Friday afternoon. English class, taught by Emma, and it wasn't nearly as fun as English class back home! Call me what you will, but being in a class geared specifically towards right-brained learners was interesting at the very least, and indescribable at best. We watched a lot of movies and drew a lot of posters -- we didn't just read novels and study adjectevial clauses -- we actually learned. Such was not the case, here. I flipped open my notebook and started doodling in the margin. There wasn't really a point to answering any questions, even though I knew the answers. Or thought I knew the answers ... Alison and Paige sat attentively in the front of the room, the latter with her hand perpetually raised, every answer in mind. She almost reminded me of myself in Spanish class back home. But here she responded with answers completely different from those I had in mind -- and the problem was, she was right and I wasn't.

It had gotten to the point now where I didn't even want to take notes, so I began actually drawing in my notebook rather than simply doodling in the margin. I was turning out a pretty decent picture of ... well, I wasn't exactly sure who it was. I'd intended to draw this character Miriam from a story I wrote long ago. I'd always envisioned Miriam in a lab coat with straight chin-length blonde hair, sort of like a blonde Scully but not quite.... After I finished going over the pic with a pen, I drew vines in the margin. Then I drew vines on my hand and around my wrist like henna designs. I was really quite bored, but one could always be amused if one had a pen!

"Jennifer!"

I snapped back to attention, jumping at the sound of my full name. Quick, startled glances ... "Huh?"

"Jennifer, you must pay attention," Emma insisted, staring me down.

I sank lower in my seat, trying to hide from the world. Wasn't I supposed to be the smart one? A lecture from Emma was the last thing I needed right now. Her mental probe lashed out towards me; instinctively I set barriers without realizing exactly what it was I was doing. So much of my defenses relied on instinct; I knew I needed training. What was this, public humiliation day? I imagined it likely was.

"Now," Emma smiled smugly, "where would you be if you hadn't been paying attention?"

I kept up my barriers but gave Emma a Look, my eyes unwavering. If she wanted me to fight I could certainly try. She echoed my glare, only stronger -- she'd had so much more practice at this. I wasn't about to let her get the better of me; I vowed to pay her back for embarrassing me like that. Nothing too harsh, mind you ... nothing too harsh.

"Let this be a lesson to you all," Emma remarked, then sat at the desk in the front of the room.

Everyone just sorta stared at everyone else. Alison turned briefly around and shared a knowing, sympathetic look with me. I wondered what was wrong with her; Emma could easily catch that, and if she did, Alison might soon be dead. I shrugged back, smiling weakly.

"Class dismissed."

Feeling thankful for the order, I gathered my notebook, textbook, and folders and jogged to catch up with Alison, who was chatting about something or another with Paige.

(*Jennifer, come here,*) Emma instructed. I grudgingly acquiesced, and as I stood beside the desk where she sat, purposely let my eyes glaze over, intentionally spacing out. Purposely ignoring her, purposely not paying attention.

And, being Emma, as she was, she knew it, too.

"I am worried," she admitted.

I doubted that.

"Not for my sake," she continued, "but for your own, and for the sake of your classmates."

Oh. Well, why should I have any impact on them that she'd worry about? I hadn't done anything wrong.

"You must be focused," Emma went on. "This sort of behavior will not be tolerated." She stopped, walked around the desk to look me in the face. "You're a very bright girl," she began. Oh, Light, not this crap again. I was so used to this speech. "And you have so much to offer. I would love to see you reach your full potential, both in academics as well as with your gift." Yadda yadda yadda. "Now, give me your notebook."

I held it tight. My eyes and emotions dared her to make me.

(*Give me your notebook,*) she ordered.

I suddenly felt very small and helpless and was for some odd reason compelled to give her my notebook. Funny -- I didn't usually like to part with the thing.

She flipped through it -- mostly class notes and journal entries, some songs and poetry -- but stopped when she came upon today's work. The margin doodles were apparently of little importance to her, but she laid my picture flat on the desk. I only now realized the startling similarities between Miriam in her labcoat and Emma in her bright white business jacket.

"I will be confiscating this until further notice," she informed me, an smooth hand indicating not just the pic, but the notebook as a whole. Her words and intent burned; how dare she even think of taking what was rightfully mine? I was certain she knew how I felt, she was Emma, and Emma knew these things, telepath or not. I locked dark eyes on her a moment more, echoed a sentiment of ~fine!~ and left the room before she had so much as a chance to respond.

