11th November

HOMGHOMG!!
Last night I hit 50k!!
Whoo!!

Hehe.
I'm feeling so happy, I think I might post an excerpt....
Now to take today off, do homework, chill, read, and then tomorroe we're back in the game! >D

We sat together, all huddled up on Kittie's bed, in a little group of four, private and calm. At first we wept a little, but it was only slight tears, the ones that are forced to come, for we knew that the real tears would flow after we had been parted, if any were to flow at all. We held onto each other, smiled at each other, and spoke small jokes of things that had happened in the the time we had known each other. Red eyed and dry mouthed, we said out goodbyes.

"Remember the time when..."

"Did you ever find..."

"What did she say when..."

"How old were you when..."

"I'm going to miss you." My throat caught up, and my stomach tipped. In two weeks, we would all be gone, all out in the world on our own. These friendships we had formed had been unusual, unlikely, yet strong as carbon bonds. We would never lose the memories we had made, even though they were spotted with the tainting of the Institution.

"It's going to be really strange with you guys gone," Thelma said, her eyes distant and staring as she looked into Constance's face. They shared a look, one which I wasn't familiar with but seemed a little like a hunger, or a lust for something, and then it was gone, as quickly as it had come. Constance's eyes brightened a little. Thelma's mouth turned into a more smiling line. I thought I had imagined it. "I'm going to be lonely, I think."

"What about Roxanne?" Kittie laughed.

"Oh, I'll have Roxanne, of course," Thelma backtracked awkwardly. "I didn't mean it like that." She looked at me apologetically, and I laughed.

"It's fine."

"I'm just used to there being four of us, or at least three of us, and it's going to be totally weird with you not here. That's all. I'm going to miss you both." Again, I thought I saw the flash of admiration, want, fly into Thelma's eyes, but once I looked closer I realised I had been wrong. She was just sad...

"It will be weird it just being us two again," Kittie told her sister. "I haven't spent time alone with you, just with you, in a very long time."

"You have lessons, and at supper," I suggested.

"Yeah, but there were always people around then. Once we go to work, people will leave us alone, they won't be around. We're going to be the lowest of low servants in that house, let's face it, are people going to want to get involved in our affairs? Especially if they know we're ex institute?"

"You'll have people watching over your shoulder," I reminded her.

"That's not the same thing. Somebody watching over you, and being with you all the time, are two totally different things. They'll leave us alone, and besides, if they don't we've always got nighttimes to catch up with each other. They'll definitely leave us alone then. We have our own room, because they don't want us having the chance to steal anything from anybody else. They lock us in, I think, like here."

"Don't you ever feel like we're treated like animals? We're locked in here, trapped like wild animals in cages."

"Like at the circus."

"The circus?"

"Yeah, they have wild animal attractions there, and lots of them. I hear they have lions, and tigers."

"That's horrid. Poor animals."

"Like us, I suppose, locked in but at least they get fed and worked."

"I don't know..." I glanced at Thelma, and realised she hadn't spoken in more than five minutes. Her face was pale, drawn as though she needed to sleep, and her mouth had morphed itself into a thin line that seemed to cut across her face like a scar. She seemed to be awfully affected by the premature departure of the sisters, and I wondered why. She'd never seemed particularly close to Kittie, and with Constance it only seemed like a physical kind of relationship. There were hand gestures, and support whenever either of them felt ill, or bad tempered, but I hadn't thought it meant she was that close to her. It made me feel quite silly, really, to have formed only loose bonds with them both after the time I had spent with them. My relationship, my friendship, with Thelma seemed much more substantial that what I had built with Constance or Kittie, and I considered for a moment whether this was my fault.

"Are you all right?" I asked Thelma tentatively, and she merely nodded. Constance was also silent, her face closed as though she feared that if we could read her emotions we may penalise her for them, and she might lose our support. I closed my eyes, rubbed my face over with my hand and yawned. All this upset and disruption was tiring.

"What time is it?" I asked. Normally Thelma's response would have been to make me read out the time for myself using her little silver pocket watch, but instead she only glanced at it and mumbled what time it was. I was half expecting her to tell me that I had to check to see if she was right, and that it would be some kind of test, but she didn't seem to be in teacher mode, and I wasn't willing to press.

"Almost seven."

"Shouldn't we head down to supper?" I asked carefully. Kittie held her hand out, and surprisingly, I took it in my own and warmed it between my fingers. In these few hours I think our friendship had blossomed, grown out of the compost which we had lain still for some time now. I smiled at her, and she smiled back, and her intense, dark eyes smiled too.

"Yes, we probably should." Thelma's voice was barely audible.



There we go. A little bit of crap to brighten up your day. Now I have homework to do.... ;]