Change of Heart (NaNoWriMo 2011)

Chapter 10

Jariel was already growing sick and tired of the job searching. Couldn’t Dawn just give it a break and realize he wasn’t going to get a job any time soon? Jariel was just going to go with the flow until she realized it. He wasn’t going to be here long enough for it to matter anyways.

            Jariel had fallen asleep last night, giving up all hope on finding something on the television that wasn’t totally, and utterly, depressing. The night, however, had different plans. He slept restlessly, tossing and turning and then waking up with nightmares. Nightmares about what had happened to him, what was going on in the mortal realm, and what would happen if he let Elise won, something he knew would never happen, but nonetheless he still dreamt it. He woke up, tired, agitated and annoyed. At what, he really didn’t know. Maybe it was the fact that he was still not home, or the fact that he was here in the first place, or maybe it was both of them combined. Either way, he was upset. He found a note on the fridge from Dawn letting him know that she had left for work and would be back around four. It also let him know that there were leftovers from the other night in the fridge for him to eat. Jariel wasn’t feeling hungry, so he had went back in to the living room to try again to find something watch able on the television. He had been lucky this time, some cartoons were on instead. He had managed to watch that for about two hours or so before the dreaded news came back on, causing Jariel to turn the television off, leaving him bored once again. He decided to go see if Dawn had any other books stashed away in her room, but when he got there something else caught his eyes.

            There, sitting on her bed open as if to welcome his curious eyes, was her sketchbook. The fact that it was her sketchbook didn’t really interest Jariel. It was what Dawn was sketching that made Jariel pause and stare. A sketching of himself, his face, sat on the paper. She had caught his features perfectly. However, the expression that she had drawn on his face was that of sorrow. Like he was longing for something. Which, was true, but most people, at least he thought, drew people with smiles on their faces. Happiness instead of sadness. Jariel couldn’t figure out why she had drawn him that way, unless he really was sulking about the apartment looking like living death. He put the sketchpad back on her bed and walked out, questions spinning in his head. Why did Dawn draw him? Why that expression? Jariel really didn’t know what to make of it. He decided to act as through he had never seen it and walked out of the room. He didn’t even bother to see if anything was on the television, he knew that he would most likely just end up with disappointment.  He turned on the radio, but it was just some stupid talk show. In the end, he just ended up lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling, bored and with nothing to do to make that any better.

            When Dawn returned home, her arms full with newspapers and stuff about jobs, which made Jariel groan in agony, Jariel was lying on the floor, still staring at the ceiling.

            “Is that what you did all day?” she asked, dumping the stack of papers on the kitchen table. Jariel nodded, his eyes closed. He was hoping that when he woke up, this nightmare would be over. He knew it was a wasted attempt, though, and that he would wake up on the floor of Dawn’s apartment.  “Why did you do that?” she asked, and he could tell she was trying to hold in her laughter.

            “Nothing else to do.” He answered, as if it was obvious, his eyes still closed.

            “Well, c’mon, we have papers to look through!” she said, a merry ring in her voice. Jariel did his best not to groan in front of her. He reluctantly got up and went in to the kitchen, where they spent the next hour and a half looking through job wanted ads. By the end of it, Jariel never wanted to see another job wanted article ever again in his life. Thankfully the time went by fast, especially when they were interrupted by a woman, who looked about Dawn’s age, maybe a little bit younger, walked in. She had long, black, hair that lay perfectly on her back. She was wearing black combo boots, fishnet stockings and a black skirt. Jariel looked up to see that she had on a black shirt with a skull on it as well. She looked like that girl from the show he was watching earlier, NCIS he thought it was called. Jariel guessed that this was Dawn’s roommate, Annette.