Standing in the hallway, far enough away from Emma as I could get without being actually inside the wall, I conducted an empathic search for Alison. She was upstairs. I went where the "feeling" told me -- she was in the isolated room she'd claimed as her own.

Still angered, I opened the door without knocking and exclaimed, "She took my notebook!"

Two pairs of confused eyes turned to me from their owners' positions on the floor at the foot of the bed. Alison and Paige both had open textbooks on their laps, and were writing something or another on their own respective papers. They were doing homework already?!

I hadn't, however, expected Paige to be around. I should have known she was there, though, despite my expectations. If I could find people, I should be able to detect other presences.... Her being there threw me off guard, though, and my words evaporated; I froze. At least it wasn't Jono. Who knew what might become of me then?

"Who took your notebook?" Alison asked, finally breaking the tension.

"Um, Em, Emma," I answered absently, my eyes still fixed on her guest.

~??~

"I don't know," I responded, then almost felt my voice tangibly cooling several degrees. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Not really," Alison answered at the same time Paige said, "Yes," rather emphatically.

I sent an empathic plea for ~help~ hoping it worked ...

"I'm gonna talk to Jen now," Alison announced. ~Thankyouthankyou~ "Don't try to get too far ahead."

Paige turned back to her work, turning a cold shoulder to me. Alison followed me out into the hallway and waited to let me talk.

"Why are you doing homework?" I asked the floor.

" 'Cause it's after school and that's what people do after school ... " She didn't understand how my question related -- and with good reason: it didn't. Well, not really.

"Why her?" I pleaded.

"She offered?" Alison suggested. "I dunno. She wanted to find out about Bobo."

"Bobo is a monkey," I pouted, still speaking to the floor.

The floor didn't respond, though. Alison did. "No, it's actually ... nevermind. I'll tell you later," she finished as she realized I didn't care. Or wouldn't understand.

"I want to go home," I told her. "I hate it here. I hate Emma, I hate class, I hate those stupid training sessions. Paige doesn't like me, but that's okay I guess 'cause I'm not too fond of her, either. Jubilee's annoying and I don't like her coat; Monet's a stuck up little bi -- er, priss; I don't know the guys all that well but Everett's aura is annoying and we're all gonna get cancer from the secondhand smoke of Angelo's cigarettes. And Cassidy's just a ... just a dork!" I whimpered pitifully.

"He is not a dork!" Alison defended quickly. Then she counted the names I'd listed on her fingers. "What about Jono or Penny?" she asked.

"I -- well, I only met Penance that once, when I first got here and haven't seen her since." Thankfully! I gave another pitiful whimper, evading the real question. Had it been that obvious?

"Well," she pointed out, "there's nothing wrong with Jono."

Oh, had she any idea all the things that were both wrong and right? "Uh, well," I said. At least I was finally off of simply "um" when it came to this subject.

"Well?" she echoed.

"Well," I re-echoed, "I -- he -- that is, I mean I ... " Could I just spit it out? Could I even admit it? Not likely. "I want to go home." The words left my mouth apparently of their own violation; I had no say in the matter.

"I'm sorry," she apologized after a while.

"It's okay," I said instinctively. It really wasn't, but I'd already spoken. Stupid habit. "I just -- I don't like it here."

"Would you rather be home?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Jen! C'mon -- we're with Zeeps! Maybe not the grown up Zeeps, but still Zeeps nonetheless. And you've got those cool powers!"

"I ... find stuff," I said slowly. "People glow."

"See, that's cool!"

"I'm not even a real telepath."

"But it's still cool!" she insisted.

I wondered fleetingly if perhaps her unnatural exuberance was due to Jubilee rubbing off on her. The very thought of my friend in an eternally perky state such as that of Miss Lee's frightened me a great deal, so I tried very hard to shove the thought from my mind. But again, as they say, "when you're told not to think about the grey elephant ... " which immediately reminded me of said psionic elephant, which was just what I needed at that exact moment. "Erg ... could you stop being so ... perky?"

I was given a Look and told to shut up. Jokingly, of course. I hoped. "I'm going back to my room now," she told me. "You gonna be okay?"

