034 red letters

[eat_me_beat_me]

[Whether the journal falls open of its own accord or is knocked open by something being thrown across the room is anyone's guess. Either way, loud music is suddenly pouring through the pages. In the background (if you can hear ANYTHING over that) there's the noise of something shattering. Namely, the coffee mug that Nora just hurled across her room in a fit of rage.

Her chest heaves and she screams wordlessly, letting all the anger that had been pent up since she spoke with Mark on Monday pour out of her in one red hot streak. How DARE he?! And to think she might have even given him a second chance. She had been willing to take it slow and see what happened. Apparently she didn't mean anything to him. No more than words on a page on an apology to Mark.] Fuck!

[Breathless, she looks around at the chaos that had once been her room. For once she- the Poetry Lady- has no words. She has no words venomous enough or black enough. She shakes her head, scoffing the only two words on her tongue.] Fucking asshole.

[Orange paint from an overturned bottle bleeds over the page, leaving a jagged streak as Nora starts to pick up the shards of her coffee mug.]

((ooc: Open at your own risk, man. Beware teenage rage))

Comments

[hard_talker]

[by the time Sara Bareilles starts playing, someone has decided his girlfriend's had enough time to cool down from going Nuclear Scary Girl, and drapes himself against her door jamb, drawling along with the chorus with a "what're-you-gonna-do" smirk on his face.

hi. he's here. he agrees.]

[eat_me_beat_me]

[When she hears his voice behind her she sighs, her shoulders slumping a little. She didn't want him to hear that... to know she'd basically gone postal in her own room over Jono. Of course she should have known better. Nothing's private in this place, especially things you WANT to stay that way. She slowly turns to look at him, smiling a little sheepishly.]

...hey.

[hard_talker]

Hey.

[he closes the door behind him and locks it, then moves toward her. he won't put his arms around her yet, though - not until he's sure that's what she'd want]

[eat_me_beat_me]

How much did you hear?

[She sighs, letting her head drop forward. She both wants and doesn't want to hug Mark right now. She desperately wants the comfort it would bring... but she has a feeling she'd start crying if he did...]

[hard_talker]

I dunno. [he winces, knowing how much he would've wanted something like that to be private] I'm sorry. I just thought -- you might want the company ...

[fishy_go_byebye]

[Del's finger swirls through the orange paint leaking into the journal and starts to fingerpaint her some lovely little... Er.

What is that?

That can't be a person, why are his arms like that :| ]

[eat_me_beat_me]

[Eventually Nora notices the journal. Ffffff how long has that been open? She sighs and crosses to it, about to close it when she sees the little... whatever that is.

She can't help but smile a little at that. She dabs her finger in the paint and adds some squiggly lines around the figure]

[fishy_go_byebye]

[Ha. See? Have a halo~]

[eat_me_beat_me]

[Halo, huh? How about some devil horns around that halo?]

[hyuuga]

[Well, if that isn't worrying...]

...Nora-san? Is-- [wait, clearly everything isn't all right. So...] --you...aren't in trouble are you?

[eat_me_beat_me]

[Shit... Damn castle and it's fucking journals and... ugh. She scrubs a hand over her face]

No... No I'm not in trouble. Just pissed off.

[hyuuga]

Oh. [A small sigh of relief.] With the noise and the...swearing.. I almost thought... [That something much worse was happening or had happened.]

Um, do you...want to talk about it? [Or was this just a case of the journal's poor sense of timing?]

[eat_me_beat_me]

[She dumps the broken coffee mug in the trash and picks up her journal, wiping the paint off with her sleeve]

Ugh. Sorry about that. [She drops into the chair at her art desk, leaning back and staring at the ceiling]

I don't know... it's kinda a long bullshit story. Do you really want to hear it?

Nora

[lord_wizard]

[Oh dear, that's not a good sound. And he's not very good at being...comforting...but he's had plenty of practice at being yelled at, so...

Wry humor it is...]

I see Mark's been teaching you well...

Felix

[eat_me_beat_me]

[She whirls at the sound of his voice. Sorry, Felix. You just said the WRONG thing, man.]

Mark didn't teach me shit. I'm my own fucking person. Jesus Christ is that all people see me as? Mark's girlfriend?

Nora

[lord_wizard]

No, but there is a certain amount of association by proximity. If you didn't pick up each other's habits I'd honestly be surprised.

