The first thing that needed desperately to be done was taking a very good shower. She had absolutely no idea of how she had let herself be drawn to this point, but it had to end now, as soon as she leveled up again. No, now!
She stood up and started to walk to the bathroom, not even turning off her laptop properly, because she knew it would undoubtedly lead her to check how the game was going on - and once there, there was no way out.
She closed the bathroom door behind her and turned the knob on the bathtub faucet. She dropped her clothes on the floor as she was taking them off, piece by piece, not worrying about the fact that she couldn't remember the last time she had cleaned that floor. But that was okay, considering she probably wouldn't use those clothes again any time soon.
She noticed her face was unrecognizable when she saw herself in the mirror. Honestly, if she saw someone looking like she was on the street, that person would probably also be asking for some change or heading to a rehab clinic. She felt sorry for herself; she didn't look that bad, not even when Kurt had dumped her. She entered in the water before she could start to cry again.
Stupid movie producers; stupid Cheesecake Factory; stupid on-line multiplayer games; stupid Sheldon for introducing her to them. No, it wasn't really his fault and she knew it, although he did deserve part of the guilt. She shoved those ideas off of her mind and began to wet her hair.
She missed this sensation of cleanness, the soap on her skin. She remembered taking a shower at some point during her addiction, maybe…
When the water was cold and she had recovered enough energy to stand up, she left the bathtub, put on her pajamas and dried her hair, thinking about what she was going to do in the next day.
"Good morning, guys," she said when she met Leonard and Sheldon in the hallway the next day.
"Goodbye," Sheldon replied before running back to the apartment, afraid that she would ask him something about the game. He definitely hadn't noticed the new her she had become over night.
"Don't worry about him, he's having a tough day today," Leonard replied to her, playing with his keys uncomfortably, when he saw her blank stare at the two guys' door.
"Okay," she shook her shoulders; she'd have to deal with Sheldon later. Right now her priority was celebrate having her life back. "See you later," she smiled, passing by Leonard and waving. Yes, she was having a great day, and nothing could spoil it for her.
"S-see you," Leonard stuttered in confusion.
She was a new woman, a new, beautiful, smart, confident woman, not even the rain outside would bother her - she loved the fresh air, after all. She was even starting to reconsider the community college. There was nothing she couldn't do, except, maybe, geometry.
Leonard picked up his phone, as it was beeping to announce he had received a message. He rolled his eyes when he saw the name Sheldon on the screen, but read it anyway.
"Is she gone?" the text asked.
"Yes, Sheldon, now, let's go, we're late already," Leonard responded through the door.
Sheldon opened the door, with his usual bad mood face.
"Allow me to observe that the only reason we're late is because you had to spent thirty minutes in the bathroom for unknown reasons, considering that your hair looks just as bad as it was when you woke up this morning," he said, locking the door behind them and starting to walk down the stairs.
"Well, thank you, Sheldon," Leonard answered. He wondered if his friend was really that innocent or he only liked to tease – knowing Sheldon as he did, the second hypothesis was very unlikely.
"Hey, I think I'm really starting to get the hand of sarcasm," Sheldon commented, with a little smile in pride of himself.
x
Penny had it all figured out. There was an audition for a movie this morning and she was going to get it; honestly, she couldn't picture a better person for this role, it was definitely written for her – for the new her, of course.
She entered the building and a woman told her to pick a number and enter the waiting room, she looked at her number, 15, she smiled, it shouldn't take that long, especially judging by the quantity of people there. She sat on one of the couches, on the side of a brunette girl reading a book.
"Can you believe twenty minutes have passed, I'm sitting here and nobody has appeared to call any of us yet?" The brunette girl commented to Penny, closing her book, and looking extremely impatient.
"Really? God, I wish I had brought my iPod, then, right?" Penny responded. This would probably freak out the old Penny. Luckily for her, this was a new Penny; the Penny that would get this part, so why worry?