No, I thought. But as she was no telepath, either, she couldn't hear that. "I guess," I responded instead.

"Alright," she said and went back down the hallway to talk to that -- that Paige. Yayfun. Time to look for a piano. I went down the stairs humming Savage Garden, 'cause "Truly Madly Deeply" was firmly lodged in my brain for no apparent reason whatsoever. If not particularly "cool", my abilities were certainly useful, I noted, as I used them to find said piano. I continued on my semi-merry way, heading for the piano and now plainly singing. "I wanna stand with you on a mountain ... I wanna bathe with you in the sea ... I wanna lay like this forever until the sky falls down on me ... " over and over again, just that chorus until I collided ever-so-gracefully with a small warm mass and fell backwards.

"Hey!" said mass, namely Jubilee wearing a navy blue and yellow Michigan Wolverines T-shirt, called annoyedly. "Watch where yer goin', wouldja!"

My head hurt. "Sorry," I apologized. This just wasn't my day.

"Whatever," Jubilee answered and kept on her way, running up the stairs with an urgency I have yet to be seen duplicated. For someone who was supposed to be able to detect people coming, I certainly seemed to be ... well, malfunctioning. I guessed that, as Dr. Wendy once said, "It's like golf -- some days you just can't putt." How ... encouraging.

I was nearing the piano, though, I could tell. When I found it, it turned out to be a beautiful shiny black expensive-looking baby grand, and I wondered how I could have ever possibly missed such a beautiful thing the first time around. Then I had to wonder why they would even have a piano here in the first place. Who played? Or was it just decoration?

I first opened the keyboard. Eighty-eight smoothly polished black and white keys stared back at me, my reflection broken over their individual surfaces. The lid was closed, but that didn't matter; I was playing for my own enjoyment and practice, not for some concert. I pulled out the bench and turned it at an angle to the keyboard, then sat down, my left leg stretched far to the side and my right foot working the damper pedal. With my hands and their imitation henna designs spread across the lacquered keys, I began to play.

My first instinct was to test the instrument with a scale or something, to see if it was in tune, but then deemed that unnecessary. I didn't care. I needed to play the piano here, now, like I needed to breathe, like a fish needs water. I let my first worry flow into the keyboard, still feeling somewhat self-conscious even though nobody was listening. There wasn't anyone around to listen. Sorrow, homesickness -- c-minor, touched with accidentals, a random melody that seemed almost mournful -- a little too like a dirge. I moved to a-minor with little difficulty and increased the tempo, a distinct pattern forming in the chords: a-minor, F-major, g-minor, F-major. The delicate arpeggios flowed into a pounding rhythm. I stopped changing the pedal after a while, keeping it held down and angry so angry -- anger at Alison for being with PAIGE as well as anger at our friend the metamorph, all channelled through my right hand as it pounded out a furious melody. Slowly it escalated as octaves in the bass kept the rhythmic harmonies, slam, slam, slam. I breathed heavily, deeply, my heart pounding and I knew I was in it, I was so completely in it, me and the piano engaged in some improper act to flush the frustration from the both of us. And slowly, then, everything died down, growing slower, calmer -- I was growing calmer with the music, as it faded away, dying on a soft B-natural in my melody line, an a-minor chord, broken, in the harmony.

*That was lovely.*

I jumped, almost falling off the bench as I did so. My heart was pounding again, my breath shorter and words barely escaping trembling lips. "Thanks ... " I had the dizzy feeling of one who wasn't getting enough oxygen to her brain -- I hadn't even recovered from the piano therapy yet, and here Jono decided he was going to show up out of nowhere. I could swear he hadn't been there before. Had he? He wasn't there before, he wasn't, and now he stood in the doorway, reclining against the doorframe casually. So beautiful ... Light. I felt sick suddenly, very ill and for no apparent reason. I had to get over this -- it wasn't going to happen, and I could never hope for it to. I had to get over this.

*Could I hear another?*

Another? Another what? Another ... song? I didn't even know he'd been listening to the first one! Did I have another song? Sure -- I'd written plenty of songs; I knew countless others. Somehow all the music vanished then and I was left helpless in the face of my elephant, pressure slowly rising -- it would soon burst if I didn't do something ... anything.

