Jupiter Falls ✓

o17| self evaluation

Chapter 17

Saturday Nights used to be more fun. I remember the sounds of laughter that would erupt from my mouth the minutes after a saucy line in a rom com. It had been a while since I laughed, or more, allowed myself to laugh—properly.

A real good, real hearty laugh.

Saturday nights were for laughing, now they were for long, sour-faced work shifts.

That's what I thought the second the clock on the wall turned eight.

Saturday night was now which means my work time was nearing—meaning the time to stop painting was now too.

An exaggerated sigh sounded solemnly through the lonely room as if trying to make the room of intimate objects understand how I felt: exhausted. The bed sat unmade, crumpled bills and important (because all important things were in the bedroom) letters scattered, oyster card lay still somewhere (it's been lost since Tuesday), my half eaten lunch (a cucumber and tuna sandwich from PRET) lay next to my painting.

I don't really know if they understood how I felt because nothing but silence and silence and more silence happened after. So even if they did understand, they didn't care and they were mine.

My own things didn't care.

The room didn't care.

Yet I knew deep down, a sentiment in the back of my head that— blue would care— and he'd damn well try and lift my work load too because Harry cares.

He cares about me ... And I... care about him.

The thought that he cares was enough to make me put my paints down, and pack up. I didn't like packing up, it was long and I didn't have the energy right now for long. But, fuck, Harry was enough to bring out energy I didn't know I had.

Maybe that's what you're meant to feel for someone you feel deeply about? If the answer is, yes... it means fear is slowly creeping in because... I didn't feel that with Hays.

"That doesn't sound like love Jupiter... It sounds more like a debt to be paid."

At 20:13 pm, I had left my paints wrapped in cling film and went to work at Joe's Bar. On the way there my mind couldn't stop spiralling from Harry to Hays and Hays to Harry—it was all just so confusing.

By the time I reached the bar everything was slow. The pace of my steps, the length of my words... everything.

I'm sure a few costumers found the long vowel sounds of my words weird, well for a bartender (people in my line in of work were loud and welcoming).

I looked like I needed a drink and drown my thoughts with the next bartender along (hopefully not Harry though, he's the reason I need a drink).

Here and there when Harry and I crossed paths, we'd smile at each other then get back to work. Some costumers were nice, but a group of annoying teens definitely weren't as usual. It didn't take my mind of things like annoying things usually did. When you get all worked up about how stupid something is—tonight it just wasn't happening.

At 21:46 pm, a drunken group of lads had decided to "baptise" a skinny, sober lad in the group. I sighed, on another night I would have laughed at the suggestion. Then the other, taller, tanned lad stood on the chair as if he was on the altar ( when really it was just a raised platform). The other drunk-off-their-headed lads proceeded to clamp their arms on the skinny lad, dragging him to stand in all his quivering-five-foot-five-inched-glory under the guy standing on a chair. Then someone handed him a super sized beer glass filled with water, "I declare you pure!" He screamed before dropping the liquid on the guy's head.