In the Inside of All Hearts
"Heeelloooooo..?" Past the entrance. "Uuum... aaaa-aaanyone heeere?" Past the little desk area with the opening. "I-Iiiissabeeeeelllleeeee?! Naw, dang it. Even my yell is too quiet." Past and—halt!—at the little opening before the staircase. The one with the painting just aside. With Wherford...
The river from its top-left opening to its middle-right deposit into the ocean... sand banks flanking the bottom and left sides. A simple green ground, very unlike today's surprise. The houses dotting where they dot in their respective colors, the town hall like a judge or a king above them all... manned by a tiny pushover golden retriever. Hah.
Now, would Isabelle be in the back room or upstairs? And is Frita still there? Well... Lyla looks down, noting the silence in the room just in front of her. The door is neatly shut but there isn't much going on in there... well! No sense to dawdle, then! Upstairs it is! Lyla's feelin' lucky!
And upstairs she goes on those rough, wooden steps. She considers resting for a moment—after all that running and Lucha's screaming... she's a little tuckered out. She loves the bird, but man is he tiring. And... well... there's everything else going on too. Lucha's the only one she's told and it'll stay that way unless he spills about it. She gets the feeling Deli will know too by the end of the week. But that's fine... he is himself, after all.
It felt good to tell someone about it, about the scary things going on inside of her... a-and outside, too, if the voice isn't some horrible piece of imagination. Ulh, okay, let's not think about the voice she's been hearing at night, makes her uncomfortable. Like. Weirdo much? Ullhhhhg...
Maybe she should tell someone else. She doesn't know... that might help. N-Nnnnnh... but it also might not... though she supposes it ultimately doesn't matter that much... a-although it feels like it does... Nervously she pushes her fluffy bangs out of her face—there's enough shadow cast on it as it is—turning the handle at the top of the staircase and finding the dog she was looking for.
Just on her bed. Book in hand—wait. No. Book and pen. And the book's cover has words on it, and the words read My Secret Diary like those girly tween things... oh gosh. Isabelle. Girly tween things. Ooooooh.
The moment she stirs from her reveries and notes the Lyla standing there, her face explodes. "yyyYYEEEEEEEEEE!" Book shoved beneath her bed, face red, trembling, curling up into a ball of Isabelle fluff already. " IIII IIIII PROMISE II-II'M N-N-N-NNOT TW-WEEELLVE! I-I-IIII AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Lyla struggles to situate herself on the bed beside the girl. She decides this is one better to wait out than attempt to intervene. With one more sporadic cry: "PLLLLEAAAAAAASE DOO-ON'T EE-EE-EEEEEVER TEELLLL DI-IIIGGGBY I-I-I STILL DDDDO THOSE THI-THINGS HE'LL BE SSSSSSSOO DIIISSAAAPPPOOINTEEDDDDdddhhhhh..." Shivering somewhat, slowing down. Breath, breath. It's sad but Lyla kind of has to focus on politely keeping silent. Laughing at Isabelle, as she's learned the hard way, will only prolong her efforts. Poor Isabelle. Poor Isabelle.
"So," she breaks the silence after the sniffling decreases, "who's Digby? Your boyfriend? Your brother? I don't think he's your dad... but I won't count it out quite yet... although I guess he could be a cousin or uncle too... uh?"
She's back to spluttering. Dang it, Lyla, that was obviously a "no" question. But... but she was curiouuuus! Dang iiiit! She hasn't known since she first saw the guy!
Because that silence is just getting bigger and bigger, she adds, "So, is he coming back sometime soon? He seems like the kinda guy to show up consistently in your life. Maaaan, you must be attached... that sounds nice..." Going on, because hey, she didn't say anything about it, "Maaaan, it must be nice to have a boyfriend... I wonder... Oh, or a girlfriend, I mean, I'm not picky..."
"LLLLLLHHHHHH!"
Brrrrkkk!
An object has impaled the back of Lyla's head. Ouch.
"Ouuh, and I guess Frita's doing better now, since she's not here? Man that's great... back home... guess I'll have to visit her sometime, eh?"
Well that doesn't proceed with more thrown items. Great. Oh—hey—wait... Lyla's hand goes over and finds in fact that the thing Isabelle threw at her—fuzzy pink cover—those three words—oh hey, it's her diary. And then Isabelle realizes it too, and her voice goes up and squeaky and frantic all over again. Lyla really really wants to open this thing up and find out for herself who Digby is to this girl... but... that'd be rude... and she's not rude, just stupid... but she's not this stupid...
The moment Lyla's drive crumbles the dog snatches that book back like there's no tomorrow without it. And maybe there is. She doesn't know the kinds of secrets this poor thing has. Slowly those aquamarine orbs—lackluster but not completely depleted—not yet, anyway—catch Isabelle's big sky blue, and the dog, blushing, finally speaks.
"U-Um... s-s-sorry... he's, um, a lot of things to me, I guess..." Her sunshine paws come together, her squeaky voice just as fragile and as sweet as Lyla's remembered it. "Y-You know? He means, um... he means a lot to me. A-A whole... lot." And with a tiny, near imperceptible smile, Isabelle's big eyes again take in Lyla's sorry sight. There is a wince.
