The pen vanishes in thin air along with Jade, and she doesn't realize until she notices the tickle of the felt tip pen has ceased. She looks up to see that the thespian is gone, and so is the angel.
She doesn't have anything to write with, and so she just wraps her fist around the tiny mark, as if it would keep it from flying away.
"Jade. Jade. Your name is Jade. Got it. Jade. Like the gemstone."
And she begins the descent down from the roof, noticing how the auditorium is different. Rebuilt after it was blown up.
She just hopes Jade can save everyone with this second chance.
She begins her walk home; it's still bright out, and so she makes the naive mistake of slipping her hood over her head and slouching because she's noticed immediately. She utters Jade's name softly, over and over.
She tries to break into a run when a familiar car pulls up beside her, but the few cuts on her thighs throb, and she ends up on her knees. She's pulled reluctantly to her feet and led to the car in silence.
"Victoria Dawn Vega," Her mother sounds frustrated, "You escaped?"
She slumps down in the passenger seat, silent.
"Why would you- You jumped out the window. You could have died! Again!"
Tori flashes a glance over, immediately noticing how exhausted her mom looks. There are bags under her eyes, and her make-up looks messy as if she had done it in a rush.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly, "It was selfish. But I had to go see, uh…"
Her heart stops, and suddenly, she feels like everything's escaping her, trickling away.
"What's her name? Uh, I forgot her name? What's your name? I wasn't supposed to forget, what's your name?" She mutters to herself, racking her brain for an answer.
She doesn't get one.
"You had to go see what?"
Tori shakes her head, gritting her teeth to suppress the pain that's beginning to flood back, "Nevermind," she just mumbles.
"Honey," her mom takes a deep breath, "How would you feel about speaking to a psychiatrist?"
She stays silent. I won't need one if Jade succeeds. The timeline is going to be rewritten.
So she agrees, that little spark of optimism still burning in her. Jade's going to succeed. None of this is going to matter.
The ride is tense back to the hospital, and she doesn't utter a word as they escort her back to her room, leaving a nurse to watch over her.
She closes her eyes, seeing glow-in-the-dark stars and the gleam of scissor blades flash beneath her eyelids.
What's your name? I can't remember.
The single black mark on her palm does nothing to help.
"Tori, Tori, Tori," she mutters beneath her breath as she makes her descent from the roof. "Your name is Tori."
She almost crashes into Beck because she's not paying attention, and she lurches backward.
"Tori?"
"Wait, wait, wait… did you say? Tori?"
"Jade?"
"Yes, I'm Jade," she snaps, "Who else would I be?"
He shakes his head, "Tori came here, in uh, your body. She warned us. You know the plan?"
She hesitates, "Let's go over it one more time."
They spot the curly-haired awkward boy in the audience and keep an eye on him. Jade checks the time on her phone; there isn't too much time left, but it's a lot to do for the two of them.
"Jade! Beck!" The ex-couple whirl around from their spot behind the curtain, finding themselves face-to-face with the one and only Sikowitz.
"What do you want?"
"To help."
"With what?"
"Whatever you lads are doing."
"We're not doing anything," Jade immediately turns away, but Beck's hand on her shoulder pulls her back.
"Well, you're not Tori."
"Wait, what?"
A coconut practically materializes in his hand, "The milk gives me visions."
"Yeah, yeah, you've said that like a million times."
"So," the balding acting teacher adjusts his knitted scarf that drapes over his shoulders, "What is going on?"
Jade's about to challenge him again, to tell him nothing is going on, but Beck speaks up first.
"There's a bomb."
"Oh. And?"
"We need to evacuate everyone."
'Now?"
"No… If we pull the fire alarm now, we won't be ready, and Robbie might get away."
"Robbie, huh? Shapiro?"
"Uh-huh."
"Wait, Sikowitz?"
"Yes?"
"Can you pull the fire alarm?"
"Just tell me when."
"When I signal. It's going to be around exactly three."
The man doesn't even question how she knows. He just nods.
Suppose it's useful having an abnormal teacher sometimes.
