The broken ones

Alone, not alone.

❀

After washing the paint away, Jenny dresses herself up, all in black. She walks into her brother's bedroom and sees him laying on his bed as always. She takes his car keys from his drawer, and stood before him.

" I'm going out. I made dinner already so go eat if you're hungry. " she says but he doesn't answer. He's wide awake, Jenny knows that. But she brushes it off and walks out of his room. Just the same thing every single day, and Jenny can't help but live through it.

She takes a deep breath, grabbed her stuffs, and walked out the front door. She gets in her brother's car and drives off down the road.

It took her exactly five minutes to reach the school and when she did, she parked right at the corner of the parking lot. Jenny felt nauseous for a second. It's probably the deep feeling of nervousness within her. The fact that she's doing this all alone, surprises her in every way. She was never the type to do sneaky things. But after breaking out of detention, meeting new people, and doing fun things. She wanted to do something even more thrilling, and this is just the first step.

She gets out of the car, grabbing the big roll of carpet out from the back. After taking a quick double glance around, she runs inside the campus. It's 9 at night so no one is probably around at this time.

The only bad thing about this is that it's dark and Jenny can barely see a thing. She hurriedly rush down every hallway until she arrives at the old art room. She pushes the classroom window open and jumps in, pulling the heavy carpet inside as well.

She carefully shuts the window quietly and quickly opens the trap door with the key.

Once she was down the stairs, she sighs in relief. Everything went well, and thank God no one caught her. Security guards would usually patrol the campus, even at night, but luckily today wasn't the day.

She turns on the light, and the whole room brightens up. She looks around, after hours of painting and decorating during the day, the whole room itself looks like a home. She sets the carpet on the cold cemented floor at the left side of the room. The carpet isn't as big as she thought it was. But it was good enough.

She takes her shoes off and laid herself down on the carpet. Her eyes pierced through the ceiling as she thought about every possible ways they could do in this room. They could eat their lunch here, study here, sleep in here and party in here. Jenny can't wait to do all of those things.

She closed her eyes for a while as darkness consumed her mind... and then, there was a knock on the door.

Jenny's eyes shot open and her heart drops. Who in the world would be here ? Jenny thought to herself. She got up quickly, not knowing what to do. Should I answer it ? She whispers to herself.

*knock knock*

The knocks were a bit inaudible. If it's the guards, they'd probably be pushing the door down right about now but that's wasn't the case.

Jenny puts on her shoes and quietly walked up the stairs. She takes in a deep breath before unlocking the door and when she did, the door busted open and Edna stands right before her.

" Surprise! " Edna whispers out loud. She held two doughnut bags in the air with a big smile planted on her face.

" What are you doing here ? " Jenny asked. They both locked the trap door and head downstairs.

" I felt bad. So I decided to come along. I even bought doughnuts from winchells. " Edna says. She looks at the floor where Jenny placed the carpet, eyes and mouth agape. She quickly takes off her shoes and sits down on the soft thin linen. Jenny joins in as well...

" Or you needed to get out of home ? " Jenny asked. She knew Edna wouldn't want to get out of her house at night, unless it was something serious. The fact that home is a place they wanted to escape from, they were glad to share the same feeling and definition of 'home'.

" That too..." Edna sighs. She then, hands Jenny her bag of doughnut and eventually ate hers. The both of them were silent.

Silence filled the room but it wasn't awkward at all. At times, Jenny would feel uncomfortable being in a situation like this, but now that they both got along pretty well, she felt more at ease than the first time they met. Probably because they share the same mindset, or found peace from the silence building up between them.

" Dad got home drunk again.. as usual. " Edna breaks in, her mouth full of doughnut bread.

" Does it happen all the time ? " Jenny asked, eating her doughnut too. Edna got her her favorite one, chocolate iced with coconut sprinkles on top. The only doughnut that satisfies Jenny.

" Yup. All the time. "

After eating their doughnut, they lay down on the carpet and stared at the ceiling. This is where things get a little deeper for the both of them and Jenny felt the sudden urge to open up something to Edna. It was about their friendship.

" Are you okay with all of this ? " She asked her.

" What do you mean ? " Edna turns her head to the right, and looks at Jenny.

Jenny hesitated to go on. She hopes that Edna feels the same thing as she was feeling, about this whole friendship thing they created.
" This friendship. Are you okay with it ? "

This time Edna was hesitant to answer the question. She remembered her decision of seeing them as acquaintances and not 'friends'. But somehow, over the days, it all changed. She, though, was still scared.

" I don't really know. I'm glad I met you guys but - " She stops talking, and looks at the ceiling once again.

This time Jenny turns to look at her, waiting for her to finish the sentence.

" But I'm scared.." Edna continues. " I'm scared that you guys don't see this whole thing as a friendship, that I'm the only one that sees it and adores it.. you know. "

" Same.." Jenny says. It's the only thing she could say because honestly, she does feel the same way. She was scared. Since this town is so small, she never really had a group of friends. It was a new start for her and she doesn't know when or how everything will end, and that scares her.

" Let's enjoy it while it lasts yeah ? " Jenny says, focusing her attention back at the ceiling.

" Yeah.. " Edna answers.