Fidgety Me

Evelyn sat in a secluded corner of the library, her long fingers fiddling with the dirk in her hands. She felt nervous here. It had been the first time in a long time that she had visited the library... but even now she regretted coming. The young girl had forced herself to come for her own benefit, but it was no use. She jumped at her own shadow nowadays. Even in the safety of her dorm, she often caught herself shooting nervous glances at the door.

Gently, she ran her hand over the dagger. Normally, she'd have a book cradled in her arms instead of a knife... she had loved books. She had often lost herself in the pages, reading for hours and hours on end, living the stories and excitement in the quiet of her own room. Evelyn never had friends, really. Everyone would just look past her, like she was a ghost... so it had been the only thing to do. Experience the exhilarating tales of somebody who did have friends.

Even her friends now, among this school of... people like her... had mostly seemed to have forgotten about Evelyn as everyone else had. She wondered if that was because of the recent happenings and excitement or because of some side-effect of her "gift." Either way, she wanted to cry.

Calming down, she began to very carefully moved her thumb along the blade. She had hated the stupid knife, so how had it come to replace the things she loved...? It had become a comfort to her, something that represented security and safety. Especially after what happened...

After Mr. Spion's betrayal, maybe combined with all the other unfortunate and confusing events throughout the school year, Evelyn had grown terrified. The only thing she wanted to do was go home, but that was impossible. The only place she could go off-campus was the nearby town, and there was no way she'd be caught there alone. Unless, of course, she wanted to be set off on another crazy mission instead... No, after Nepal, she was done. It had taken her long to even get over that, and she still got nightmares about getting clawed apart, or getting shot into ribbons, or being left in the snow to freeze.

She quickly found that she wasn't able to escape reality through her books, as much as she tried. They were just words on paper now, and she couldn't pay attention.

At some point, she stopped writing home. It was horrible to leave them in the dark, not that she ever told them much anyways, but it was a well known fact that all the messages going in and out of Beata were monitored... but monitored by who? They had let him teach a room full of children unsupervised, she wasn't going to trust anyone else with the address of her parents and the contents of her letters. Evelyn wondered if they were worrying about her. Or maybe they were forgetting about her too, because of her "gift"...

Her friends were gone too. Doubtless, Jace hated her now. Not without reason, she'd sent him to the infirmary with some nasty bruises just for trying to comfort her. A pang of sadness hit her.

Kimply, she didn't see much these days. Colette... her walk back to the dorm had been one of excitement and, undoubtedly, love. She had been practically skipping the whole way. Thoughts of Lette still swam in her mind from time to time, and each time her heart raced and she felt light on her feet. But if there was one thing Evelyn was short on these days, it was courage. There was no way she could go up to Colette now...

No books, no letters, no friends, no walks. It left little else to do. Around that time, she'd begun to take her knife everywhere. When in her dorm room, she'd sometimes just lay in bed and stare at it, at the reflection in the dark metal, at the little nicks and details. Her reflection was different now too, her hair had grown down to her shoulders and over her eyes. She didn't know of any barbers in Rosebury, and honestly, with the stabbings, she didn't trust anybody with scissors around her anyways. She'd considered trying to cut it herself, but always lost the courage whenever she stepped in front of the mirror and brought the dagger to her bangs.

The girl had always led a life of two stark contrasts. On one hand, there was her personal, quiet life. Inside, in the solace of her room, everything neat and orderly and clean. On the other was her social life, if you could call it that... one of constant panic and awkwardness and one mess-up over the other, just wishing she could squirm out of the situation as soon as possible. Now she felt directionless, and while staring blankly around the library as her finger ran over the dirk, she realized that chaos that followed her was consuming her beloved personal life as well.

At her surprise, she felt a warm tear roll down her cheek. Had she been crying? Evelyn put the dagger to her side and brought her sleeve up to her eyes to dry them, sniffling. She was trapped in this stupid school.

I just wanna go home... She wanted to sleep in her own bed. She wanted to go through a day without getting kissed by a stranger to avoid a creepy werewolf, without falling in love with a girl, without somebody calling her gifted, or without worrying about getting stabbed, or put in a coma, or worse. She could feel more hot tears falling from her clenched eyes. It was unfair...

Ugh, books. Lindsey couldn't really read books. Every single time she had tried, it was like eating collard greens. It's terrible and leaves her regretting her most recent decision. Now, when she found a good book (which was an extremely rare occasion), she would pick it up and not put it down until she was done reading the very last page. But today, she had to be in the library. Her classes called for it. There was one specific book she needed to read for her class... due tomorrow. She had less than 24 hours to read an entire book. That was going to end well. But she thought that she could at least get started on it and not get a zero rather than just not try at all and epically fail worse than she would have if she read it. With a heavy sigh, she began trudging through the isles of books. There were so many and she had no idea where to start looking for this stupid book. All of the isles looked the same and she didn't really bother to look at the labels. She just knew what it was called and that was about it. So, she was pretty much just going to waste all of her time searching the library.

Well, she thought she was. As she continued looking at the spines of what seemed to be thousands upon thousands of books, she was just about to give up until she rounded another large shelf and found herself pretty far back in the library. She didn't even realize how far she had gone until she heard the sniffling of someone fairly close to her. That was weird. She hadn't even seen anyone in here. Quickly glancing around and turning her head to see where it was coming from, she slowly began to freak out on the inside just like that time when Garrett had accidentally terrified her. But after only about a minute of searching, she finally found the source of the sniffles. There was a small girl in the corner of the library who seemed to be crying... or at least trying to keep from crying. But it was what was in her hands that startled Lindsey so much. Why was the girl holding a knife? She wasn't protecting herself from anything around here... was she? With a quick nervous look around, Lindsey finally focused back on the girl in front of her. "Hey are you okay?" she asked softly.

The sudden voice made her jump, and instinctively she reached for the dagger... only to feel a sharp prick of pain on her fingertips, reflexively pulling them back to her face. "Agh!" she cried out, unable to stop herself. Blood had begun to bead and slip down along her long slender fingers and down her palm. Her hands were quaking too, from either the pain or the crying or both...

With another suppressed sniffle, she nodded, without so much as looking at the girl talking to her... of course, every time she left the safety of her dorm walls something humiliating like this happened. It took all her willpower not to sob. "Y-y-yes..." she answered in a small, tremulous voice, staring down at the carpet. Evelyn was all too painfully aware of the pulsing pain in her hands and her flushed cheeks, glistening with tears.

As soon as Evelyn cried out, Lindsey jumped out of pure reaction. It had taken her by surprise but when she was able to focus on the girl again, she was becoming more worried than anything. "Are you sure? That looks like it must have hurt..." She responded nervously. She never liked it when people hurt themselves whether it be by accident or even on purpose, but by the way this girl was acting, it really concerned her-- not just because of the cuts she had just accidentally given herself but because she was in the corner of the library crying. That was never a good sign. "Here I can take you to the nurse..." she offered.

Chances are, Evelyn would not have accepted her offer in any circumstance... but the idea of running into Jace again in the nurse's office after what she did made panic flutter in her chest. "N-n-no...!" she blurted out, holding her hands protectively to her chest as she looked up. Her cheeks seemed to redden even more at the small outburst.

"I-I'm fine, r-really..." she said in a quieter voice, almost a mumble. She mentally hit herself over the head. Stupidstupidstupidstupid... This was too embarrassing. Why did she even bother coming to the library in the first place?