She calls Sinjin over, and they discuss the plan once more.
"Right. We have… thirty-five minutes if things don't change. We can't have him detonating the bomb early. If I'm not mistaken, we have a three-minute countdown after he pushes the button. "Sikowitz, when I signal, you're going to pull the fire alarm, but only if I signal. People are going stampede, but it's the best we can do.
"I don't think we can tackle him because jostling the explosive might set it off prematurely. So just surround him, or drag him to a place away from the people trying to get out. We'll have about two minutes at this point, so Sinjin, while we hold him, you're going to remove the bomb from his strap and try to find the right wire, or a kill switch, a fail-safe, if you will.
"If none of this works… just run. Get yourselves out of here before three-oh-three. The bomb is only designed to blow up a place this size, so the Asphalt Cafe is far enough. Got it?"
There are nods and murmurs, and then Sinjin chimes in with his strange voice, "Isn't pulling the fire alarm falsely illegal?"
"Yeah, well, that doesn't matter if everyone is literally going to be blown to bits if we don't do it!" Her voice rises to a screech, and the boy flinches back.
"Jade," Sikowitz chides, "Don't be such a gank."
She inhales deeply, "I promised someone I wouldn't die. I'm not breaking that promise."
And so she goes, scanning the multitude of people for the one kid with an explosive powerful enough to blow the entire auditorium to smithereens, along with the hundreds of people seated in it.
She's pacing around, her shoes hitting the ground with a small thump each time, her fingers twitching, palm burning where Tori's name had been written.
She doesn't look at it, doesn't think of her name. I don't need any distractions.
Jade glances at her watch, eyes twitching as she taps her foot, waiting out the excruciating minutes before she has to interfere.
At about ten to three, she watches Robbie slink from the audience to the sound booth, concealed by a wall and dim lighting.
She approaches him carefully, taking a wide turn so he can see her coming from under his hood.
She knows he's caught sight of her because he tenses, probably recognizing her as the mean girl, or some scary goth chick. Her gaze wanders the room, landing slowly on the curly-haired boy as if she had just caught him in her floating gaze, purely by coincidence.
He shrinks back.
"Hey," she nods at him as she enters the booth, squeezing past the student operating it. "Robbie, right?"
There's a flash of recognition in his eyes, accompanied by a little relief. Maybe a little validation? She knows the look on his face. It reads Someone knows my name.
"Yeah, uh, how do you know?"
She shrugs, shoving her hands in her jacket pocket, "We have Sikowitz together."
He nods slowly, "Right."
In his pocket, she notices his thumb twitch over the red button of the control, and panic leaps in her chest. No, not yet!
"So, uh," the awkward boy starts again, "what do you want?"
She has to take a deep breath, think of what Tori would say in this exact situation.
"Just wanted to let you know that you don't have to do this." She reaches out to tap the bulk on his chest, and he shrinks back.
"W-what do you mean?"
She snorts, "You have a bomb. An explosive set to blow up this building three minutes after you push that red button that's hidden in your pocket."
He backs away, "You don't know anything!"
"Ah," she leans back, her stance open and exposed, relaxed, "But I do know that you don't have to push that button. You don't have to destroy this auditorium and everything else in it. You don't have to die tonight."
"What if I want to?"
"Then what about all these people? The hundreds of people who are going to be victims of a suicide bombing. They're innocents. Most are here to watch their kids perform. Why would you take their life away from them?"
"Because- 'cause they never saw me!" He snarls, "They- they always made fun of me, laughed at me, brushed me off when I pleaded for them to stop. The adults, they don't care! The students, they don't either! I don't have any friends, anyone who even looks at me!"
"I'm looking at you. I see you."
He snorts disbelievingly, "You're Jade West. Why are you talking to me? What are you getting out of this? Is this just a dare from your oh-so-perfect boyfriend? From some kid who wants me dead?!"
She shakes her head, "You don't have to do this. I don't have to die tonight. You don't have to die."
"You could just run out the door right now. You'd live."
"But the rest of them wouldn't."
