Not in the Mood to Write Today
After interacting with Max - not Maxine, apparently, just Max - she and Kate had each gone off to do their own things for a bit. Relax.
Urgh. Sure, maybe if she had a sensory depravation tank. But relaxing wasn’t exactly something she was prone to.
Maybe she could relax when she was dead.
…
She was at Kate’s door.
Her hand curled up like a dead animal.
Interacting with Kate was… hard.
It was an odd experience. One that should have grown tiring long ago. Kate was… nice. Kind. Blithe. For a moment, she’d almost seemed more rude then Brooke had first thought - but apparently she had just been in a bad mood. After a fight with a friend. No, her first instinct had definitely been right.
Kate was blithe. That was the word that fit her. Brooke had known that for a long time.
It was sickening.
But Kate couldn’t just be easily identifiable.
Because she wasn’t just blithe.
Max Caulfield had been much easier to pin down. She was an idiot. Shy - cripplingly so. A romantic. Helpless. Repressed. Bullied, probably. Coddled by her parents, before being shoved into the cruelty of the real world. It had cracked her. Because she was weak.
Brooke had never been weak. Stupid, maybe. Ruthless, certainly. But never weak. So she could easily hate Max.
It was easy. Easy to hate.
Certainly easier than…
Whatever.
She could hate Max in peace. For being weak. For collapsing under the smallest push. For being unable to deal with the real world. Love had fattened her up, and when her sustenance was taken away, she folded like a house of cards.
Pathetic.
But she had hated Kate for being stupid. For being an idiot. She had hated Kate for being unable to look beneath the surface, for treating people with kindness when she judged them at a glance and treating them with hatred when she found them wanting. She gave people a single glance, and deemed them either worthy or unworthy. She protected her friends to the point of coddling. She was blithe.
But she couldn’t hate Kate. Because the girl made it fucking impossible.
How could she hate Kate? How could she hate the woman, who refused to see anything but the beauty in Max Caulfield’s stupidity? How could she hate the person who wore her watch? How could she hate the girl who refused to be as stupid as she seemed? How could she hate the repressed schoolgirl with a core of steel and a mask of cold courtesy?
Vulnerable to her friends, untouchable to her enemies. Wary and protective. Warm and loving. Impossibly stupid - until, suddenly, she wasn’t.
And here Brooke was. With a bag of materials from the nearest decent hardware store, the crappiest outfit she could find, and ready to paint for a few hours.
...Right. Kate. Door. Knocking.
Knock knock knock.
She heard shuffling.
And there she was.
Kate. In all her mid-afternoon glory. Very empty dorm behind her.
With her hair down.
That was good.
“Beverly.” She said, a little more flatly then she’d meant to. She made an effort to make her voice a little brighter. “I hope you’re ready to paint.”
“Yep!” Kate chirped, eyes wide and glittering in the light. “It - uh - should be fun?”
And be an unbearably long process. And fill your dorm with fumes. And force me to interact with you for far too long. And make us both stress about the tiny imperfections in the cut.
Oh, sure. Just buckets of fucking fun, Bev.
“With any luck.” She said, shouldering into the dorm and setting down her bag of supplies. She couldn’t help but notice Kate send it a slightly concerned glance. “I’ve forgone primer, because, frankly, it shouldn’t be needed. The color isn’t too different, you don’t have any nails or paintings, so spackle shouldn’t be needed, either. I’ve still got a putty knife for the painters tape, but honestly, this should be a shockingly easy job. We’ll need to move the bed and your desk, but other then that - you’ve got no furniture. We don’t have to bother with the stars, since we aren’t painting the ceiling. I sure hope you don’t care too much for that shirt, by the way.”
Kate sent her shirt a concerned glance, and Brooke couldn’t help but grin at her.
“What’s wrong, Beverly? Not quite ready to paint?”
“Sure I am! I just… have no idea what painting entails.” Kate said, with a tiny smile. “I hope I wasn’t supposed to… prepare or anything?”
“It’s fine.” Brooke said. Kate seemed to miss that she hadn’t actually answered her question. “We’ll just take it step by step. So, first thing’s first - we should get the bed and desk away from the walls. Luckily, you have literally no furniture, and not a single rug, so. This part should be pretty easy.”
