hurt her and who now sat before her thinking that an apology could have made any difference. Because it couldn't, could it?
"You're okay, Jess," he said softly, his eyes damp but no longer leaking, and his voice wobbly. "You're okay." And that, he realised, he really really wanted to be true.
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Felipe De Matteo
Me too, old friend.
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Jessica Hayles
July 04, 2020 5:56 PM
Is there any place to rest? by Jessica Hayles
Jessica shook her head when told that she was okay. “No,” she said, meekly, in a much smaller voice than usual. “I made a mess.”When her bubble of personal space expanded a bit with Felipe’s withdrawal, she wanted to sit up properly, like a strong woman, one who could and would take care of herself without any help from anyone. Instead, she sank in on herself, her shoulders slumping again with fatigue. Her lungs hurt. Her head was starting to hurt, fuzzy pain accompanying the exaggerated pulse still going in her temples. Her face felt sticky, wrong, and she wanted to wash it, but getting up would be such an effort….
A thought somehow lodged itself in her head long enough for her to follow it to a conclusion. She took out her wand and tried to perform the spell they had once learned in Transfiguration for turning a piece of parchment into a handkerchief, using the parchment she had been making notes on her book on before this had started. Her hand, though, was still shaking, and her nose was so stuffy that it was hard to say the incantation correctly, so she gave up on it and tried to at least wipe the skin under her eyes with the loose fabric of her robe sleeve. Pathetic, but it was a bit late to avoid deserving that label.
“I’m sorry – for a lot of things, but right now for…this,” she said, her voice still croaky and wavering but now obviously that of someone in command of most of her mental faculties and speaking to the person in front of her. “I’m sorry…we both have the absolute worst timing, don’t we?” she added with a weak chuckle. “When I wanted to talk, you were – you still weren’t ready to do that, and then you want to now, and I just…flipped out….” She sniffed and wiped her eyes again with the sleeve. “I…I wish we could ty again, one day when we’re both…we both know we’re going to talk, and nobody’s put on the spot or anything…do you think we could do that? I’m so tired of being angry all the time.”
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Jessica Hayles
Is there any place to rest?
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Felipe De Matteo
July 04, 2020 8:29 PM
Somewhere in the middle, I should think. by Felipe De Matteo
Felipe was not sure what Jessica was trying to do with the paper until she wiped her face on her sleeve. He'd left his wand at the other side of the table but he had a handkerchief tucked into his pocket so he pushed his robes aside and retrieved it for her. "It's clean," he promised.He pressed his lips together in a sad smile as he sat all the way back on his knees on the floor. He thought that he should probably move. That he should sit in his chair. But he couldn't quite bring himself to leave her side. He owed her as much as he could grant anyway and until she wanted him to go away, he wouldn't. At first, he nodded, only agreeing as he realised the truth behind what she was saying. Then she seemed to be making an offer and he nodded more vigorously. "Yes," he breathed. "I would like that very much. There is . . . " He waved his hands, not sure what the words were that he was looking for. He generally didn't lose the words he wanted in English and he was pretty sure it was a matter of not having any words at all this time. "Pressure, you and I understand," he said, speaking slowly and carefully, watching Jessica's face for any sign of an impending argument. "But this is different. I want us to be able to talk without pressure. Just talk."
She was angry all the time. Felipe reflected on this, wondering whether he was too. On the one hand, he certainly had spent a lot of time being angry, but he realised then that he'd forgiven Jess a long time ago. He was angry at Jeremy most of the time, at Leonor a lot of the time, and at himself all the time, but not really with Jessica anymore. He couldn't say whether she meant that she was angry with him or not but he hoped that wasn't the case.
"Thank you," he said quietly, grateful for any chance. "And . . . I really am so sorry."
He paused, letting his words hang in the air as he took a breath and tried to just be. Then he realised that maybe she meant right now, and he patted at his pockets as if looking for his calendar. "Uh . . . right now? We can pick a day? Or not right now?" he asked awkwardly.
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Felipe De Matteo
Somewhere in the middle, I should think.
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Jessica Hayles
July 05, 2020 3:46 PM
Maybe we can get there yet. by Jessica Hayles
Jessica nodded as enthusiastically as she could manage when Felipe said he would like to try to talk, without the usual pressures. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s what I meant, like that.”She didn’t actually think it was possible to do anything in a state without some pressure – there would, of course, be the pressure to say the right thing, to correct a wrong impression if something she said wasn’t taken the way she had meant it, the pressure of wondering what happened next – but less pressure than had defined their attempts at conversation for the last year would be a definite improvement, she thought. And there were different kinds of pressure, too: external ones, emotional ones, emotional ones caused by external ones, ones caused purely by brain malfunctions…Few were worse than pressures from the painful emotions, those were what drove her into States. If they could avoid that, they would be a long way closer to a good place.
In the interest of not stirring up old wounds, she didn’t use the analogy which occurred to her, which was of coming to the negotiating table as equals, having planned the meeting and knowing what it was about. It was a good analogy, she thought, but Felipe’s specific way of being screwed up seemed to be related to the requirements of life in their mutual former spaces in a way that her specific way of being screwed up wasn’t.
