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16
JANE
PLAYLIST: CUT – PLUMB
Idon’t know exactly what happened to Amelie in the past two weeks, but she seemed to have changed. As I watch her type rigorously on the keyboard, her face isn’t as hardened as before. She seems to be less on edge, less harsh, less cold. She smiles more, laughs more, and even jokes here and there, and I catch myself more than once just looking at her.
“What?” she asks me, as she looks up from the screen.
“Nothing,” I say.
She tilts her head and draws up an eyebrow.
“Come on,” she says. “You stared at me. Not the first time.”
“You are different,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says and smiles. A warm, kind, caring smile.
“What happened?” I ask.
She smirks as she gets up, grabs her phone, and scrolls a bit as she sits on my desk. She holds the phone in front of my face, a video playing.
It shows her riding a horse, racing over a field with her arms wide, pure joy on her face. So much joy, it affects me.
“It’s El’s mare,” she says. “I rode horses as a kid, and I forgot how much it meant to me.”
“You look content,” I say.
“Because I am,” she says and smiles widely. I should be happy for her, but instead, I feel a little stitch in my chest. A stitch that has no business being there.
I smile faintly and get a “I’m glad you are” over my lips while I dive into my mind, analyzing what just happened with me.
The rest of the day in the lab, I am distracted, even though I have to prepare everything for our departure to Florida tomorrow, and I should be focused. But I am not, I am everything but.
“Jane,” she says, and puts her hand on mine as we pack a bag with equipment, and stops my hand. “What’s up with you? You are distracted.”
“I’m not,” slips out before I think, and she calls me out on it before I can do so myself.
“Who’s the liar now?” she asks and takes the bag from my hand. “We don’t need the VR glasses. This is what we need,” she says and hands me the EEG equipment.
“I—“ I begin and stop mid-sentence.
She looks at me, expectantly.
“I don’t want to break the rules,” I say.
“In what way would you break them?”
“In asking personal questions.”
She chuckles.
“Ask,” she says, her tone demanding.
“No,” I say reluctantly and cross my arms.
