love letters | shourtney

vii.

"Hey, Shayne called me." Olivia says as I walk past her. I pause and drop my Docs next to the couch. Olivia looks to me cautiously from a stool in her kitchen. 

"What'd he say?" I plop down and start pulling on my shoes. After my trip down emotional exhaustion lane yesterday, I'm feeling pretty apathetic. 

"He called to check on you." A part of my mind sparks with joy upon hearing that. Another part of it shuts the spark off immediately knowing it was a completely platonic, friendship check in. I hate myself. 

"He said that you had a major panic attack yesterday and he was worried about you. He knew you were here, and he also knew that you wouldn't respond to him." I sigh heavily, struggling with the laces on my boots. I feel her silently staring at me. "You didn't tell me about the panic attack."

"It wasn't the biggest of my problems when I got here." I meet her eyeline, my tone sharper than I intended. "Sorry." 

"It's okay. Yesterday was a lot. It should be me apologising. I know you don't wanna be prodded with dumb questions." She stands up and takes her cup to the sink. It was some weird vitamin drink. She offered me a cup, but I just said I'd wait to get a coffee at the office. I stand up and reach down to try and touch the ground. 

Olivia forced me to go to the gym with her, in return I got to use her shower. I'm not opposed to going to the gym, and I enjoyed it, but I'm terrified that I'm going to be sore all day. 

Emotional exhaustion and sore, fatigued muscles do not bode well for a day of shooting. We have to film an episode of Beopardy, EIOYI and What're Those?!, we have a pitch meeting and a lot of us have writing deadlines tomorrow. I think I'm going to have a lot to write in my notebook tonight. 

"You ready to go?" She pulls on a pair of slides. She somehow makes white slides, black socks, green sweatpants and a cropped black sweater look like it's worth millions of dollars. My Docs, baggy black jeans and grey singlet pale in comparison. 

"Sure." I link arms with her and grab my bag. "Wait." I freeze and pull away from her. I left the notebook on her bedside table. 

She follows me and stands in the doorway while I get it. "Did you write in it last night?" 

"Yeah." I sense a question dancing on her tongue. She goes to speak but I catch her before she can. "Don't ask how long I was awake for." She tuts and shakes her head at me. I smile sweetly in response. 

"What did you write?" She queries as we walk out. I wait until she locks her door to reconnect our arms. 

"All of it. I just got it all off of my chest. All the feelings about Shayne, some about you, sorry, stuff about Dr. T." I shiver as I press the cold metal button to call the elevator. 

"You cold? We can go back and you can borrow one of my jackets if you want." She pulls me back from stepping into the elevator. I made the mistake last night of still not grabbing a jacket or hoodie of any kind. 

"It's fine, was just a thought." I lie as I pull her into the metal transport box. 

"I don't mean to pry, but isn't it a little risky taking the notebook to work? What if someone, specifically Shayne, finds it?" She applies mascara in the mirror at the back of the elevator. 

"It's risky, yes, but my homework isn't done. I'm supposed to write about my dreams as well. Dr. T says that there could be something else in my dreams that could help me identify what's going on in my head. I need to write about my dream from last night." 

"It's nice to hear you didn't nightmare again." She leads the two of us out to our cars. "Can I call you once I start driving? I wanna keep this talk going." She opens my car door for me.