The brunette girl didn't seem to find that especially fun, as she frowned and drove her eyes back into her book. Penny took a magazine from the pile on the table and waited to be called.
x
"Sheldon, do you think Penny might have gotten some sexual intercourse last night?" Leonard asked in the cafeteria that same day during their lunch break.
"Let's see, I don't know why this would be a matter of my interest, so I don't care," Sheldon replied, taking his tray and going to the table where Rajesh and Howard were sitting and eating already. "As long as she stops interrupting my REM cycles, I'm good. It's simply not healthy for any person to be awake in the middle of the night –"
"Dumbass, nobody cares," Leslie cut him off sitting at the table with the four of them. "So, Hello Kitty is finally doing someone? Good for her."
"We don't know, and I don't think we should be discussing her sex life here in the middle of the cafeteria and without her present to defend herself," Leonard replied to Leslie. He deeply wished Penny hadn't had sex the night before, increasing his chances of… getting their relationship back, if he could call their one date a relationship.
"I could talk about it," Howard commented, shaking his shoulders before noticing Leonard's killing look and facing his food again.
"Well, you must be relieved that you can now focus on your unfounded theories without having Polly Pocket asking to play with you all the time," Leslie teased Sheldon with a grin. It just felt so good knowing she would always beat him in these oral fights.
x
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Penny said running to the Cheesecake Factory and stopping just in time to drop to her knees in front of her boss.
The audition actually had taken up a lot more time than she was expecting, and she didn't get the part apparently, since the producers told her so. This only brought her self-esteem back to the bottom, but instead of going back to Age of Conan, she decided to take a more optimistic attitude, and that was probably why her boss was looking at her stunned.
"You miss three days of work, and come today exceptionally late, I hope you have a great excuse for that, and what the hell happened to your hair?" he replied, still not taking his eyes off of her hair.
She was frustrated. She needed to do something, so she went to a hair saloon – the first hair saloon she saw and cut it to her chin and had some black highlights added. She didn't think it looked bad at first, but it was the fourth time someone looked at her like she was dressed for Halloween already, and she was starting to have second thoughts about it.
"No, I don't. But I can start working on Mondays, and take extra shifts and help cleaning after we're closed, I promise," she begged. She would stay on her knees if she had too; she didn't know what she would do if she, after all that had happened that day, lost her job too.
He looked at her for a while, aware that the silence was killing her and kind of enjoying every second of it.
"Okay," he finally said, shaking his shoulders and leaving her there alone.
By the end of the day she was completely exhausted and not as happy as she had planned when she woke up that morning. She got to her building and moaned remembering she still had to walk up the stairs because the elevator, let's face it, would never be fixed.
"Heeey, sweetie, what are you doing here outside so late?" she asked in a monotone. She didn't even know why she had greeted him in the first place; she was way too tired to try to handle Sheldon.
"I had to stay at work longer, because I couldn't finish my job for this week," he replied, almost sounding like a normal person, she noticed, surprised. Only if she knew he wasn't blaming her for that, but she allowed him to. After all, he had the right this time.
"Oh, I'm really sorry about that," she said, honestly. Her depression wasn't supposed to affect anyone's life except her own. "If it makes you feel better, I discounted my frustration by trying to look like a mushroom," she pointed to her hair. She knew she would regret it later, whatever he had to say about her new hairstyle hardly would cheer her up.
He frowned, oblivious as usual to pretty much anything that would come out of Penny's mouth. "I don't get it," he said.
"C'mon, look at what I did to my hair, can you really say it looks any good?" she insisted. She knew he had no people skills, but there was no way he couldn't see she had ruined her hair.
"Do you want an honest response?" he asked.
She thought about that for a second. She thought about what he could say. She thought about her crappy day. She really didn't need to feel any worse. "No," she replied, looking for a compliment – even a fake one – for the first time of the day.
"Then, no," he answered, and immediately after that entering his apartment.
She smiled and played with her key in her hand for a while before entering her own apartment. Her life wasn't that awful after all.
Hope you all enjoyed it. Thanks Willow for the beta!