A Wrench in the Gears [Damien Haas]

9. I am and it's wrong!

"Yeah, my contacts dried out and I left the solution at home," she says, rubbing her eyes. "Why are you all red? Have you been drinking or something?"

"I don't drink," I answer defensively. "I'm just..." I couldn't think of an answer to the blush that crept up my face anyway. "I'm okay."

"What are you doing here?" she asks, drinking from her cup of coffee. "I'm sorry, I'm not a good host at this. We're doing a lot of work and I have been sleep-deprived since I came back here."

"I noticed," I explain, wondering why she hasn't even thought of removing our photo from her desk. "It's actually why I'm here. You seemed exhausted all week, so I kinda wondered why and Lily told me that it was about work. But Shayne didn't think so."

"Right, psych grad," she replies before yawning.

"I was just wondering if you were okay," I mumble, grabbing a chair from the next cubicle and sitting beside her. "Work's exhausting, but you're that kind of person who doesn't take a break. That's bad."

"Well, I know someone else who didn't take a break, and now he has an entire musical named after him," she says, winking.

"But Jade, you aren't Alexander Hamilton," I tell her before taking out some sandwiches from my paper bag. "You deserve a break as much as you deserve a musical named after you."

Jade sighs and takes a sandwich, saying, "I just wish the whole leukemia thing happened to me instead of my brothers. They're both gems; they don't deserve it. Maybe things would have changed, and I could have actually pursued my dream of doing what I love in a space that accepts who I am."

"Yeah, but if it weren't for that, then you wouldn't have them the way they are now," I reply as I open the sandwich and take a bite. "They're sick, I know, but they're the reason why you're still here. You could have given up a long time ago, but now you're doing something for them. I know you want to do everything, but you're still human, you know? You need your breaks too."

She fiddles with the crusts of the sandwich. "Jason's at Stage 4 now," she says a bit quietly. "Mom and Dad are working their hardest so that chemo actually works, but it's not chemo's problem that my brother's sick. It's not, get this, it's not chemo's problem that it was invented to heal sick people, and it's not chemo's problem that it isn't working on Jason. The worst part is not the sleepless nights, not the frequent arguments of my separated parents over the phone, but it's seeing Jeremy, sickly and drained, sitting down at the foot of his bed and watching Star Wars on his own, expressionless. It's stupid."

"I'm so sorry," I tell her. "I didn't know."

"It's okay," she says. "Just difficult times. I hope you understand why I'm not taking a break."

In that moment, I scrapped every plan I had for the GRG™, because the best plan popped into my mind, and I knew that, if I really wanted this girl, I had to work for it non-stop, the way she loved her brothers so much that she didn't bother taking breaks.

After taking her home that evening, I make my way to Shayne's apartment. He wasn't answering his phone, but I had a spare key anyway. I needed his help for the GRG™, and I knew that he was awake at this time.

From: Da Man Haas
Hey, I'm on my way to your apartment. You there?

From: Da Man Haas
Shayyyneee I'm inside the building, I'll open with my key

Upon unlocking the door, I enter the apartment. "Bro, I need your help on... what the hell is this?"

You guys know what Shayne's apartment looks like, right? So visualize this: there's an Uncharted game loaded on the screen but it's paused. There's a lot of popcorn spilled on the floor and I think spilled iced tea. Shayne's an organized person, and this time, the candles were lit. The last thing my eyes saw were he and Courtney passed out on the couch, embracing each other with their controllers in their hands.