"Ugh, what is this?"
Larxene wrinkled her nose at the so called 'food' infront of her. Demyx poked it with a stick.
"It can't be..." Adele's eye twitched as the light brown stuff bubbled, "That bad..."
"Hush, he's coming back... Hello Vexen."
"Are you enjoying your meal?"
Everyone smiled and nodded, murmuring some sort of praise. Axel might have mentioned that it looked like some less successful of the experiments performed by the scientist.
That's when it happened.
Saix, who had been tapping the prongs of his fork, let the utensil slip from his grasp. It clattered to the floor.
"Oops, I seem to have dropped my fork. How very clumsy of me." He gave Adele a meaningful look, but she didn't notice. So he picked up her fork and threw it across the room. "Oh look, you dropped your fork too!"
"What!?" she hissed, on her knees under the table.
He pushed a book into her arms without a word and seized the fork, returning to the table.
A black leather book, with a blank front. Inside, it was anything but empty. Dark red ink, possibly taken to be blood, in spaced gothic handwriting.
Any further examining was interrupted by Roxas asking where she was. She popped back up in her seat and excused herself from the table.
"Now, to get to the bottom of this mystery..." Slowly, the teen opened the cover to the journal.
A slight wind blew her hair back, bringing the smell of spring. The sun shone brightly, but under the tree, Adele was protected from its rays. Her eyes focused on the cursive writing on the page before her.
'If Jess wants me to write in this book, I will. It won't do anything for me, though, but she wouldn't listen. She's a psychiatrist if ever there was one, that's for sure...
What am I supposed to say to a book? It's not like it's asking me anything. Just sitting there, being.
Right, I'm supposed to talk about myself. I'm 15. I go to high school. I'm failing highschool. I'm an outcast, even to the outcast group. And my best friend says I need to express my feelings in a healthy way. This is not expressive at all.
Let me talk about her. Jess was the only one in this entire school who doesn't treat me like dirt. She actually met me in elementary school, the year before my parents died. I never questioned her motives, but when I was in seventh grade I wondered why she would hang out with a loser like me. She said it's just a fact of life that the two of us met, and that I interest her. Most people might take offense to that, but not me.
I found myself trying to know her more and more over time. Probably it was because she seemed to stay the same, even as everything else changed, and I needed something familiar. The problem is, by getting closer to her, I'm forced to let her know more about me. She's always been smart, but I never really knew how smart until she showed up at my foster home crying.'
"Adele?"
Shocked out of the world this book brought to her, Adele jumped up. Vexen.
"Sorry. Are you okay?"
"Yes, of course." Holding the book tightly behind her back. "Just getting some fresh air."
"Ah." He nodded, then started to pass her. "Oh, and, I wouldn't read that."
For a few moments, she stood there, thinking.
Silence. It was deafening. The clock on the nightstand had the nerve to be quiet.
Adele found herself unable to sleep. That book kept looking at her. She was sure of it. After covering it with a blanket and putting it in the drawer, she found that it was still on her mind.
"He was just trying to... To trick me..." She trailed off, jerking open the drawer and lifting up the book to sit on her lap.
'...foster home crying. She told me her dad had been reassigned, which is a fancy way for saying 'I'm moving'. It took me awhile to grasp it, but when I did... It hurt, deep inside, like something I'd never felt before.
Even as I'm writing this, the pain is there. I guess some wounds never heal.
We met at the park the day before she had to leave, or that was the way it was supposed to be. Of all the things I expected that day, none of them really came as expected.
I expected it to be quick, and a blur in my memory later. Quick and emotionless, painless. I knew something was off when I laced up my combat boots and felt like I didn't want to go outside at all. When I did get up the nerve, every step I took felt like it was leading me closer to my death.
She wasn't there yet, was my first thought. As it grew later and later, and darker and more deserted, I began to worry. What if she wasn't coming at all? What if something happened? What if...
But then I saw something on a bench and went to pick it up. I had to squint to read the note on some strange book...
'Dear Jaeda,
For years, I've known the reason why I decided you were going to be my best friend. I never told you because I wasn't sure how you'd take it.
You know you're like a sister to me. You know all about my plans for going to college and becoming a psychologist. But when I met you, I never even considered that.
You needed me, to fix everything, your spirit, your confidence, everything, and you didn't know it. It seemed like my life's mission to make sure I could help you.
You're broken, Jae. From the inside out. Ever since the accident, you haven't been able to continue life normally.
I want you to have this book. Write in it. Express your inner feelings.
And when you get to the end, our paths will become intertwined.
Love, Jess'
And that's how she left. So you can see why this book might sit for a year in the back of my closet. To let her go, just like that- I didn't even know what country she was in, let alone how to contact her.
Eventually, I found it and decided to write in it, for the fact that it shouldn't just waste away.
But now I have to go to school. Bye.'
Carefully, Adele shut the book and set it on her nightstand, then turned out the light.