S.H.H.A.

Reality Check

A soft breeze drifted through the parted human door. It flipped the pages of one of my books laid open on the floor and brought with it the fresh smell of oak and wet grass. I thought back to the last time that door was kept open for longer than a few hours.

Before Jade and Mouse left. Before Boss and Daisy died. Before everything went wrong.

That's depressing.

I rolled my eyes at the annoying voice. Its presence had been mellow as of late and unobtrusive, but today felt different. I figured it was just the, for lack of better words, anniversary that energized the voice.

"Misha?"

Ilene eyed me worriedly. Her headphones hung around her neck, and she stopped twirling her phone on her index finger. I didn't notice her turning to face me, having been lost in thought.

"What?" I asked, but I already knew the answer. I'd been acting depressed all day. Not my usual 'life is horrible! The world's ending! I hate water!' kind of depressed. More like the 'I have nothing better to do with my life than to stare off in space and tell my voice to stop giving me therapy lessons' kind of depressed.

An object knocked my forehead hard enough to startle me to my feet. Ilene's water bottle toppled to the floor, hitting the ground with a clunk. My head throbbed, and I gaped at the sunshine-haired girl staring at me with bored eyes, her hand still raised from throwing the bottle. She spun back around to her computer screen without a word of explanation.

"What the heck!" I shouted, but all I received were the click, click, clicks of her fingers on the keyboard.

Scowling, I leaned down and retrieved the water bottle, gripping it tight enough my little voice commented on the likelihood of me crushing it. I ignored the voice and balled my fists. Before common sense could hinder my train of thought, I spread my arms and tackled Ilene from behind, sending her, me, and the seat to the floor.

"Misha!"

I used her chair to protect my nose from her elbow. She managed to flip the chair over, so we laid face to face with one another. If the thrumming in my forehead didn't remind me why we were there in the first place, I would have smirked knowing she couldn't try anything since I was the superior combatant.

"What?"

Ilene looked at me, yellow hair flung in every direction, trying to contain a grin. "Your shirt is on backward."

Embarrassed, my eyes darted to my chest. I dropped the water bottle to search for the tag, and surprisingly, Ilene was right. Unsurprisingly, Ilene took her opportunity to grab the water bottle and drench me in its contents.

With a shocked yelp, I pushed away from her and swiped my hands over my red shirt, trying to fling the water off. Ilene smirked and righted her chair. The glare I sent didn't faze her in the slightest.

"Feeling better?" she asked, earning her an even deeper scowl.

"I'm soaked," I said. She didn't seem to get my point, so I added distastefully, "In water. Do you think I feel better?"

"Would you have rather ice tea?" she asked, glancing toward the glass sitting by her keyboard.

"No."

Ilene shrugged and brought the glass to her lips. "Your loss."

With a loud groan, I dropped into the wooden chair. Just as I sat my arms down, the human door swung wide open, clanging into the wall with a bang! I jumped back up again.

"Surprise!" shouted the black-haired tyrant as she marched into my office like she owned the place. On her head was a red and orange birthday hat, and she blew a party horn while she crossed the room.