"And why do you care?" Robbie throws out his arms, "You've never cared. Why start now?"
"I know how much pain people feel when someone they love dies. You're only causing damage. Why be remembered as a boy who died in a bombing, or worse, the boy who killed everyone in a suicide bombing?"
"What do I have to lose?" He snorts, "My life? I've never had one!"
"Robbie," she glances at the lock screen on her phone desperately, "Do it for yourself. Who knows, one day you might impact the world. You might do something great."
He scoffs, "Since when did you care? You're the girl who threatens to hurt people with scissors. Why try to save me now? Or is this some stupid selfish plan of yours for some stupid reason?"
She shrugs, "If you can't do it for yourself, do it for your family. I don't know if they're here-"
"They're not."
"-but I do know that they will be hurt. You might not be, I dunno, blowing them up-"
"Wouldn't you love to see that," he comments dryly.
"-but you will cause damage. You know, you're never going to tell your parents you love them again. You're never going to be able to, I dunno, go to the place you've always wanted to go, accomplish what you've always wanted to accomplish. You're not going to be able to say goodbye to the people who made the, what, fourteen, fifteen years of your life decent.
"You're going to hurt people. There's always collateral damage. When a bomb explodes, it ripples outward. It's like throwing a pebble into a lake. There's one place of impact, but the ripples spread until the entire calm surface is in motion.
"Your family- The people who love you, they're never going to want to see another sunrise again because they're just going to be reminded that it's one more day without you. Without any of us that are going to die because of you. You're going to cause so many deaths, and not because of this killing machine that's attached to you. But because the ripples, the rest of the dominos that go collapsing, are going to reach way beyond you."
His eyes are cold, but there's a little hint of water, of melting ice, "And why should I care?"
"It's selfish! Stop being selfish, maybe? Think of the rest of us?"
"I've been selfless my whole life. It's always backfired. It always comes back and kicks me in the face. Why should I?"
"Goddammit, why do you have to take down the rest of us with you?"
"Because maybe you deserve it."
"Says who?"
"Says that voice in my head. You probably have one too. Your conscience? Yeah? Well, mine's the devil, who speaks in some dumb, annoying urban voice, egging me on, repeating the bad things that people scream at me silently. I'm never going to escape that."
She reaches out a hand, aware she has mere seconds. Robbie knows this too; he looks at his watch. "Let me help you."
He backs away, "No. No. You don't want to help. You just want to save yourself. You just want me to live, and live with this hurt, this voice in my head that will never come out. You want to watch me slowly go crazy!" His breath comes in fast pants, and his eyes are crazed, and the three digits on the face of Jade's PearPhone and Robbie's PearWatch switch over, seemingly tipping on the edge of 2:59.
"Either way, he's going to kill me. He made me do it!"
She frowns, "He? Who's he?"
3:00 pm. Robbie glances down.
His thumb smashes down on the button, "You have three minutes." It's a pained whisper.
She spins around, meeting Sikowitz's gaze, and waves her hand. The next thing that can be heard is the squawk of the fire alarm, a blaring noise that startles her and pierces her eardrums, even when she's expecting it.
Robbie's eyes widen, and he tries to run, but she tugs him back, resisting every muscle in her body that tells her to tackle him to the ground. He struggles against her grip, and she shoves him to the back of the sound and lighting booth, blocking his way out.
From the shouts that come from outside, it's clear that the people are panicking, stampeding towards the exits, but there are enough doors to keep people from trampling over each other as they attempt to surge through one.
Beck and Sinjin burst in, helping her hold Robbie in place. They rip off his shirt and the boy squeals as the pack is unstrapped from his body. It's laid carefully on the floor, and Sinjin gets to work with a couple of screwdrivers and pliers.
The long-haired boy has a thrashing Robbie in his grip, arms wrapped tightly around the latter's scrawny arms and torso, keeping him from fighting back.
Jade sits down on his feet.
It's 3:01.
Sinjin removes the metal panel picking through the multiple differently colored wires on the inside.
"Do you know which one to cut?" Jade calls.
