A Year of Jubilee [The Death Note Fanfic]

Chapter 3

Things were very different two years ago. Jubilee Jenkins lived the life of social butterfly by day, petty thief by night. Though sometimes it was the other way around. She liked to be spontaneous.

College had just ended four months ago. And, not to be self-congratulatory or anything, but she was pretty impressed with herself for graduating in only three years, while making a living completely on her own without any financial support from her parents because, oh right, they were dead.

Granted, she realized that graduating early didn't necessarily mean she was that smart, since her grades were just barely passing. And it didn't mean she was particularly ambitious, either; just that she was too broke to afford another year of college. Also, the manner in which she made a living wasn't necessarily honorable or anything to boast about. But, she had to confess, she secretly found herself to be pretty clever.

She'd gotten into this whole thieving trade during the second year of college, when she was nineteen, a few months after her father was involved in a fatal car accident. Mom had passed two years before that. She was running on empty; mentally, emotionally, financially. Money had never been easy to come by even while mom was alive, but after she died it seemed to dwindle even more, and by the time her father was gone there was nothing left for her in the will besides the debts of her own college loans. Thankfully, she received some grants here and there, some compensation from insurance...but on the whole, once it went into the loans and her day to day living expenses in the city, she barely broke even.

It was one day, while she was standing in a drugstore aisle waiting for her prescription of antidepressants—which she had recently started taking—to be filled, and pondering over whether she could manage to pass the class that had really taken a hit during her grieving process, and over her failed midterm in another class, and whether she'd be able to scrounge up enough change to have some dinner tomorrow, and trying not to think about mom and dad...that something inside of her snapped.

Maybe it had something to do with the mother in the next aisle saying to her teenage daughter, "Get whatever lipstick you want, honey. I want you to feel beautiful for prom." Maybe it had to do with the song playing over the speakers, "I Miss You." Maybe it was just because she was irritable from hunger.

But, for whatever reason, she quickly and quietly snatched three packs of ramen off the shelf and stuffed it into her bag. No one was in the aisle with her. She walked through the adjoining aisle next—which was by now also empty—grabbed an eye shadow palette and three lipsticks on her way down it, and nonchalantly threw them in her bag.

Then she marched up to the pharmacy desk, plastered a smile on her face, paid for her meds, and walked out of the store. Nobody stopped her.

Back at her dorm, she poured the contents of her looting onto her desk and stared at them. What had she been thinking? She didn't even need lipstick.

"Sweet color!" remarked her roommate, Alyssa, over her shoulder. She came around to Jubilee's side and admired the makeup, picking up the eye shadow palette to evaluate its contents. "Oo, this is a good brand. I could use some new colors for the party I'm going to tonight...could I use some of this?"

"Do you want to buy it?" Jubilee heard herself say. "I never used it and don't really wear makeup anymore."

"Yeah!" exclaimed Alyssa happily. "I mean, if you don't want it. I've been needing to get something like this for ages! I'll buy that lipstick too. Hey, do you want to come with me to that party tonight?"

An intuition that Jubilee couldn't quite discern yet made her say, "Sure."

That night Alyssa, the sweet girl that she was, insisted on putting makeup on Jubilee and dolling her up in one of her own nicer dresses. They arrived at a large fraternity house with blaring music, dim lighting, and throngs of college students milling about with beers in their hands. Jubilee politely declined the many drinks that were thrust at her from various different boys.