She managed a flicker of a smile when he looked like he was looking for a planner. “I…for me, it would be better if we did it another day,” she admitted. “Having one of these – these fits makes me feel like I’ve just had the flu, and I’d like to clear my head first, if that’s okay?” she asked tentatively. “And...maybe somewhere a little less public than the common room," she added with another weak chuckle before she sobered again, coming to the other issue that had to be addressed now rather than later. "And…I’ve got to tell Mara about, well, what we were – “ her breath caught in her throat again for a moment, but she forced herself to go on. “What we were talking about when I, I flipped out. I don’t know how she’ll react to that, but I, I think she needs to know. Are you okay with that?”
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Jessica Hayles
Maybe we can get there yet.
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Felipe De Matteo
July 05, 2020 3:55 PM
That would be really nice. by Felipe De Matteo
Felipe nodded gratefully, happy not to continue this conversation right now. "Could we maybe be a little more okay until then? Like if we end up working together in class, that might be alright? I don't want to push your comfort," he added hastily, trying his hardest to backstep whenever he might've crossed the line. "But that might be more . . . comfortable?"The winter break was in just a few weeks and he wasn't sure whether he would be more grateful for the opportunity to spend that time thinking out what he wanted to say and how, or whether he'd rather get it over and done with before then. Generally not being one to prefer the latter, he decided to raise the suggestion. "Could we plan something in early January?" he asked tentatively. "I don't want to postpone . . . but time might be helpful. And Christmas . . ." He pressed his lips together, not really having any decent way to finish that thought. "I am fine with whatever you want."
She asked about telling Mara, then, and Felipe felt the knife he'd stabbed into his own chest twisting horrifically. After all this, she still was asking him if it was okay? It was her own sister and he obviously hadn't paid Jessica the courtesy she was paying him. He bowed his head. "Of course," he said. He thought of saying more but decided to hold back. Perhaps if he'd held back on his first thoughts all those years ago, he might have avoided this predicament altogether.
Pushing himself to his feet, he took a deep breath and stepped back to avoid towering over her. This whole height thing was really weird to him, but she was also sitting so he blamed it on that. He had the distinct urge to go collapse in a heap on his bed, or else in Zara's arms, but he thought that he needed time first. Just to think. He had Quidditch practice soon and a game and too many other things to think about. This particular topic, he decided, would need to wait.
"Take care of yourself," he added. "Do you want me to get you . . . uh. Soup? Or medicine? Or . . . I have canned pineapple upstairs." He ran a hand through his hair. "Can I get you anything? Or just some space?" he added with a wry smile, knowing that this conversation was coming to an end soon. It was easier knowing it wouldn't be their last.
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Felipe De Matteo
That would be really nice.
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Jessica Hayles
July 05, 2020 9:13 PM
Worth a try, at least. by Jessica Hayles
Jessica didn’t quite manage a full smile, but the corners of her mouth still slightly turned up when Felipe suggested trying to be a bit more okay with each other until they got around to the formal conference. Somehow, the fact he was being almost as awkwardly concerned and tentative about making sure everything was okay as she was made her feel a bit better; it was an indirect indication that her feelings might actually be a subject of concern, rather than everything just being about doing the right thing. Maybe.“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I think we’re probably okay if we find ourselves pruning the same shrivelfig or something,” she joked.
She nodded to the suggestion of conducting The Interview in January, after they got through Christmas. “That sounds good to me. We can be…okay until then, and then maybe we can think better when we’re sort of in our own places at Christmas, you know?” She felt she thought more clearly at home, anyway, and he had seemed to really love Ciudad de Matteo, the one time she’d been there.
Plus, putting it off until after they got back would give her time to calm Mara down, if her sister was inclined to go nuclear when she found out that Felipe had been talking about her business to a third party. My business – that was Mara’s term for the whole messy thing. That was what she had called it when there had been the debate over whether the wizards needed to know anything about their father being the same person; Mara, somewhat to Jessica’s surprise, had been quite forcefully against such a disclosure, pointing out that Jessica’s presence at Sonora proved that people like them could be wizards who had normal families, and if even one was from a family that might have something to gain by disgracing Daddy….
Mara had been annoyed, but Jessica got the weird feeling that she really had been mostly annoyed at the rest of them for being stupid, not at…the situation. She couldn’t, however, be sure of that, because it wasn’t something they had ever discussed, and they had sure as heck not been in a position to discuss it then, with the fiasco with Felipe and Leonor less than a week behind them at the time. Jessica knew, though, that there were things about the situation which bothered Mara, which made her wonder sometimes, how Mara really felt about her - about their father - about Carmela, even. She didn’t know, though, if she really wanted to know, and she definitely didn’t want to find out while they were here. Much better to talk it out at home.
She gave a little sigh of relief when Felipe said it was okay with him, her doing that with Mara. She felt she would have had to even if he hadn’t liked it, but it was better that it was out in the open, and that she wouldn’t have to dance on a highwire to convince Mara not to let Felipe or Zara know she knew that Zara knew things that weren’t Zara’s business, not the way she had convincing Mara to go along with her in lying to all three of their parents about why Jessica’s guests had left so abruptly That Summer.
“I’ll probably talk to her about it while we’re at home,” she disclosed. “I really don’t know how she’s going to react, we’ve never talked about it…I’m probably worrying about nothing,” she conceded, or at least hoped. “But at least at home she’s got her own room.”
She did smile when he awkwardly offered her food or medicine. “I think I just want to wash my face right now, maybe have a nap,” she said. “But…thank you. And let’s have some pineapple another sometime,” she suggested, remembering when they’d met, loners lurking in the common room at night.
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Jessica Hayles
Worth a try, at least.
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