"I spent the last, uh, fifteen minutes scrolling through Zaplook, so… probably."
"That's reassuring," she grumbles. "On any other day, I'd love to watch people be blown to smithereens, but now…"
Beck pats her, letting go of Robbie, who just slumps to the ground, eyes glazed over in resignation."It's fine. If this kid can hack into PearMaps and take down images, he can probably defuse a bomb."
"I dunno. Seems a lot more complicated to me."
"Uh, guys?"
"What?" the goth snaps.
"You have like, thirty seconds." Sinjin's head lifts up to glance up at Jade nervously.
"But it's still… three-oh-one."
"But I cut the wrong wire."
She curses, "Get out of here!"
"What about Robbie?"
"Carry him," she snaps at Beck, already ushering Sinjin out of the room.
The four of them sprint to the stage door, Robbie stumbling along as he's dragged by her ex-boyfriend.
They don't have time to place the bomb somewhere where it'll have less impact, so Jade grabs it cautiously and lightly drops it in a trapdoor leading to under the stage.
And then she runs after the three boys, praying, begging to whoever's listening that she'll make it out alive.
She's halfway to the Asphalt Cafe, barely out of the building, when she hears the deafening crack of an explosion, and although she's outside the blast zone, the impact still throws her to the ground.
She falls forwards, her arms outstretched to catch herself. Pain lances up her wrists when she strikes the ground, elbows crumpling, rolling over and over until she slows to a stop. She can tell her hair is a mess, and there's a scrape on her palms, arms, and cheek that throb slightly.
Her vision blurs before her eyes, but she's alive, and as the slight sting begins to escalate to a burn, she feels a slight grin coming to her face, because she's alive, and she kept her promise.
I did it! I'm alive. I did it for you, Tori. Your name is Tori!
Shouts and sirens reach her ears, and movement from the corner of her vision tells her people are running towards her, but she doesn't have the energy to move, and her muscles ache too much to even twitch. Her bones feel broken, and there's an agony that throbs deep in her right shoulder.
I'm alive. I made it out for you…
"Jade!" She hears in the distance.
…what's your name? Goddammit, what's your name? I can't remember, I can't remember, I can't remember? I wasn't supposed to forget!
And while her palms burn, scraped, and probably bleeding, she remembers that the girl, Fuck! I can't remember her name, had written her name on her palm, so she uncurls her fingers, blinking quickly to clear the tears that had pooled at the pain.
It's a mess of black with water flooding her vision, and she blinks, over and over and over again the words becoming clearer and clearer.
And then her heart drops.
Because there are three little words scrawled on her palm, and none of them even resemble the other girl's name.
The smile falls from her face, and her hand closes into a light fist again, her vision blurring once more as her eyes prick.
She checks her writing once more to make sure she's not mistaken.
It's the telltale "I."
The single pronoun, the noun, the word, the single letter left out of their text conversations because of the weight it carries. Much like how I'm sorry comes off as hundreds of times more sincere than a simple sorry does, like how when it's a coherent sentence, complete with the subject and the predicate, the gravity increases exponentially.
She stares at the tiny words that seem to be worlds in her palm, weighing it down towards the ground. Tears stream from her eyes freely, flowing down her cheeks as she begins to shake from the sobs that rip through her, tearing through any resolve she has left and leaving her chest convulsing as she sobs.
"This- this doesn't help me remember your name at all, you stupid, stupid, girl."
I love you.
Jade opens her eyes in what seems to be the back of an ambulance.
She struggles to sit up. "Where am I?" she rasps.
"Shhhh." A gentle hand pushes her so she's laying down, back pressed against the hard bed. "You're in an ambulance."
"Why?"
"There was an explosion. You were the last one out. You're a little hurt, but mostly unharmed."
"Oh." It all comes rushing back to her, and she tucks her chin to glance at her tingling palm.
I love you, it says, and she eyes the handwriting. It's familiar, but she's unable to place it. She feels like something is missing. Like something has escaped her mind and left a hole in her heart.
"It's a miracle. No one was left inside. No one got hurt."