"I -- I just sorta made that one up ... " I confessed. I had. It was just me emptying my frustrations, like I always did. It was nothing new.... I was immediately aware of the ink designs I'd drawn on my hands and hid them in my lap, folding them and trying as best I could to be casual about it.

*Really? I'm impressed.*

I'd impressed him? I debated whether this was good or bad for a moment: naturally, given the way I felt about him, it was a good thing, but I didn't want to bother Paige's claim or make her even angrier with me. But, I reminded myself -- they weren't speaking to one another. And Paige had absolutely no justification for not liking me. And so I decided it was a good thing.

"Thanks," I said again, now closer to a whisper as I looked at the keyboard and ran my fingers over the keys, not pressing very hard at all. Good thing, I reminded myself. This is a good thing. I settled my hands on the keys, the vines across my fingers now completely evident, and resumed my position on the bench. The song I played came naturally under my fingers, and after the introduction I sang. The melody was in my low register, but still comfortable for my voice.

"Travels through light and darkness; community fills my head. And there's so much more proof of this than what's written on my face." I faltered a moment -- this wasn't right, I couldn't sing for him. And yet -- yet I had to. "Angel of love," the chorus began, "angel of life, angel of peace, a beacon in the night. Angel of love, angel of hope, angel of truth guiding me home."

It was my song. While I'd started off quietly, the middle escalated to that hopeful and almost happy emotion that's too hard to name. A feeling of rescue despite confusion, a longing for love ... that's what the song was about.

The weirdest part was -- usually I was too self-conscious to actually play for people. I'd be too afraid they wouldn't like my music or that my lyrics might sound dumb. Or that my voice would suddenly falter and come back off-key or I'd forget the lyrics entirely. But at that point in time, Jono was there, and he was listening. All before I'd feared running into him -- not because of his appearance, like he might think, but because of these crazy feelings I'd been having whenever he was around. Now it seemed he was exactly the opposite: his being there let my emotions run wild within my music -- I could finally express what I'd been meaning to tell him. Somehow.

" ... angel of truth, guiding me home." Home. I let the word echo on a drawn-out hum. Was this home now, and -- oh, how cliché my thoughts were! As I let the last note fade, I looked to the doorway, to the couch, but Jono wasn't in sight.

I hadn't been hallucinating, had I? Was this my muse's way of letting the raw emotion show? Confused, I turned back to the piano and started playing random notes: some impromptu passive song that was neither loud nor angry, neither here nor there. It certainly wasn't the same as anything else I'd played that day.

Someone was coming. For once my powers were working right! Alison emerged from the doorway, smiling, flute case in hand. Jubilee was not far behind and grinning madly. I turned back to the piano and pounded out the angry chords of "Real", purposely ignoring both of them.

Alison apparently took this as an invitation; she all-too happily joined me, playing her flute. I only banged harder on the ivory keys beneath my fingers. She countered it, playing her flute louder. The song became a contest -- at least, from my perspective. From hers, it was an attempt to make up. We'd played together many times before ... even that time we'd won the talent show at camp years and years ago. And with this song, I realized -- it had been a bad choice. But the chords were the angriest of any song I had: "Real" was my "mad song", as I'm sure all musicians have -- a song to play when you're angry, one that's easy to just kill the instrument and let everything fly.

Unfortunately, her tactic was working -- I was forgetting about everything I was angry about and immersing myself in the music. When the song ended, I was breathing hard but smiling; all previous emotions had rolled off me like water off a duck.

Music was a sweet balm to soothe my soul. There was an unspoken apology in Alison's eyes, an understanding that things were better now.

"Wow," Jubilee said. "You guys are good." She was being sincere.

I found myself looking at my hands, which were once again tracing the contours of black keys. Purple nail polish was chipping ... my nails were getting a little too long; any longer and they'd get stuck in between the keys when I played a fast song. And I'd have to wash those ink vines off later. "Thanks," I said. I glanced up at Alison again. "Okay?" I asked gently.

"Okay," she answered.

"The Miss-You-Miss-Me song?" I suggested.

Alison nodded.

I glanced over at Jubilee quickly -- I'd written the song about her, well, before I'd come here and actually met her. Or rather, about her situation, since I had all but flat-out refused to read the comic books Alison prized so highly. I started the introduction, grinning almost madly. I slowed, though, and eventually stopped when I felt someone coming.

"Jen? What's wrong?"

"Someone's coming," I stated.

