Wherever that may be

Arc V (3) - 1909

She breathes deeply.

And maybe she'll even get her own room, and maybe she'll see the Eiffel tower, and she will finally take profit from those horrendous French classes that her parents made her attend when she was a child.

She sees herself in a fancy restaurant, asking for coffee, a bit tired after hours of practicing. She goes back to her apartment, small but enough, and when she opens the door, there are cat-like eyes waiting for her, staring into her figure tenderly, and-

Lily opens her eyes.

But Jenine won't be there.

She swallows.

Again, she thinks, again. She won't be there.

Lily feels the excitement of her heartbeat becoming painful.

She won't be there, so her hugs won't be there, and her smile won't be there, and-

She sighs and stands up from bed. To distract herself, she gathers enough will to unpack her bag. She puts away the magazines she brought to Jenine's, her camera, some revealed pictures, and-

Lily frowns, taking the last foreign object out of her bag.

A black notebook.

It doesn't have a tag anywhere, so it takes Lily some time to realize that it can belong to her best friend.

And just to be sure, she opens the first page.

-

Jenine looks at her bookshelves with crescent desperation.

Where the hell is it?

It's still early in the afternoon, so her mother won't be around the house until many hours more, which means that she can't possibly ask her if she dared touch her notebook at least until the evening, which means-

She hears a loud knocking at the door.

Jenine frowns slightly, takes a last, indignant look at her bookshelves, and moves to the front door.

When she opens it, her whole reality begins to get dizzy in the most horrible way by just one glance.

Just past the doorframe, Lily is looking at her with a billon of blended expressions and her black notebook right in her hands.

Jenine tries to breathe, desperately, mutely, holding into the last thread of hope that Lily might have not read the notebook, that she might be just there to give it back so she still has a change to fucking burn all that nonsense.

When she dares to stare into Lily's eyes again, all her hope breaks in painful pieces.

"Nini", the tallest girl murmurs, clearly at a loss of words as well.

Jenine exhales everything out and is unable to take anything in again. As tears fill her intense eyes, she begins to hyperventilate.

Everything becomes even fuzzier.

She hears the faint noise of the door closing, of Lily saying her name again and again. She feels her soft hands against her own cold, sweaty forehead, and she can't stop the hot tears from reaching her chin.

When her friend starts to caress her arms, big, doll eyes staring at her in pure worry, Jenine feels finally able to speak again.

"I'm sorry", is all she can say, between broken gasps, "I'm so sorry, Lily. I'm so sorry".

The sunlight is peeking through white, fluffy clouds, hitting directly against her face.

"Lily, I'm sorry", she keeps mumbling.