Felix

[eat_me_beat_me]

No, but I'm still my own person. Habits are one thing but I still deserve to be treated as an individual.

Like, for example, apologizing to Mark does not count as an apology to me.

[goldencirclet]

...N-Nora?

[eat_me_beat_me]

[Fffff that's one voice she didn't want to hear right now. She silently curses the castle for being such a fucking troll as she chokes down her anger. She does her best to sound calm as she replied]

H-hey, Goku.

[goldencirclet]

...what's wrong?

[eat_me_beat_me]

I'm just mad at someone... I'll... I'll be okay.

Filtered to Nora

[ruined_jaw]

You're not the only one with problems, Nora.

[In typical Jono style, he starts playing a song, not-too-subtly talking about what's going on with him. He knew he had to do something about his friendship with Mark and Nora, but he had his own problems, too. He had accepted who he was, but he wasn't happy about it. As had happened when Clan Akkaba had kidnapped him to turn him into a vessel for Apocalypse, he hadn't been given a choice in being turned back into a walking explosion. He only had so much of himself he could give at a time, and this week had not been Nora's.]

I'll explain everything, I promise. I just need some time.

Jono

[eat_me_beat_me]

No.

[Great. Not only was the journal open but Mr. Personality was trying to explain himself with music again. Not this time. She picks up the journal so she can talk as she paces around her room, kicking pillows and papers out of the way]

Not this time, Jono. You think you can just apologize to Mark about something that happened to both of us? You think that's okay? Well newsflash, asshole, it's not.

[Her voice raises, each word dripping with the pain and anger she's been feeling since she heard that letter. All that anger that now, finally, had a direction to go in.]

How dare you. How dare you?! I'm the one who got fucking locked in a fucking prison cell for being on a loss. I'm the one who got royally fucked over and you're gonna apologize to someone else for doing that? What? All I get are some fucking art supplies and you're calling it good? That's not how it works. What the fuck did you think was gonna happen? Did you really think that writing some fancy-ass apology about both of us to Mark was gonna fly? That we'd just be okay with that?

[She pauses, taking a breath. When she speaks again her voice is low and dark.]

You don't apologize to someone else about what you did to me. So you can take your "time" and just fuck off, Jono, because I don't want to hear it.

Nora

[ruined_jaw]

You think I wasn't going to apologize to you? I know what I did. I know I made a cock-up of everything, and I know I'm likely not going to be forgiven for it. I wanted to do so when I had it in me to do.

[His tone is tired, though his voice isn't physical, it carries the weight of the physical exhaustion he's felt since he came back. Trying to reconcile three lives lived separately from one another is taking it's toll on him]

I was going to apologize to you directly, but I've got three lives lived trying to sort themselves out in my mind right now, and memories missing to boot. I've been trying these past few weeks to make sense of it all.

[He "sighs" mentally.]

You're well within your rights to be pissed with me, but be pissed with me for the right reasons. I'm sorry, Nora. Like I said to Mark, I was trying to be someone I'm not, and you two paid the price. I'll understand if you never want to speak to me again, but I just wanted to say my piece.

Jono

[eat_me_beat_me]

[She laughs bitterly]

Do you even fucking listen to yourself? Seriously? I can't even fathom what goes on ing that flaming head of yours.

[She drops her journal on her desk and pulls out a cigarette, lighting it as she talks.]

So you expect me to believe that you only had it in you to apologize to Mark? What? Would writing a letter to both of us be too much of a strain for you? Or, I don't know, waiting until you had the balls or whatever to apologize to both of us individually? What did you think would happen? Did you really think that you could start to atone for what you did to two people you supposedly considered friends by only approaching one?

[She pauses as a thought occurs to her. Taking another drag on her cigarette she leans over the desk. It almost seems as if she's talking to herself, working through thoughts outloud.]

Do you know what you did? No, of course you don't. You're too busy with your music and your "woe is me" self righteous attitude. You split us up again. Once again you gave Mark the preferential treatment and left me out in the fucking cold. He got house arrest and first dibs on the apology train. Meanwhile I got a fucking prison cell and sloppy seconds.

[She scoffs, looking at the cigarette burning between her fingertips.]

Well you know what I think about that? [She stubs her cigarette out in the middle of the page, in the middle of his half baked apology.]