𝖇𝖆𝖗𝖇𝖎𝖊 ‣ ʲᵉˢˢ ᵐᵃʳⁱᵃⁿᵒ

𝟓 ‣ the dark days

     Rory shrugged, "I mean, it's not really a secret, the whole town already knows. Isn't it better if he hears it from us than from Taylor... or Luke?"

     "I think it's better if he hears it from Hartley," Kanan suggested, a flush immediately covering his face when Rory looked at him.

     How had Jess not noticed his painfully obvious crush before?

     "But what are the chances she wants to talk to him before someone else tells him, you know how she gets," Rory reasoned, causing Kanan to let out a conflicted huff.

     "Well, you guys can figure this out, I'm gonna go drop this coffee off," Kanan saluted, quickly escaping the seemingly answerless problem that Jess was still in the dark about.

     "I don't think we should tell him," Willow declared, crossing her arms.

     "I think we should," Rory countered, her voice going squeaky with defensiveness.

     "I think we should stop talking about him like he isn't here," Jess whispered, poking his head between the two girls.

"Hartley gets sad sometimes," Rory started, causing Willow to scowl and look away in defiance, "well, not really sometimes. She gets like... depressed in the Winter, and she doesn't talk to people or go out unless she has to."

Jess wasn't an idiot. He knew what seasonal depression was, and he found it odd that Rory seemed to avoid using the professional term. I'm her defence, it was clear that she didn't have a full understanding of Hartley's situation, at least not to the same level that Willow and Kanan had.

"Okay," he murmured, turning away from the girls and busying himself with random tasks behind the counter.

"Okay?" Willow questioned. If Jess had looked at her, he would've been met with a look of suspicion, of scrutiny.

Willow Parker was a lot of things, but oblivious wasn't one of them. She had witnessed Hartley's display in the town hall, and she knew that Hartley hadn't spoken the full truth. For her best friend to take the fall like that, the person she was covering for had to be pretty important, and 'okay' didn't communicate important whatsoever. Jess didn't seem all that concerned ('seem' being the key word) and that didn't sit well with her at all.

"Okay," Jess repeated.

"I can call her, give her a message from you if you'd like?" Willow proposed, watching carefully for any sort of reaction from Jess.

"No, it's okay,"

"Yeah, I got that."

✎

SHE HADN'T slept in thirty-six hours. Thirty-six hours filled with boredom, countless cups of coffee, and the complete memorization of her ceiling.

     It wasn't uncommon for Hartley to suffer from insomnia during the Dark Days, but it sucked no less this time than it did last time, and the time before that, and the time before that. Without fail, every September a flame of hope would spark in the depths of her stomach; hope that maybe it wouldn't happen, maybe she would never again wake up more tired than when she fell asleep.

     "Lee?" Jorge called, knocking on her door.

     "Come in," she sighed, pulling herself up into a sitting position.

     Jorge came through the door with what looked like a book in his hand. This was a strange sight, because—as far as Hartley knew—her father only knew what a book was because they were sometimes made into movies.

"Two things," he started, holding up correlating fingers, "I called your mom and told her we were pushing back your visit for a couple weeks."

"How'd she take it?" Hartley cringed, shifting uncomfortably at the idea that her mother could be peeved with her.

"...she took it," Jorge grimaced.

Hartley sighed, "and what's the other thing?"

     "Jess dropped this off," he explained, tossing
the book onto her bed. It bounced a few times, before settling cover down.

     "Really?" She queried, her brows drawing together.

Two things were strange about this: one, Jess had bought her a gift, and; two, he didn't come though the window to give it to her. He was, in his words, 'not a door person'.

     She grabbed the book and flipped it over. It was a recent copy of Dune, with an updated cover. It looked brand new, there weren't any folds or creases, there weren't any weird empty spaces between pages that had been dogeared. It was in perfect condition, contrasting the girl holding it.

"Did he ask to come in?" She inquired, her eyes not moving from the cover.

"No," Jorge replied, an ounce of suspicion lacing his voice, "I invited him in, but he said he had to get home."

     "Oh," she nodded her head, "okay."

     Jorge took one last glance at his daughter before promptly exited the room.

     She looked back down at the book, running her thumb across the cover, before sliding it in between the cover and the flyleaf. There she found the first imperfection; there was a message—which she assumed was Jess's—written in dark blue ink.

Dear Barbie,

I bought this yesterday, and if you can't tell, I haven't gotten around to reading it. But, I was thinking, since you're going to be spending a lot of time in these "Dark Days" I keep hearing about, maybe you could read it first.
I know what you're thinking, 'Jess, you fucking idiot, I've already read it," (there's no need for name calling, by the way) but I was hoping you'd read it again. Maybe you can draw pictures in the margins, so when you inevitably give it back to me and I finally read it, I can imagine it exactly how you did. Anyways, it was just a thought so don't get all mushy on me.

- Jess
(P.S. I'm here if you want to talk I guess.) 

     She allowed a rare smile to pull at her lips, it was dainty and it was weak but it was there. She was there.

     She reached towards her night stand, grabbing a magenta gel pen. She licked her finger, flipping the page, and she began to read.

-

MEG TALKS !
the way i love them <3. i gave a little jess pov in this chapter, which is vibey af.
also i've changed kanan's last name from kaur to kapadia, because i was informed that i was misusing the name kaur.

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