Gale walks back into her shared dorm room after having taken a quick shower her muscles still pleasantly burning from the sparring session with Jay. She notices that Mal and Evie are watching her but she doesn't care. She wants to rest for a bit and walks over to her bag on the floor by the window.
"Why do you do that?" Evie asks. It's clear that she and Mal had discussed this prior by how Mal seems unfazed by the question.
"Why do I do what?" Gale asks back sitting on the floor by her bag, forgoing laying down until the conversation is over.
"Why do you sleep on the floor? There is a bed for you, ya know." Mal responds.
"It's none of your business." Gale says with an edge to her voice.
"But it is though. We've been sharing a room for a week now, and Ben's coronation is three weeks away so we're going to be sharing a room for a while more." Evie says and Gale realizes she might have a point, not that she would admit it.
"It doesn't matter." Gale says.
"Have you ever slept in a bed?" Evie asks, causing Gale to turn her head to look at her directly.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Gale asks outwardly calm but on the inside panic begins to rise. No one is supposed to know what happens at home.
"We just want to understand." Evie says and her tone is earnest enough that it almost makes Gale want to tell her everything. Almost.
"There's nothing to understand." Gale says and with that she gets up and leaves the room and storms down the hall. I should have put shoes on, but I just had to get out of there. I can't tell them what they want to know. She's so lost in thought that she accidentally walks right into Melinda.
"You okay there?" Melinda asks. She isn't even wearing shoes. Lucky for her the janitor does a pretty good job.
"Yeah I'm fine. Sorry I ran into you." Gale says. Why do they even want to know anything about me? When did they start caring?
"It's alright. A lot on your mind?" Melinda says leading the other girl inside her dorm room, and for a moment Gale is surprised by the sheer amount of color in the small space.
"You could say that. Today has been quite the day." Class sucked, I found Jay crying, and now the girls want to know my life story. Today has been off from the start.
"Wanna talk about it? I'm not trying to pry but if there is any part of it you wanna talk about I'm willing to listen." Melinda says sitting on her sky blue bed and gestures for Gale to follow which she obliges."
"Well…" Gale says after a moment, "Honestly… My roommates are asking questions I don't want to answer."
"Why don't you want to answer them? Is it cause you don't trust them or is it something else?" Melinda asks looking at her curiously.
"Well it's not like my life is really any of their business. It's not their place to question things that have nothing to do with them."
"Is that the only reason you don't want to talk to them?"
"Yeah." Gale answers too quickly.
"You don't have to tell me but please don't lie to me. I know you better than that by now." While saying this Melinda gives her friend a look that practically screams 'quit your bullshit.'
"Okay fine. Maybe it's not the only reason." Gale says with a sigh.
"Does it have something to do with the Isle? No one there can get to you while you're here. You're safe here." Melinda says in a softer tone.
"The safer you think you are, the more danger you put yourself in." Gale says looking away. I learned that lesson early on.
"Maybe that's how it is on the Isle, but it's different here."
"How are you so sure?"
"Cause here we protect each other. Like how you try to protect your friends you came here with."
"You think they are my friends?" Gale looks back at Melinda with a hopeful look dancing in her eyes.
"Sure. Do you not think so?"
"It's not that. I just don't think they feel that way." Why would they?
*With the boys*
Carlos trudges back into his room feeling guilty as ever that he couldn't find Jay, only to see the boy in question kicking his shoes off. He closes the door loudly to get the other teens attention causing him to jump a little.
"Where were you?" Carlos asks Jay.
"Out on the tourney field." Jay responds simply. He was looking for me?
"Of course you were in the last place I checked." He chuckles to himself before he continues, "Look I'm sorry about earlier."
"Don't be. I was just being too sensitive. Sorry I ran off." Jay looks at Carlos
"No. You made it clear you didn't want me to push and I did anyways. You were in your rights to get upset." Carlos says, noticing the thin layer of sweat on Jay. "What were you doing at the tourney field that got you that sweaty?"
"Gale showed up and we sparred." Jay says picking out clean clothes to wear.
"Why did you two spar?" He said spar so they're probably still friends.
"Well she saw I was upset and I guess she wanted to help but didn't know how." I'm actually surprised that she even cared.
"Did it work?"
"Yeah. Yeah it did." Jay says looking away so Carlos can't see the small smile gracing his lips.
*The next day*
By the time tourney practice is over all Gale wants is to go to sleep. Even so she follows Jay to the empty class room they usually use for their tutoring sessions, and she has to hold back her irritation at seeing the classroom occupied by three far too familiar faces. She quickly notes that Jay is unperturbed by this, tipping her off that he was involved in setting this up.
"Okay someone's going to tell me what's going on here or I'm leaving."
"We need to talk." Evie says. Not the greatest start. Maybe we can turn this around?
"And you felt the need to ambush me is what exactly?" Gale says, forcing her tone to remain angry even if it's not entirely accurate. They want to talk so they ambush me? So much for friends.
"Cause you're really flighty." Jay says. This isn't going how we planned.
"I can be a bit more fighty if you want." Gale responds falling back into old routines.
"That's not the point of this." Carlos responds, attempting to calm things down before a full blown fight starts.
"Then what is?" Gale asks, frustration still clear in her tone.
"We want to know what's going on with you. You've been having nightmares a lot lately. We're worried about you." Evie says, in a tone far more sympathetic than Gale expected.
"Then I'll endeavor to burden you less." Gale says with enough sass to hide her inner terror. If they know about the nightmares what else could they know? This is bad.
"You know that's not what she meant." Jay says, starting to get annoyed. Can't she see we are trying to help?
"It seems you know more about me than I do. Please tell me more about what I know." Gale bites back. I need a way out of this. Maybe picking a fight will solve it?
"Gale, we only want to help." Evie says, somehow able to maintain her patience.
"Great plan. Corner the volatile one and force her to open up. No way that could go wrong. Nope not a chance. While I'd hate to disappoint you master strategists I have enough of a headache already without you four adding to it so I'm gonna leave." She turns around and walks to the door.
"Please don't go." Jay says in a tone that gives Gale pause.
"And I'd want to stay because…?" She asks with her hand on the doorknob.
"Because as far as I can tell you've been there when we needed you so we want to be there for you." Mal says, stepping toward Gale.
"What are you babbling about now?" Gale says exasperatedly.
"You've been protecting us. Back home anytime someone messed with us within a week they would end up injured and would avoid us and you like their lives depended on it. I didn't realize it until Jay and Carlos caught you trying to intimidate Chad into not hurting Evie. You let him off easy but that's cause you had to, not cause you wanted to." Mal explains.
"Okay so maybe I play favorites so what. It doesn't mean anything." Gale says boredly.
"It doesn't?" Mal asks.
"No. It doesn't." Gale affirms. Just drop it.
"Why not?" Evie asks.
"Why help in the first place if it means nothing?" Mal challenges.
"It just doesn't alright?! I'm here on a mission. We all are lest you've forgotten. I need to focus. I can't fail." She starts out yelling but by her final sentence her voice is barely over a whisper. With that she pulls the door open and walks away seemingly deflated.