Hesitance. Worry pulling the strings, the strings attached to those lines in her face. The blush, the nerves, and she whispers, "A-Are you okay? I-I mean... Digby's always helped me, and I-I'm really thankful for... for him... but..." In her eyes flash two very different ideals: the memory of love and its coming, and the sight of the friend in front of her. "Aaauhh... Y-You don't look good!" She tosses back whatever Digby is and stares at her, eyes burning.
"I um! Dang it!" Lyla didn't want it to come to this! SSSsssstupid Isabelle's smarter than she looks. And waaaaay smarter than she. "Uhhhhhh! Isabelle don't do this to meeeeeee!"
Of course this only raises her friend's already high worries. "Ly-Lylaaaaa! Pl-Pleaaase! N-N-Nobody e-ever talks to me li-like you do, ra-aaandomly showing up a-aall the time! Pleeeaaaase..!"
"Whhhh!" Wincing, the girl releases a breath and mumbles, "Hoookay... but um... please don't... tell anyone. We-Well. Lucha already knows, and Deli probably will soon... but um... um...
Her head lowers a little more. "I'm not... sleeping well. Um. There's this voice... and it's a bad voice... a-and stuff. You know. Stuff... So I'm just... blaaah. Heh... hehhh..." She lifts her fingers to her face quickly. It's... different. Letting Lucha see her tears. He's a different person than Isabelle... r-right? H-He is... he is... to her... he is...
Oh, this is so embarrassing...
"I... ahh... S-Sorry, Lyla... um..." Her voice has taken an all new level of daintiness, of softness and delicate edges. "That's, um... that's no good. Ummmh..! I... um... I need to... um..." Lyla can feel the bed shaking, the girl scooting closer to her. She's very soft. Comforting... nnnf... "Lyla, um... you see... like... there's um... there's more to it than... it's... ah...
"Um... I-I guess I can't really help, but... but I guess you deserve to know. F-Freya can't t-tell me what to say a-a-and what not to... a-a-and this might be important..."
Lyla stirs somewhat. "Valentine's Day? Freya said... she didn't care if we celebrated it instead of Halloween... so I wanna do that... did she tell you about that? No wait... she told me to tell you about that... ahhh..! Isabelle... I really don't want to do another Halloween... can we please do Valentine's Day..?"
"U-Um. Sure." She goes on. What is it with that girl and holidays? E-Eiiiither way tha-that's not the important thing right now is it! "But Lyla, I'm um... I'm talking about... so um...
"Lyla, this is hard to explain and... well... i-it'll be easier to believe since you live here but... ummm... see, there's this thing."
"Yeah."
"And it's... really bad. And it's... all over."
"Yeah."
"A-A-And it kind of... it's the reason everything here and nea-neaarby is... s-s-so messed up. A-A-And the reason Marsh... y-y-you know, a-a-a-and the reason Nook and the Abel Sisters a-a-are sort of... sti-ill here... ummm..."
"Yeah." Somehow this one sounds a little stronger, a little shakier.
"D-Don't try to say it though, because you can't but... it's the reason there's.. um... no escape. No chance—wh-whatever... this is i-it! O-Okay? Y-Y-You ready?"
"Yeah."
"His name is... um... his name is Jaxk, okay?"
That sends Lyla spluttering. "Heey! Why can you say his name? That's no fair! He won't say why, he just says sorry when I try! A-And man I'm trying! But I can't say his stupid name! But I really really want to! Gyaaaaaaahhhh Jaaaxxkikkkhhhhhhgg..."
And that sends Isabelle spluttering, staring wide-eyed into the floorboards.
"You already know him."
"Yeah. We've talked a few times."
"Y-You already know him."
"Uh-huh. Hey Issy, I know I'm stupid but I think you just said the same thing twice." Cough. "Now seriously, why can't I say his name right?"
She giggles, very softly, very thoughtfully. "It's not a gift... to say his name right. Psh... F-Freya thinks Digby and I are lucky... and Camofrog's onto something too... b-but we're not! It's 'special', not 'good.' And it's... uuuuuuhf...
"He-Hey Lyla? I think I want you to... stay here tonight. O-Okay? We can stay u-up... I don't care..."
I'm just worried about you. And scared and—all kinds of things. Frita went home almost like a different person entirely, and Lucha's not a hermit anymore, and there's nothing horribly wrong with Julian, even though he... even though he... Oh, why did Bruce bring this poor girl on the train? It's scaring her... Isabelle hardly knows anymore than that wolf or that frog or most anyone else, but what she knows is that it's bad and that for some reason it's less bad now... and Lyla's not sleeping well, she looks so tired, and maybe they all look like that, she doesn't know...
Scared. Yeah.
"Isabelle?"
"Y-Y-Yes?" She must have a lot of questions now, right? I-It's only understandab—
"Can we work on planning Valentine's Day?"
Blink. "U-Um, sure. I-Is that all?"
"Yeah."
"O-Okay..."
If that is as she so desires...