"Just like Duncan!" Alison pointed out, enthused.

Whatever. Whoever was coming felt familiar.... I watched the door for the presence to show itself. It appeared that I was, however, mistaken. What was wrong with me today? Was I just defective? I was afraid perhaps I was. "Oh, nevermind," I muttered and turned back to the song -- but it just wasn't there anymore. I knew the words, I knew the music and where my fingers were supposed to go, but my heart just wasn't in it. I stopped halfway through the song, stood up, and kicked the bench. This tactic brought subsequent pain to my foot and I hopped around with my good one. "Ow! Ow! Ow!"

"You okay?" Jubilee asked.

"Yeah, just my -- ow! -- foot!"

"Jen? Um, elephant," Alison whispered, pointing somewhere over my shoulder. Gingerly I felt for a presence, and -- yes, Jono had returned. Why had he come back? Why had he left in the first place? And how the heck did Alison know about the elephant thing?

I couldn't just stand there like a dolt, though, so I turned around even though I already knew that he was there. But because I had just injured my foot, I could not manage to turn around properly -- and as a result, I lost my balance, and crashed onto the hard floor.

This really wasn't my day, I noted. Jubilee was snickering -- she really was easily amused, wasn't she? A funny sort of good-humored sympathy radiated from Alison, and Jono simply lingered in the doorway, holding his guitar by its neck. I sensed ~regret~ from him but couldn't place why....

*Perhaps I should go,* he suggested calmly.

No -- he couldn't go -- not yet. I couldn't imagine anything I'd possibly say to him, but I didn't want him to leave. Not when he'd just gotten back.

Alison and Jubilee glanced at one another and would have dissolved into giggles -- I don't know what kept them from doing so right then and there. But thankfully they didn't -- Alison muttered something about meeting Angelo for a game of something, and somehow Jubilee knew immediately to follow her. Hadn't they just gotten here? Why was she leaving me again? Why was she leaving me with Jono again?

I found myself giving a sheepish grin -- I felt like the room was growing around me, the dark figure in the doorway looming ominously before me. Perhaps, I thought, perhaps if she knew as much as the elephant thing, she also knew more. Was I being that obvious? The air was soupy and viscous, I was finding it hard to breathe again. And there was a tiny voice talking to me, gently reminding me that he was Paige's, and Paige was mad at me, and Paige could seriously hurt me in any of her stronger forms, and Jono could very easily blast me into a million tiny pieces if he wanted to --

I told that tiny voice to shut up.

"J -- Jono?" I'd said his name -- and all of a sudden he existed, he wasn't -- whatever he was before. At this point he existed because he looked right at me and I wasn't just whispering to the wind. "Are you ... are you okay?"

That hadn't come out the way I'd intended it to. "I mean, there are so many ... things I have to say but it's like I can't say them because I'm afraid -- afraid of -- well, you shut yourself off from everyone so well I only want to help but I --" I took a breath and searched for words. He was shocked, surprised. I bit my lip and looked at the floor (upon which I was still sitting), suddenly afraid I'd said the wrong thing. The last time I'd said anything like that I only wound up hurting myself....

*I'm not sure I follow,* he admitted.

He didn't "follow"? What, did I have to spell it out? Perhaps -- despite everything, he was still a guy, and guys can be extraordinarily dense at times. Ugh. Why not just admit it once and for all? "I'm so confused. I don't know what's going on here. I don't even know what it is that I do; whatever it is it sure isn't flashy -- not that I necessarily mind that or anything, but I -- I hate Emma, I hate her poking around in my head when she could perfectly well ask and I want to go home except the problem with home is that you aren't there --" I stopped short as I suddenly understood what I'd just babbled out and the impact it could have on my life here.

*Wot's so special about me that yer'd wont me 'home'?*

The words just poured from me again and the me behind my eyes was barely aware of them. I didn't care -- he was being so obstinate! "What do you mean 'what's so special' about you? Would you quit feeling sorry for yourself already? That's the one thing holding you back -- not the way you look. I think you're beautiful --" Where had that come from? "--and don't care what anyone else says. I'm not afraid of you -- not like that, far from it. I'm -- I like you. Very much. Perhaps that frightens you -- so be it. But it isn't going to stop how I feel. And no -- I can't explain it, either. Hearts fly where they will -- I have no control over it. I'll understand perfectly if you're going to hate me now. But if there's one thing -- oh, I want to help you! I only want -- I mean I just -- I mean -- " My courage was fading fast. "It's not that hard for people to be attracted to you," I said softly, not even sure if he heard me now. "It does happen, you know. But ... but it's so hard to get through to you...."

