Gehenna's Gate

Had Enough

"Surpriseeeeee~" Vena sang happily as her best friend opened her front door, giving a dramatic wave of her hands as she did.

"V! Oh thank god, I'm starving and super bored and my mom won't let me drive like this. Wanna go grab some food?" Rae exclaimed happily, seemingly doing well despite what she'd gone through the other day.

"Your wish is my command, my lady." Vena gave a little bow, the two now laughing a bit before Rae turned to quickly yell to her mother that she was leaving with Vena.

"How are you feeling?" Came Vena's question as soon as they were in the car, backing out of the driveway.

"Oh, can we go back to that authentic Mexican restaurant? It was really good. And I'm fine as long as I stay on top of the pain pills! No need to worry about little ole me." Rae brushed off the incident with a wave of her hand, acting like it was no big deal.

... Of course Rae would pick the place Xiao worked at. Hadn't he said a long time ago he was off on Monday's? Maybe he wouldn't even be there either way considering he was absent from school. Not like Vena had it in her to tell Rae no after everything she'd been through. She'd suffer through anything for her best friend anyway.

"Sooooo, how was school? Anything juicy happen while I was gone? Did Xiao finally get that smooch he tried to steal from you the other night?" Rae leaned in toward the purple haired girl, giving her a theatrical wiggle of her eyebrows before bursting out into a fit of laughter at the death-glare Vena gave her.

"He skipped today, actually." Vena stuck her tongue out at the end of her sentence, causing Rae to give a sad exhale in response.

"Boo, how boring. I'm sure he'll try next time he sees you anyway."

Rae didn't even question the odd timing of Xiao missing a day at school. Maybe Vena really was just extremely paranoid and most people didn't instantly jump to the worst possibility as soon as it showed it's face.... How nice that must be.

Vena's brain had been wired that way since as long as she could remember, probably after all the repeated times she'd been betrayed or found her intuition being right despite how badly she wanted to be wrong, how badly she wanted everything to not go down the worst possible route.

How interesting it was that her own personal experiences actually altered her brain chemistry so heavily.

"It would have been a nice and peaceful day if Mrs. Chance hadn't talked me into talking to the new school psychologist." Vena groaned, trying to smoothly change the subject off of Xiao.

"Wait WHAT? She actually convinced you to go talk to a shrink? What did you say?" Rae gasped, jaw practically on the floor with this new riveting development.

It was hard not to laugh at the blonde's reaction. Vena parked the car, unbuckling her seatbelt before turning to meet the eyes of her closest friend.

"What do you think I said?" Vena questioned, a smile playing at her lips.

"The least amount of words humanly possible." Rae stifled a giggle, knowing that session had definitely been a waste of time.

"Why'd you even bother going anyway?"

Vena ripped a blank piece of paper out of her school notebook before slipping a pen into her pocket as well.

"My mom called and asked the school to tell me to go talk to her... I meant to ask her what that was about actually." Vena proceeded to fold the sheet of paper until it was small enough to slip into her pocket with the pen, free hand now reaching for her phone.