The Ace of Spades

Chapter 11

The days pass by like they always do. Uneventful, but still with just enough action. Jojo spends more and more time with Elliot the Idiot and less time with anyone else. Toto gets along just fine with Viv, and Mea if she's there, and Mea thinks she's definitely more like Toto than Jojo. Toto gets around in life just fine without an abundance of friends and a simple social life. Mea is much like that. She's never really had - nor felt she needed - companionship.

But still, Victor is as much a friend as anything. He talks far more than Mea (probably more in one day than Mea's spoken in her entire life) but Mea's been thinking deeper about how much he talks lately. Victor is suspicious. Jojo is suspicious. Mimi and Viv are suspicious - individually and as a pair. Everything and everyone in this town is suspicious.

Except Toto. Toto is not suspicious. He's just really fucking adorable. Mea seems to appreciate her younger brother more and more as the time passes at Viv's.

And pass it does.

When Mea is sitting at the dining table in the kitchen one sunny morning, she happens to glance at the calendar on the wall.

August 2nd.

And how the fuck is that even possible? Wasn't yesterday the beginning of January. Wasn't March yesterday? Didn't she just arrive at Viv's yesterday? She has officially been here for over a month and time is certainly an illusion.

Jojo is once again absent from breakfast. No one - not even Toto - questions the ordeal. Is that suspicious? Is Mea just paranoid now? She used to be anxious about everything, and now she's anxious and paranoid. Mea's head is not on right.

She spends all of breakfast contemplating why she hasn't heard from Mimi, but why she believes Viv has. Isn't living in Mimi's uterus for forty-some-odd weeks enough to make Mimi phone? Mea knows - she groans at herself internally, because fuck, she knows - that Mimi loves each of her children. But Mea is growing less and less sure of the strength of this love.

Mea ponders what Jojo and Elliot do in their massive amounts of time spent together (but then abruptly stops pondering such a topic, because she is pretty sure she knows what goes on and she'd rather not imagine that), then mulls over diamond mining. Victor spent all day yesterday babbling about diamond mining and now Mea can't stop thinking about it.

Mea is virtually drowning in hapless curiosity. Mea has never been explicitly curious. Viv's place is strange.

Strange, strange, strange.

**

Victor and Mea meet on the beach instead of the cave. He walks from down a different division of the road, and calls for Mea as she steps into the damp, soft sand. Mea's never met Victor anywhere but the cave, only seen him outside of the wooded area once (digging for clay was monotonous and frustrating, and was also outside of the woods), and something about seeing him in a place less secluded is unsettling.

In a setting like such, Victor appears alienated. He seems taller, his shoulders seem more broad, his eyes and hair colour and the shape of his nose and the way he stands seems different. He seems so entirely different that Mea stares without really being conscious of doing so. He reminds Mea of just another teenage boy at school, someone she passes by without a second (or even a first, most likely) glance. The whole affair is unsettling.

Victor's eyes shift as if he's confused, his eyebrows contort, and Mea realises that - fuck - she is staring.

"Um," Victor clears his throat. "Are you okay?"

Mea cocks her head to the side. She is absolutely fine.

**

Mea's distracted lately. The silence isn't a common thing to her anymore. Hearing the silence is almost baffling, as if she forgets what it is at times. Even when Victor isn't talking, Mea's mind is. Mea's brain is asking questions, dwelling over potential answers, thinking of irrelevant details and juvenile wonderings. Mea's annoyed at her own brain, goddammit, but she can't seem to shut it off.