Pride swells in her chest for a bit, temporarily filling the hole in her chest for a little. I did that. But why? For who?
She just hums a response, her body fatigued, but her mind even more exhausted, so she just lets herself drift back into oblivion.
The next time she wakes up, she's laying in a hospital bed, and there's something so familiar about it that makes her chest ache.
She's not sure what it is that seems so recognizable; she's never been in a hospital, except for the time she had visited her brother moments after he was born.
"You're awake."
She turns her head. It's her mom. She looks at her body, noting how her right arm has a cast on the forearm, accompanied by a sling that sits over her shoulder.
She's not sure she can muster a word, so she turns questioningly to her mother.
"You dislocated your shoulder and sprained your wrist," is the response. Despite the lack of emotion other than a little concern, typical mother, she looks exhausted, the bags under her eyes a clear sign of that.
She just watches the television screen soundlessly, her body feeling drained, her heart unusually empty.
Maybe it's because I don't have a boyfriend anymore.
She shakes her head. She doesn't even remember why they broke up, just that it feels final, unlike the couple of times they've taken a break in the past.
When Beck comes to visit her, she just smiles wearily and gives him a nod of acknowledgment. He's not able to tell her anything she doesn't already know, and it does nothing to fill the gap that has opened up inside of her.
She checks her PearPhone, which now has a cracked screen. It's far from shattered, so it is still usable, but she runs the pad of her thumb over the jagged crack, telling herself she was the one who took the pain for everyone else.
She unlocks it with her password as of late, 8-6-7-4. She's not completely why she had changed it from her name, 5-2-3-3, but the random combination of numbers brings her a little solace. It soothes the empty feeling in her heart just for a little second.
Maybe it spells out something that I forgot?
She's too exhausted to find a piece of paper and a pen to solve the mystery, knowing that there's really only 81 possible letter combinations. For some reason, she can not bring herself to figure it out.
So she doesn't.
A part of her knows she probably should've died from the explosion. A lot of people should've, but they didn't.
The rest of her just wonders how they are so lucky. She's the only one with any injuries, other than a couple fractured bones and sprained ankles while rapidly fleeing the scene of the explosion.
Jade is released from Peters Sinai later that day, stumbling out into the daylight on weak legs. The moment the car is turned on, the radio plays, already detailing the bombing that had just taken place mere hours ago.
"...a miracle. No one was inside when the bomb exploded; the fire alarm had been pulled… an absolute miracle… could've killed hundreds… no fatalities, although just a few people were injured…"
She tunes it out, her head falling against the window like it's made of stone. The familiar world zooms by before her eyes, and she catches sight of the burning building, fires ravaging through what hadn't been blown to shreds. It's already roped off with yellow caution tape, first responders wandering the remains of the Hollywood Arts Center of Performing Arts.
She wrenches her gaze away, her eyes falling back on her open left palm.
Did Beck write that? No, it's not his handwriting.
She stares at the three words, the I love you, as if she stares at it long enough, she'll find out why it's there.
Her gaze remains fixed on the rest of the way home, and she gets nothing from the smeared, already fading ink on her palm.
When she climbs out of the car, she closes her fingers around those three precious words she has not heard in a long time as if doing so could protect them, preserve the ink that's bound to wash away soon enough.
Who would say that to me? Why is it there?
She hops in the shower when she gets home, removing her sling and slipping a plastic bag around her cast as instructed.
She watches the remaining blood and grime swirl down the drain, dropping off her body.
When she finishes, she doesn't feel any cleaner than when she started, but her body feels a little lighter. It's not necessarily good; it feels like something's missing. Something big, something that dropped off and swirled down the drain with the dirty water and soap.
Naked as the day she was born, she looks into the mirror, eyes highlighting her body, the curves and the edges, the scars and birthmarks. Her eyes look the same, maybe a little duller and sadder, but they're still the ocean blue-green they've always been. It's a little comfort, but for a moment, standing there, she wonders if she'd look better with chocolate brown eyes.
She thinks so.