I waited for an answer, a response, anything. Time and silence drifted nervously by, and I would have spoken but I was certain he was forming some response, and I didn't want to interrupt him.... But besides that, even if my random fragments of thought were to coalesce into one coherent sentence I doubted I could speak well, if at all.

And in this bizarre, worried, waiting, trembling state I could feel nothing from him -- not that he wasn't feeling anything, but that I was so messed up inside there was no way I could possibly read anything. I felt sick -- ill -- my heart pounding so hard inside my chest I was worried it might burst. I could feel his eyes on me, hot ... I drew my knees up to my chest and buried my head in them, perhaps in an effort to quiet my raging heart.

Why had I said those things? I'd been so stupid. It would have been better if I'd just kept quiet. My eyes were wet and hot -- oh, Light, was I crying? How immature I must've looked ...

*Jen --*

I pressed my forehead even harder against my knees; I didn't want to look at him. He was going to say something stupid and ignorant and so like a guy --

*Jen, look at me.*

Tentatively I raised my eyes -- somehow he'd come across the room; somehow he, too, was sitting on the floor; somehow -- somehow I was still crying and gave a pitiful sniffle. I wiped my wrist across my face in an effort to eradicate any signs of tears but I was afraid I just worsened it....

I brought my eyes up and looked at him -- I looked right at him and there he was, every nuance and detail that made him Jono and I couldn't stand it any longer. "What --" I began but there was no sentence there and I just looked at him like that, just looked at him -- the way the light played off his jacket and hair that fell just so, the texture of the bandages that covered where the rest of his face ought to have been but wasn't and I didn't care -- I didn't care and it didn't matter to me.

*Do yer honestly believe that?*

"Yes," I replied instantly. "Yes! I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true -- this is how I feel, can't you just accept that?"

*No,* he said after a while, *I can't. Yer don't even know me. How could yer possibly -- *

"Shut up!" I told him. "Just shut up! You don't understand! You don't! You're blowing me off and it's making me sick! Why won't you let anyone in? Why do you do this to yourself? Wake up -- wake up, we care about you. All of us! We aren't -- we're not afraid of you!"

*But I'm a --*

"No, you're not! Listen to me -- just listen to me."

My voice shook, trembled as I spoke. It took me some time to find the words. "You are not a freak. Don't think for one -- one minute you are. We're all freaks ... " I bit my lip, I thought maybe I was going to cry again as the memories resurfaced: memories and names and faces, faces of people I couldn't stand to be with but I didn't have much choice. "If anyone's the psycho here it's me. Me. I'm the psycho. I'm the freak. I'm weird and strange because -- because I'm different. I get shoved around and beaten up, I get blamed for the world's problems -- I don't know how to deal with it. I don't know how to deal with it so I talk to people on the computer, who don't know who I am and don't care 'cause they see me for my personality instead of some psycho freak. I'm the one who seeks solace in music, in my piano and CDs and everything -- I'm the one who turns myself outside-in to the world and only wants -- " I caught myself in what I was going to say. "-- only wants to -- to -- to --"

My voice faltered and I fell silent.

*To wot?* He was calm; he wanted to know and not so he could laugh at me. He was the last person who would laugh at me.... But could I tell him, even though I'd admonished him for the same crime only moments earlier?

"To hide," I whispered, shaking, looking back at the floor. I hugged my knees close to me again, my head gently resting on them and hair falling into my face, so wet. I just curled up like that, rocking back and forth and back and forth ... and hiding. Because it was so easy to hide -- so easy. Hide from the world and you wouldn't have to deal with it. You wouldn't have to get close and you wouldn't have to hurt anyone. It was just easier....

"I don't want someone to be with forever and ever," I admitted slowly, the words coming out just as they popped into my head -- things I already knew. "Light -- I don't even think I want someone to be with -- it's not that way at all. But a friend -- I need an anchor here. I hate everything else so much I really ought to just go home. It seems like you're the only thing keeping --"

Shudder again, sniffle, and I really was quite pathetic. But all these emotions were so real, even those that contradicted one another.

