Mimeomia

12 | elysium

CHAPTER TWELVE

ELYSIUM

( — any place or state of perfect happiness; paradise. )

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

          JILLIAN PRIDES HERSELF IN BEING IN TOUCH WITH HER EMOTIONS. Michaela prides herself in knowing how to read her, but it's not like it's hard. Jillian's face is pretty transparent when it comes to showing emotion, which might be one of the several reasons why she's so good at what she does, and you can tell how she's feeling just by paying attention to her facial expression.

          It caught Michaela a bit off-guard when they first met, truthfully. The girl reacted to almost everything she said, and Michaela watched her big, blue eyes narrow or widen and her full lips form an O or press together in a thin line. Watching Jillian's reactions was like reading about emotions in a textbook, with faces twisted into comical exaggerations of happiness or anger.

          So, when Michaela tells her 4W is about her and all the ways their relationship didn't work out, Jillian gracefully looks like she's about to scream or throw up. That's also how Michaela felt when Lincoln dropped that bomb on her, even though she has always done a much better job at concealing her emotions, and didn't even explode as much as she felt she would.

          "Michie," Jillian sighs, twirling a strand of Michaela's hair around her index finger. Her own hair has been cut to half the length it used to be during college, not even reaching her shoulders. "I'm sorry. That must be really awkward for you. Have you, at least, given him permission to write about it? Because I think everyone knows your dad would destroy him in court if you haven't."

          Michaela stirs on the couch, making Jillian drop her hand, and her chest tightens. "We've talked about it, and he has sent me the first draft just for me to, you know, make sure the changes he has made are enough or if there's anything he should cut out from the book. My main issue with it is that he started writing it right after his break, meaning he might have spent the last three months of 2016 and the entire year of 2017 working on this thing without ever telling me about it. He only did it because Ginny decided to call him for an in-depth interview and, since we're doing it together and she got sick, I had to be the one driving all the way here to ask the first questions."

          Jillian crosses her legs over the faux-leather pillows of the couches. "Okay. Yikes. But I'm assuming you've patched things up at some point, right? Because, the last time we talked about this, you were bawling and saying you had moved out because you absolutely hated his guts and were seconds away from burning all your copies of his books. Signed copies, let me add, which would sell for—"

          "I don't need the money."

          "That's not what I meant. You wouldn't have to keep the money; you could donate it to charity, or something." Jillian sticks out her tongue. "Having been born with a silver spoon certainly has its benefits." She stretches her arms above her head and Michaela grits her teeth, even though she knows Jillian means no harm with that affirmation. The problem is that she has had to deal with the negative connotation of that expression her whole life, with people thinking she deserves nothing of what she has accomplished so far, as it was all handed to her thanks to her parents' influence. "So you're okay now?"

          "We're on relatively good terms, I suppose." Michaela massages her shoulders, stiff after being in the same position for so long. "I'm trying not to think much about it while Ginny and I are still working on the story, but I don't know what will happen next. We still have plenty of issues to work on and, by the time we do, perhaps things will have changed."