Most people often long for blue or green eyes, orbs that are anything but the standard brown that results from a dominant allele in the gene that determines eye color. Not her. A part of her wants brown eyes in this instant, gazing at her own reflection in the mirror.
She feels like she's staring at the wrong person.
The necklace that hangs from her neck gives her no answers.
The metal charm burns over her sternum, over her constantly beating heart.
It feels empty, even knowing she just helped save hundreds of people.
She lifts a tired hand, the one not in the cast, and picks up the metal charm, examining it closely. There are no words, no marks, no symbols that help her identify what it is or why she has it. It's simply a metal circle, hanging on the string loosely.
She lets it drop and it hits her sternum and puts on her clothes with one hand. It's much harder than it looks and seems, and she can't seem to get the shirt around her sling, but when she finally does, her shoulder is throbbing.
At least she got her clothes on.
She really doesn't know what do do next, as if she even has the energy, so she lays on her side uncomfortably, the sling in an awkward position, she begins to probe her mind for something.
It's as if someone has taken away half her memories for the past months, and out of those days, she can only remember a couple.
The thought that squeezing her eyes shut so she's engulfed in darkness might help her think crosses her mind, and so she does just that, holding her unharmed hand over her eyes.
All she sees is a distinct brown color, but she can't exactly pinpoint what it is. Letting out an audible groan, she clenches her teeth together and thinks.
She's missing something. That's all her mind is willing to tell her. There are no details about her because all she can pick up is a girl.
She scrolls through her PearPhone once more, checking her messages and emails, and even in her PearNotes app, but there's nothing that tells her what exactly she's forgetting.
It feels important.
It takes her about ten minutes to click through every single app downloaded on her phone, including, everything from Settings to Outstagram. There's nothing. Nothing that will tell her what's missing, what she's forgetting.
What's wrong with me?
There's a faint memory of her friends saying she has amnesia, but it doesn't particularly stand out, and she lets it slip through her fingers because this amount of concentration is just draining her.
Jade does everything in her power to refrain from throwing her PearPhone against the wall as hard as she can. She wonders if it would dent.
She flops on her bed, checking all her conversations in PearMessages one last time, just to make sure she's not missing something. She even asks Beck if anything interesting had taken place.
His answer quiets her mind a little, but there is still an uneasy emptiness in her, like a dark pit inside of her that is yet to be filled.
It's winter break the next week, and so she meets her friends at the nearby mall, feeling a little uneasy, but brushes it off as her near-death experience just the Friday before. She frowns when the bomber, Robbie, walks up to them, a hand in his pocket, Cat trailing behind him with a hesitant smile; they had not ratted him out to the authorities who inquired about the bomber.
He has… a puppet attached to his hand?
"Cat, what is the meaning of this?" She sighs exasperatedly when within earshot of the group. She doesn't have the energy to complain because she feels like a black hole is eating her from the inside, stealing memories of happiness from the past few months.
She's not sure the source of the happiness, and she huffs something intelligible about how she utterly loathes being happy.
"Oh, this is Robbie! Remember him? We got him a little puppet to sort out the voice in his head. He says it really helps!"
"His name's Rex," the aforementioned student chimes in, already looking a lot less hopeless than he did just several days ago.
"So… what?"
He shrugs, "It's kinda nice to have this little guy speaking my thoughts. It's not as loud, and doesn't give me a headache."
She pauses for a second, "And that thing is just a puppet."
"Hey! That's an offensive term!"
"What?" she snorts, "Thing?"
"Puppet!" he cries, "He doesn't like to be called a puppet!"
"Naw, it's fine, Rob. Chill," Rex says, and she can barely suppress an eye roll at the urban voice. The fact that he can speak with his mouth relatively unmoving somewhat impresses her, although she doesn't show it except for a raised pair of eyebrows.
"That's the voice in your head?"
"Uh-huh."
She just looks at him incredulously before turning away. It'll have to take some getting used to, but she's too tired to object.
"What?"
She shrugs.
"Why do you have to be so mean?"
"Yeah!" Cat pipes in. The redhead hadn't said a word in the last few minutes and Jade had almost forgotten she was there, which… never happened with her.
