* loose ends, [karina]

[NELL DOE DALE]

Nell woke up that morning shaking. She didn’t know why, she couldn’t remember what she dreamt of, but from her head to her toes she was shivering. Her eyes darted around, trying to look for whatever had given her this sense of absolute dread. What is wrong with me? She was sweating and her face damp from tears, and she didn’t understand why. Shakily pushing the sheets off of her, she looked to see that Josh wasn’t around. She stayed in her futon for a few minutes, legs drawn up to her chest as she ducked her head and ran her fingers through her hair. Only afte recovering from this episode was she able to think hard enough to determine what had happened—a night terror. I thought those only happened to children. They had afflicted Tilly, and she assumed that it was mainly something that stayed in childhood. Hopefully, that meant there wouldn’t be a big change of it happening again.

In the kitchen, she looked at her meds, brown eyes reading the words she couldn’t understand. Josh would probably know, but she didn’t want to ask. With extreme willpower, she unscrewed the childproof cap and swallowed it down with water. Looking at the time over the stove, she saw that it was eleven in the morning. Usually, she got up pretty early. Not as early as her boyfriend, but still not at eleven o’ clock. She felt Pablo’s warm body rub up against her calf and felt very bad. He needed to eat in the morning, not close to noon. With guilt, she filled his bowl and the cat didn’t seem at all bothered by the late breakfast. ”I guess you’ll have to get used to brunch,” she said, her voice mournful and throat constricted as if she were about to cry. And it felt like she was, as the tears pushed against her lid. Was it ridiculous to feel so ashamed over a cat? It wasn’t only that, though. It was a lot of things.

However, it was not being able to face her pet that drove her out of her apartment. She got in her car without knowing where she would go. Instead, she just drove around, lost in her thoughts. It never used to happen like this. She never used to think. And yet hear she was, heart beating hard in her chest, as she went over all her faults and her mistakes and encouraged her self-loathing. Nell ended up at the theater, and she leaned back in her seat, blinking at the roof of her PT Cruiser. I have to stop this. But she didn’t know how. All she had was this counsellor and medication and she felt like a patient. She hated it. Right now, she didn't think she should be alone with herself. Pulling out her phone, she texted her friend. To Karina, the girl wrote, ”You wanna catch a movie?” After hitting send, she entered the building and went to the arcade to wait for her friend. If she showed, they can decide what to see together. And Nell wanted to catch up with the girl anyway. It’s been a little while since they’d seen each other, since Nell had the trial to go to.

[skyemarie]

[/i] she typed quickly before getting out of bed and running to the shower.

After hopping out of the shower and drying her hair, Karina prepared her outfit for the day. Even though she was only going to a movie with a friend, she still felt the need to look her best always, you never knew who also was going to be there. She then fixed her hair, grabbed some money and headed out the door to the movie theatre.

The walk from where she was staying to the theatre was only 10 mins, so she was there perfectly on time. After searching around for a little bit, she spotted Nell on the far sad of where she was standing. Smiling, she made her way over to her friend. "So, what movie are we seeing?"[/color] she asked in a cheerful voice. [/ul][/justify][/size]

[NELL DOE DALE]

Nell smiled softly when Karina texted her back, even though she did feel bad for waking her friend up, even though she seemed to be in a good humor. She was glad she could just hang out with her friends. That would help, right, it would make her feel better? Nothing else was working, not even the pills, it felt like. However, she still kept up her optimistic attitude as always. She gave all the motions of being the cheerful girl she used to be, mere weeks ago before the trial had happened, and the mask was perfect. If only she could buy into it, too. Usually if she had to wait, she’d have grabbed something to eat, but she merely got an over-priced soda and sipped at it. She wasn’t drastically losing weight or anything, but she definitely was not eating healthy, especially by her standards.

She tried not to get too lost in her thoughts as she looked around at the other people, kids playing the games in the arcade. The girl was patient, and didn’t mind waiting so long for her friend to arrive, she had to be careful not to let herself get lost. Sometimes, that meant small episodes of tears, something she definitely wasn’t used to. Oh, she’d cried before, but the space between would be months or even years. She was always happy. Except now. Now, she felt sick and she still didn’t understand why. Okay, she did understand why, it had a label, but she just couldn’t put a finger on what exactly was bothering her. It was a conglomerate of things, just piled ontop of one another. When she really thougt about it, though, she could determine every little thing that was bothering her and it would overwhelm her until she fell asleep to get away from it all. Time heals all wounds, she reminded herself, but how long would it take?

Karina finally saved her from this reverie, and Nell greeted her with a hug, saying, ”Hey, Kar. Glad to see you decided to cut off your beauty sleep for me.” She was joking, of course, and hoped that her friend hadn’t had a late night or anything. The girl questioned about the movie choice, and Nell shrugged acquiescently. ”I don’t know. I’m cool with whatever, there’s nothing I’m really dying to see, ya know?” She was glad that she pulled on a façade so perfectly. She was truly happy to see the Water elemental again, but she was also dealing with her mind that wouldn’t let her be content lately. ”While we’re deciding…” she said slowly as she gazed up at the marque over the entrance to the theatres were the usher stood. ”How’ve you been? It’s been weeks, right? We’ve got some catching up to do.” Nell had vanished for one week in December because of the trial. She’d told all her friends that she was going on vacation. She wondered for a moment what Josh had told his own friends, and seriously doubted that he’d told them that he was going to New York for his girlfriend’s trial.