Hello! This is my first fanfic since I was around 12, and it's my first fanfic not about Harry Potter. Based off of the hbo series, Girls, this fic focuses on the free spirited Jessa right before the events of the pilot episode of the series and right after Jessa has moved back to the states.
Disclaimer: Girls is not mine and neither are the characters.
the hipster fad is over.
On February eighth Jessa looked in the mirror and felt good about herself. On February ninth Jessa again looked in the mirror and felt good about herself. In her journal she wrote "Good day" on both February eighth and ninth and nothing else. There was a storm on February ninth that made it difficult for Jessa to sleep. Every time she did manage to fall asleep, she had a nightmare that she was being burned at a stake. In the dream she started crying, and her tears were massive and they put out the fire. But the townspeople who were persecuting her just re-lit the kindling and each time a little bit more of her burned before she was able to work up enough tears to put the fire out. An old man with a straw hat glared down at her singed face and warned her that she wouldn't be able to cry forever. Eventually she would run out of sad thoughts. Jessa woke up and thought "I feel happy sad" before falling back asleep until noon when she woke up and realized she was late for brunch with her friend Thomas.
Jessa trudged to CVS, one foot in front of the other in long, languid steps. She wanted wine and lipstick, no, needed wine and lipstick. Needed to feel like a "woman" in New York City. A woman anywhere. She was a woman. Sure, she had green painted toenails and Harry Potter stickers in her journal, but she also had a passport with her name on it and a hunger for everything that wasn't hers.
It was a warm March day. Hot enough that most of the snow had melted, but there was still some in the parking lot where it had been piled high enough and compacted hard enough that it would probably last another few days. Even though she was wearing flats (beige ones that she'd bought for $4.99 at Wal Mart the last time she was in the states) she stood for a moment with both feet firmly planted on a patch of the not-yet-melted-snow-mountain. Maybe this would be her last chance to feel snow beneath her feet before next year. Or maybe next winter she would be living somewhere warm and tropical, like Hawaii, and would never see or feel or stand on snow again.
Jessa exhaled heavily, imagined her breath warming the snow beneath her feet until there was nothing left but a puddle forced to trickle away into nothing, then entered CVS. She wasn't actually here for wine or lipstick, but she browsed the cosmetics aisle anyway. She passed by the $10 Revlon lipstick and got down on her knees to examine the $1.99 Wet N Wild selection instead. Jessa felt compelled to read all the names, Sand Storm, Coral-ine, Spiked With Rum, Cherry Bomb. She removed the cap of Vamp It Up, a purple verging on black color, and smoothed it across her lips.
Jessa smiled at herself, baring her teeth in the tiny mirror attached to the cosmetics wall, then watched the smile fall off her lips. She looked hot. Maybe even hawt. Especially without smiling. She slipped the small clear tube into the pocket of her kimono style top and smiled and shook her head at an employee who asked if she needed any assistance before checking out the wine selection. She wrinkled her nose at the wine, and wandered, as if by accident or whim, towards aisle six, where she grabbed a CVS brand pregnancy test and went to checkout.
Back at Shoshanna's too pink apartment, Jessa peed on the stick in small bursts, trying not to laugh at her life. This wasn't her first pregnancy scare. But somehow it felt more real this time. Less something that was happening to her and more something that she was a part of. More tangible somehow now than in the past. She knew that regardless of what the result were it wouldn't change her life too drastically. How could she raise a kid of her own while also getting a job as a nanny and raising someone else's brats? The answer was simple; she couldn't. She also couldn't not imagine, just for a moment, a different reality in some alternate universe where she had the thing. It would no longer be Jessa against the world if that happened. It would be Jessa and someone else. Someone who might already be inside her, stealing her nutrients like some kind of leach. She would have to settle down, get clean. Sober up. The idea wasn't pleasant, but some small part of it was appealing, in a way that she knew would never be quite appealing enough to become her reality.
She threw the stick away immediately after seeing what it had to show her, covering it with excess toilet paper so Shosh wouldn't find it and freak. Shosh always freaked about everything, and for the first time in her life, more than anything all Jessa wanted was a little peace and quiet. And tea. A nice hot mug of black tea with milk and maybe a little honey.
Jessa explored the contents of Shosh's cabinets but couldn't find any tea bags. Just orange-mango water enhancing packets and peanut butter Fiber One bars. In the of the cabinet she found some honey, but it had turned crusty and hardened into the bottom of the container. Jessa ate two pickles from the fridge instead and laid down on Shosh's bed until she fell asleep.
She was back in the village. There were the townspeople again, hard, wind-swept faces blank with hatred. They looked Amish, the closest thing Jessa had ever seen to medieval "burning-someone-at-a-stake" appearances. And there he was again, the old man from before, leering at her with that all-knowing look in his eyes. With a pang, as if communicated telepathically, she heard a single phrase in her mind, "We know what you did." Only because she was dreaming, the words weren't in English. They weren't words at all, really. 'Did' could have actually been 'are doing' or 'are about to do' or 'have already done'. It didn't matter really, what mattered was that they knew. What mattered was that she was being punished.
When Jessa woke she lay there on her back for a long time in Shosh's bed and stared at the ceiling fan that was spiraling in slow, graceful swoops above her. She tried to follow one wing of the fan with her eyes moving in quick circles to match it. Her mind felt numb and blank. When she finally forced herself out of bed, the first thing she did was stare at herself in Shosh's full length mirror. Her eyes looked pink and tired and a little soulless. She broke away from her own reproachful stare to rummage through her bags for her journal, where she scrawled a short paragraph about how good it was to be back in the states and staying with her cousin, even though Shosh never shut up and was constantly in her business when she wasn't at school. Jessa didn't bother to write about the dream; she didn't think she would forget it anytime soon.
When Shosh got back from class, maybe she would tell her about the stick. So that she wasn't in this alone. So that it wasn't Jessa against the world again. Or maybe, when Shosh got back from econ class she would find the apartment empty of life, Jessa already at the airport heading somewhere warm and new. The more she considered the possibility of leaving the better she felt. Jessa began throwing her things back into her bags. She felt anxious but excited; read for this new things, whatever it was. She had almost completely backed her bags before her mind turned back to Shosh, who had been so excited to see her yesterday, which a small hand-made sign spelling out "Jessa" in purple glitter. Then again, Shosh knew what to expect, didn't she? Knew Jessa was never around long enough to form any real attachments. Knew she wasn't going to stay forever in Shosh's one-bedroom college apartment.
There was also Hannah, who she hasn't even seen yet. They hadn't seen each other since Jessa dropped out of college but Hannah and her roommate Marnie were throwing a dinner party in her honor later that night.
Jessa sat on the floor next to her bags and startled herself by laughing out loud. She was staying this time; maybe not for long, and definitely not forever. But for the time being, it would be enough.