Emily's Heart

Chapter 4 - Jake P.O.V.

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4  Hand Me a Tinfoil Hat

Jake

The door opened, and Greta pushed her way in. At first, I saw no one else, just perfect, pouty-lipped Greta.

Doesn’t she grasp that there’s a hell-storm going on out there?

Most people looked like they were about to throw up out of fear. Others looked like they’d just as soon kill you as look at you. People’s eyes were haloed in dark circles, evidence of lack of sleep from worry that at any minute, someone was going to break into your house and slit your throat so they could take your junk and sell it for drugs. Or maybe kill you for no reason other than they’d got a taste for killing and thought it was fun. BA, if you saw a shifty-eyed person, you’d figure them for crazy and paranoid and maybe offer them a tinfoil hat to protect them from the rays that were ‘after them’.

But after? Crazed-looking, dirty, shifty-eyed people were everywhere. And they weren’t paranoid. There really were people out to get them, and evil energy waves really did pelt down on their psyches.

I wished I could make tinfoil hats for all of their heads. I wished I could find a way to protect them from the constant toxic rain of Dark Energy that poured down on them. But even if I could make enough shiny hats, I knew it wouldn’t work. I doubted there was any external thing we could do to rid ourselves of Ciardha.

There was bouncy Greta in the doorway. And then I saw that she trailed behind Greta.

She didn’t look fresh and dewy and bouncy. No, Emily had the same dark circles under her eyes that I’d seen on countless faces of late (and the face that greeted me in the mirror each morning). The dark circles revealed that she’d had many a sleepless night too.

Good! She should. This whole nightmare is all her damned fault. I’m glad she can’t sleep. I hope she doesn’t sleep until this whole thing is over. If it’s ever over.

I tried to talk myself into wishing her the worst, but those thoughts were lies I told to harden my heart to her. Don’t let her in. She’ll hurt you like she did before.

My hands were folded together in front of me, resting on the long, hard plastic table. I could feel the sweat pool on my palms. I decided to put my hands on my thighs, where my jeans would at least soak up most of the sweat.

Why are you so nervous? She’s the one that should be nervous, not you!

I should have stood. It would have been the courteous thing to do. But I wasn’t feeling courteous, and I wasn’t about to do anything that would be construed as if I cared.

I avoided eye contact with all but a few people. But I chanced it and looked into her eyes. They weren’t crazy and darting, but they weren’t bright, shining orbs like Greta’s either.

No, Emily’s eyes were the same deep pools of emerald green, shot through with flecks of gold as they’d always been. But her eyes looked older. Tired and careworn. If you saw only her eyes, you’d think she was a woman at least twice her actual age of seventeen Earth years.

Her hair was pulled back in a straight ponytail, and she didn’t wear a hint of makeup. Her cheekbones were prominent, her collarbones visible beneath her grey T-shirt. She was gaunt.