I wiped my face again with my sleeve, which by now was quite thoroughly soaked. My eyes were hot and tired; I was so weak and pitiful and helpless and I didn't want to be like this.

As I looked outward, I uncoiled, letting go of my knees. There was no reason to hide from him -- through the fog of my own emotions I knew he understood.

His hand was extended -- I took it and was helped off the floor. I expected him to ask me if I was going to be okay, people usually did after -- after things like this. I was sure I must have looked pretty awful; I'd been crying and confused and everything. But he understood.

I let go of his hand with its callused fingers and tried to wipe away the salt residue that had stained my face. Something was thick inside my throat and I couldn't swallow it back. My eyes were hot and something pounded in my head.

A question was perched on the edge of his mind, about to explode into my own consciousness, but he didn't say anything -- I wanted to touch him again, to feel his hands on mine, but I knew it wouldn't work ... I bit my lip so hard I thought I'd draw blood. I closed my eyes and stood there, reaching out, crying out for help, this insatiable need --

And there was an external warmth, wrapped around me in leather and I knew he wouldn't have -- he wouldn't -- just wouldn't -- but it was probably me --

-- I didn't know where I was; I was comforted but encased in mingling emotions. I searched for some part of me I could find and finally found sensations under fingertips that relayed leather and loosely wrapped cloth and he smelled just as he did yesterday in the car and I could have stayed there like that if I could. All I saw was black -- different degrees of black -- and they mixed so beautifully.... I could sense emotions and I didn't know or care whose they were: comfort, relief, the need for a friend -- yes, a friend -- perhaps something far beneath my surface still wanted something else but it was so far beneath me I didn't want or need to bother it. I'd found my anchor somehow -- through anger -- I'd found a friend. And I realized that I had every intention of staying here.

I wish, though, that I was better skilled at whatever it was I did. If I had I would have noticed someone watching -- someone who was rather upset -- why I didn't notice her blaring emotions sooner is still beyond me. Instead it was her voice that called my attention to her ...

"Ah cannot believe you!"

"Ah"? No, not again ... I bit my lip even harder, immersed within this warm black jacket world I didn't want to leave -- I think I tightened my grip. But Jono let go; I had no choice at that point. I didn't look at Paige -- I was afraid of her -- she could kill me, I was sure. And she would -- her anger pounded inside my head, inside my heart so threateningly. I thought she was going to kill me. I really did. I wanted to run away, to leave all of this behind but my anchor was here -- and I couldn't leave him with this screaming creature -- complete with unconscious Southern accent -- that Paige had become.

*We're friends, luv, that's all,* Jono tried to explain. He was referring to me. I wanted to hide. I silently offered a petition to whoever might be listening: ~mercy?~ I did not want to die....

"Friends?" she echoed from behind me, as if the word were foreign to her. "Friends?"

I wanted to leave but I was frozen in place and that paralysis scared me half to death.

"And you," I got the impression she was pointing one long, accusing finger at me, "Ya got no right ta jus' walk in here an' proclaim yoahself--"

"I -- " I began, turning slowly to her and hoping praying pleading she wouldn't kill me, "I am not proclaiming anything," I interrupted, enunciating each word concisely to the best of my abilities through the clouds in my throat. I know she'd kill me so I braced myself.

She just glared at me, debating whether or not to rip her own flesh so that she might do the same to me -- I wouldn't survive, of course, and that was perhaps her intent. And then she looked to Jono, measuring him with a level gaze. "Okay," she finally decided, "go on. I don't care." Paige spun on her heel and left without another word; whatever she'd originally come down for undone and unsaid.

And Jono was torn -- his indecision radiated and nearly overflowed onto me.

"I -- I'm going to go wash up," I said. "You go after her. She -- she needs you." I could barely believe I'd said that, but I had -- and I'd meant it.

Gratitude replaced his indecision. *Thank you,* he said, and went upstairs.

I lingered, hung back -- stared at the piano a moment, and at the guitar lying on the floor. I picked up the guitar and set it on the askew piano bench so nobody would step on it. I smiled then; glad despite of everything. I thought I'd helped him in some way -- the same way he'd helped me, I think.

"Thanks," I told the piano -- and the guitar. "Thanks."