Lights. (An AJR fanfic)

Chapter 11

Warning: since I am a very unpredictable writer, or a thief and an artist, I'm just warning you of what might come in this chapter. As I write this warning I don't know what will be written in ten minutes, or what will be written in an hour, if anything. I'm only warning you because I'm writing this chapter from inspiration purely fuelled by the one and only Fucking John Green. I just finnished reading his book 'Paper Towns' and I'm pretty pissed and pretty awed at the ending, because I thought so much like Q, and so unlike Margo, an it was all based on shit poetry and I hate poetry and I understood it only because Fucking John Green spoon fed the answers to me.

And so I really don't know what will happen in this chapter of mine, written only through the light seeping from my cracks, the spindling fibres of the strings of mine about to break, so that you can see inside the hell of my mind, and so I can see into yours.

~EH

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I go to a room that Carl was in, so I thought I could just chill with him until the meet and greet was over. He likes the idea of me staying out of the way of coarse, but he has to leave and guard the doors because that's his job, so if I chill here, if be chilling alone. I decide I don't want to be alone, because I'm still getting over Kari's absence, and Kari's pregnancy, and Stan's idiocy, and how I almost could've gotten kidnapped or raped the other day, and how I just ignored everything going on with my life just because of the presence of others.

So I decide to roam the hallways, the thing I do best, and I hope I don't get lost, one of the things I need to improve on, and eventually I get to a bedroom.

It's blue, and it has everything in it that makes it seem like Ryan's bedroom, but Jacks room, I rememebr, was also blue, and so this could be anyone's bedroom. it doesn't feel like it truly is Ryan's room even though it feels like it. But I stay here only because it's comfy looking and I for want to get even more lost, so I look around. There's a shelf that's almost filled with books, but you can tell the shelf wasn't meant to be for books, because it can barely hold all the weight of the book and sags in the middle. I look over at it, trailing my ginger along the spines.

The titles range from Shakespeare's Hamlet to Taro Goml's Everybody Poops. I lightly finger the top of a book, pulling it out halfway. Wither, by Lauren DeStephano. I've read the book four times myself, and I wondered who's room I wan in, and why they'd have this book with all the others. I brought it over to the bed and lay down, carefully sculpting the pillows so I can half-sit-down-half-lay-down. I settled into my little burrow of someone else's room, and I started to read the book again.

I was barely started on the 50th page, just when Rhine, the main character, is explaining her hate of dungeons, when Jack walks into the room, a towel wrapped across his shoulders and a surprised look on his face.

"Hi," he says, blinking as he can't remember why he was here.

"Hi," I say back, a little hesitantly. I've been in this room before, if it's Jacks, and so I don't feel guilty about being here. It's just I feel slightly guilty about being here without him really knowing I'm here.

"What'cha readin'?" he says slowly, almost cautiously. Maybe he's hoping I didn't see is collection of children's books. Even though I did.

"Wither," I reply, angling the book so that he can see the cover. He nodds, somewhat embarrassingly.

"Where'd you come across it, anyway? It's a strange book, not that popular," I say.

"You know of it?" he asks, coming over and sitting in the bed beside me. I move over, making room for him.

"I've read it like, four times," I say almost matter-of-factly. Jack moved over so he could see what page I was on, and then he just settled down beside me, in the same half-sitting-half-laying position, but inches away.