“Hey - Brooke?”
Brooke glanced at her.
“Beverly.”
“I just wanted to say - uhm. Thanks. This is really nice of you, and… I know you don’t really know me super well, so… yeah. Thank you.”
Brooke stared at her - for just long enough that Kate started to fidget.
It occurred to her that nobody had ever thanked her before.
For anything.
“It’s… it’s nothing. Don’t mention it,” she tried. It sounded wrong coming out of her mouth.
But Kate just smiled at her. “Okay. I won’t.”
Brooke felt a headache coming on.
Interacting with people was always very hard.
It took hardly any time between the two of them to move the bed and desk. The floors ended up a little scuffed, but that was fine. It certainly wasn’t Brooke’s problem. By the time they had done that, the room was… practically ready to be painted. Which was a travesty, if Brooke was being honest. This was exactly why she had decided to take Kate’s room on as her latest project.
“That should be good. So, now we’ve just got to take off any outlet covers, lay down a dropcloth, get a step-ladder, and… we should be ready to paint. God, this is awful.”
“...Awful?” Kate said, startling slightly. “What do you mean?”
“This place is practically sterile. We should have to clean up the trim, move at least six pieces of furniture, fill any nail holes with spackle. Etcetera. It shouldn’t take ten seconds before we’re moving on to dropcloth and painters tape.”
Kate fiddled with one of her cuffs and smiled sheepishly. “Erm - I like to keep things clean. Empty.”
“That doesn’t mean you should have nothing. Jesus.” Brooke glanced around. “You wouldn’t happen to have a screwdriver, would you?”
“...Uhm.”
“Right. There’s one in my room - I toy with robotics in my spare time.” She added, when Kate sent her a slightly confused glance. “Should be on top of the bookshelf. Go fetch it for me - and I assume you’ll need to get the stepladder, too. That should be in the corner.”
Kate nodded, already reaching for the door.
(This was going to be a long day.)
Kate had forgotten just how many bookshelves Brooke had.
She glanced around, eyes stapled to the very top of the room. The shelves weren’t just everywhere - they were tall. She’d definitely have a little trouble reaching the toolbox, when she actually saw it.
So she should probably get the stepladder first.
She peered into each corner. Empty, empty, occupied with a bookshelf - blocked by the bed.
It had to be that one.
She walked over to the bed, and leaned over to peer into the corner.
There was a tiny collection of plastic sporks, laid out in meticulous rows. And a stepladder.
Kate made a tiny, triumphant noise in the back of her throat - and leaned over, grabbing the stepladder and pulling away.
She paused when she heard a clatter.
After a moment of nothing less then pure panic - she set down the ladder on the floor next to her, and leaned back into the corner.
And raised her eyebrows.
Because a book was sitting on the floor, where the stepladder had just been.
She leaned over, and grabbed the offending volume - it was pretty thin. Leather-bound, it looked like, with a tiny tear on the jacket.
It must’ve been on the stepladder.
She turned it over - and blanched.
Brooke’s
Diary
(and/or journal and/or notepad)
...I shouldn’t read this.
It was a kind of vague knowledge that tickled at the back of her head - even as she began to crack the book open to the middle.
The page was filled. The print was thin and scratchy, packed in with meticulous order and just the tiniest bit hard to read. A dyslexic’s nightmare.
Kate squinted just a little.
August 17th
Dearest diary,
It’s me again. I have to wonder if you ever wish you could talk to other people. You certainly aren’t sentient, but still. Perhaps I could be reincarnated as a diary. It would be interesting, reading the woes of the average idiot.
I’m going to Blackwell in a week. I’m not excited. I do hope I won’t have to break someone’s ankle again. That got me landed in detention last time. Maybe I should just kill someone this time. Spread a rumour that I have some kind of crippling anger management issue. Make people think I’m a truly unstable, dangerous individual.
Eh. Too much work.
Kate flipped the page.
August 18th
Not in the mood to write today.
August 19th
Not in the mood to write today.
August 20th
Dearest diary,
Oh Thursday. Do you capitalize Thursday? I forget. I shouldn’t forget. I’m not in the mood to remember, I suppose.
