Stay...Calm

Chapter 29

Gina sat on the comfy chair she slept on, typing away on her laptop. Opal giggled while trying to paint Pauline's nails.

"Y'know, there was this painful practice a little more than decade ago," Opal chatted, "where girls would hot glue long nails to the tip of their fingers, but then it would overheat their-"

Gina interrupted, "You're blabbering ag-"

"Sorry!"

Victorine laid flat on her belly with her legs extended up to the knees and her toes pointed. She watched as everything played out below her, and laughed along like it was all a cartoon. Gina watched whatever was on her laptop with an oddly big smile on her face. A little too big...

"Gina, whatcha watching?" Opal asked. Gina slammed her laptop shut, hastily. Opal giggled.

"That's what she'd do whenever mom walked in," Opal told Pauline.

"Would you shut up about Mrs.-"

"Every time."

Victorine rolled off the canopy and slid down.

"Okay, how does she get up there?" Pauline wondered aloud. Victorine just shrugged and left the room to find another situation to watch from the sidelines. She walked a little down the hallway, and easily found one: Horace bickering with his little cousin again.

"Stop following me around!" Horace exclaimed, trying to walk quickly so he'd lose him.

"I mean, no one else is gonna-" Buckley explained.

"Just go with Pauline on some weird scheme or something!"

"She's busy."

"Then watch T.V. for an hour!"

Buckley stopped walking and knit his eyebrows. "It's all just the news."

"Watch the news!"

"I don't wanna hear about all the-"

"Killing? Disease? War? That's life, buddy."

"I...I don't wanna..."

"Don't you remember yesterday? And earlier today? We just have to 'do what we could do.'"

Horace walked off, and Buckley didn't follow him. He sighed.

"Some people never learn," he whispered. Victorine pranced up to him an patted him on the back. That made him smile just a little.

"I think I'm gonna go mess with my Aunt's old voice-Alexa-electronic-thingy," Buckley said. "Wanna watch?"

Victorine nodded and stood by the overlook of the grand living as Buckley pulled out his phone. She rested her chin on the railing as she watched Jacey and Parker sitting on the couch below. Jacey stared at the boarded-up hole in the window where Anais jumped through.

"That last thing I want in the whole world," Jacey said, "is to end up like that."

"You're not," Parker replied.

"But if we stay cooped up in here, we might. That's what turned Anais crazy and-"

"Let's just put this behind us." He put his arm around her, hoping it would calm her down a bit.

"We can't. The war's just going to keep happening. And we'll still be here. Or we'll run out of food or go crazy and kill each other or-"

"That won't happen. I'll keep you sane."

Jacey stared at her feet for a minute, biting her lip and fiddling with her fingers.

"I love you, baby girl," he told her. Jacey glanced up at him, then at the window.