With a flourish, she grabs the scissors from her waistband, swinging it around her index finger once so it's pointing the right direction, and points it at her abruptly She flinches back with a squeal, and the thespian lowers it slightly, "Okay. That… whole spiel on Friday… you're probably never going to see that again."
"Aw."
Beck just pats him on the back, "Aw is right. Anyway…"
Jade doesn't hear the rest because she's already zoning out, fingers playing with her waistband absently. She's too busy trying to remember why she's feeling this way, just so darn empty. Fiddling with her fingers, an anxious habit doesn't help, so she drops her hands by her sides and clenches them into tight fists, feeling her nails dig into her skin quite painfully. It'll have to do.
It startles Robbie, who receives another pat on the back from her ex-boyfriend, "You'll get used to that."
She just snorts and glares at them both before stepping away. She hears the ventriloquist say once he thinks she's out of earshot, "Is she always that scary?"
She whirls around, scissors practically materializing in her fingers with how fast she pulls them from her waistband, aiming the blades at him, "I could be worse."
He just squeaks, and she saunters away, satisfied for a bit. There's a weird something nibbling at her, however, and she shrugs it off, but it comes back stronger, nagging at her stomach.
Guilt? Eh, that boy's been through some shit. Maybe I should be nice- whoa, where did that come from?
She blinks rapidly, her feet having stopped for a second, trying to clear the weird thoughts that randomly ambush her out of nowhere.
When did I care about other people? Ugh, I'm getting soft.
The rest of the day passes, and she walks through the mall dejectedly, head propped up on her hands, trying to fight the churning tornado that's brewing in her stomach. Even buying the largest cinnamon cold-brew (she's not sure why she needs the cinnamon and if she's ever ordered it, but it's, strangely enough, an instinct.) from her favorite coffee shop at the mall doesn't help.
Tori wakes up with a gasp out of nowhere, and she sits up, glancing around wildly as her heart takes its time to slow from the rapid pounding she had woken up with.
She's not sure what she's expecting, but her room is normal. It's been like that for a year now when she decided to redecorate her room more purple in the eighth grade.
It's winter break, is the sole thought that flashes through her mind and she leans backward slowly, before stretching her arms above her head, cracking her back unceremoniously yet satisfyingly.
She glances at the clock— it's almost eleven, which is much later than usual, even on break, and she's gotten eleven hours of sleep, but somehow, she's still so tired.
Her eyelids droop, and her hand immediately reaches for the nightstand, feeling around until she finds the cold blades of a pair of scissors. Just something she probably accidentally left out the day before, and now, she had to put it back.
She's not sure why it makes her feel so much better, but it's enough to get her out of bed and into the bathroom to do her morning routine. She's still tired, however, and she does things quickly, hopping downstairs for a cup of orange juice and a donut.
Her parents aren't home, and it's not like they're ever home, so she plops down onto her bright red couch heavily and switches on the television, munching on her breakfast.
It hits her like lightning when the words "switching bodies" comes on, and she bolts upright, eyes wide, back straight, staring at the screen until she realizes it's just a sci-fi show.
Tori probes her mind for anything related to those two words, and the only thing that comes up is something about being claustrophobic… and a bucket over her head as if that does anything to help.
By noon, after she's eaten her lunch, a small meal consisting of a ham and cheese sandwich and a microwave mini pizza, she sets out for coffee, because hopefully, it'll fix her exhaustion.
Tori finds herself in the middle of a Jet Brew, miles from her home because her half-asleep brain takes the wrong bus, and she's in Hollywood, not Sherwood.
Oh well, I might meet a celebrity. She giggles maniacally at the thought, causing a few people around her to glace towards her with a strange look.
"Cat?" The barista calls out, reading the cup of what appears to be hot chocolate, and sets it down.
She frowns at the name, even more, when a bouncing girl comes forward to claim her drink.
"Cat," she murmurs, testing out the name in her mouth, "Catrina? Catarina?"
She remembers nothing in particular, but it leaves an uneasy feeling stirring inside of her.