It’s been a bit. I hope I don’t offend you when I don’t write. I doubt you’re very sensitive. Doesn’t seme the kind of problem a diary would have to deal with.
It’s a good day. I’m in a decent mood. I laid in bed five minutes before managing to get up. Took a shower. I feel clean. Well - physically, anyway.
Maybe I should kill someone.
Someone’s going to think I’m a murderer anyway, one of these days.
Who gives a shit.
I’m not going to kill anyone.
Have a good day, diary. Because I’m not going to.
Have a good day for me.
Kate bit her lip.
This was… private. She should stop reading. These were private thoughts, they weren’t for her to look into.
Besides, Brooke would be expecting her at this point.
...But this was important. This was an insight into how Brooke thought, that Kate desperately needed.
This was…
Growing more concerning by the second.
The next three days were just not in the mood to write today.
August 24th
Dearest diary,
First day of school.
Will write more after the day is over.
August 24th (cont.)
Dearest diary,
The day is over. It went as expected. Nobody is interesting. The other smart person in class is very uninteresting. Or smart people, I suppose. Evan Harris and Kate Marsh are the students with good grades. They aren’t worth paying attention to. I’ve decided to not think of them unless I have to.
It hurts to move. Is that on the external or internal side?
And… it ended there.
This was growing more concerning by the second.
She should stop.
(Maybe she could finally learn about Brooke’s scars, though.)
...She flipped the page.
August 25th
Not in the mood to write today.
August 26th
Dearest diary,
I got a drone. I took it apart and put it back together again.
August 27th
Not in the mood to write today.
August 28th
Dearest diary,
Happy Friday. I have work to do during the weekend. Maybe I’ll even do it. Who knows.
Life has gotten back to being obligations.
Oh me, oh life.
August 29th,
Dearest diary,
I laid in bed for four hours before getting up. I’m going to wear my rubber band today.
My hands smell funny. I don’t want to wash them.
It hurts to move. It’s internal.
...Rubber band?
Brooke was confusing.
But this was… concerning.
On the one hand, it was buried in subtext and more then a bit confusing. Nothing was explicitly spelled out - probably because Brooke wasn’t writing this for her. But at the same time…
There was definitely some suggestions that Brooke was going through something really bad. From as short a time ago as the start of the school year.
(She couldn’t stay here much longer. She still had to get that screwdriver.)
...One more page.
Instantly, her eyes were drawn to the right.
Because there was a picture there.
It was drawn in ink. A girl was silhouetted on what looked like the edge of a building. Everything was obscured by what looked like fog and rain - though it was so utterly thick that nothing was really very clear.
Despite that, it looked… good. Almost surprisingly so, considering how unclear it was.
She started to read.
August 30th
Not in the mood to write today.
August 31st
Dearest diary,
I’m ready for September. The month names get uncreative after September. All embers.
I like embers. Ms. Rakepick was worried I might be an arsonist in the making after that comment.
I never liked her too much.
Judgemental bitch.
September 1st
Not in the mood to write today.
September 2nd
Not in the mood to write today.
September 3rd
Dearest diary,
It’s Thursday. Again.
My grades are slipping.
Obligations on obligations.
September 4th,
Dearest diary,
Didn’t get out of my bed. Missed all my classes. Laid for six hours.
Can’t think. Trying to go outside. Will write tomorrow.
September 5th,
Dearest diary,
Got out of bed faster today. Thirty minutes or so. I want to say I’m proud of myself.
Maybe I could be a pirate. That might spice things up. Torture people to death for treasure. Etc.
I dressed up as a pirate for Halloween one year.
I want to draw. Thoughts are mostly safe today, but sometimes desires aren’t just distractions from stupid voices.
Saw a pretty girl today. She’s an idiot. I didn’t get my hopes up. I considered just kissing her. See what it felt like.
That’s sexual assault, though.
I think I’ll draw her. But with me.
Done. The picture is awful. I think I’m going to be sick whenever I look at it.
I tried. Ms. Rakepick would say that that’s what’s important.
Self-important whore.
And that was all.
Kate stared at the picture.
It was… really good. She couldn’t see how Brooke could find it sickening.
And who was Ms. Rakepick?
She closed the diary, and set it back in the corner. Her eyes drifted up again.
She tried not to think about what she had read.