The Garden of Heathen

Blind Jealousy

Aussie sat there, looking down as she picked at her nails, one leg bouncing like a crazed jackhammer. Joan and Georgia sat staring at her but Gally couldn't keep still, he paced the room with his arms crossed. He didn't know it but his face and his ears were red. Not the same red as when Aussie had to help undress and redress him, no, this was an angry red. And that's partly why Aussie felt so nervous.

"So..." Georgia awkwardly spoke up. "Things are definitely changing huh?"

"Do you know that guy?" Gally suddenly asked, his tone so flat it barely sounded like a question at all.

Aussie shook her head, still not meeting anyone's eyes.
"You guys realize I could know a lot of people, I just don't remember them?"

"It seems like this guy knows you," Joan raised her brows a bit.

"Yeah, it's a nice change of pace," Aussie neurotically chuckled. "Someone comes up in the box actually remembering something."

"Aussie, why are you acting so weird if you don't remember him?" Georgia finally asked, looking at her bouncing leg that suddenly went still with that comment.

"Why am I- out of everyone here why does he know me?" She questioned after her eyes snapped sharply over to Georgia. "Do you know how weird it feels to have a- a stranger know you when you've been living in a hole for three years?"

"Is that... your only reason?" Georgia asked carefully.

Aussie got up and started a small pacing of her own, careful not to cross paths with Gally. She bit her thumb nail, her other arm crossed her body as if holding herself together.

"I don't know, I don't know," she sighed irritably. "I don't remember him, but I just have a weird feeling about him."

Gally stopped pacing, his arms going to his sides. He had experienced weird feelings too, feelings that led him to openly admitting to a nosey little girl with a motor mouth that he did in fact want to kiss Aussie. If her weird feelings were anything like his-

He had to get out of there. Without a word he turned and left, closing the front door hard behind him. He wasn't about to step foot in the Maze corridor to use the Anger Resolution Station, so he began to jog the usual path. Then he got angry that jogging wasn't making him feel better so he started sprinting. His feet pounded the ground as his pulse pounded his ears, every impact setting off a twinge in his bad shoulder.

He'd gotten into the woods and finally had to stop, palms braced on his knees as he sucked wind. He was still mad, but extra mad since he didn't know why he was so mad. He couldn't punch a tree because he'd break his hand and Gertie would ask him a thousand times why he punched a tree, and he couldn't scream because someone would absolutely hear him. He had nothing to do for release and that also upset him.

He pried a rock up out of the dirt and just hurled it as hard as he could, hearing a thunk as it hit a tree, then a clack as it bounced and hit the wall. Well, that was something. He found another one and chucked it blindly once again, this time hearing a strange clatter. His shoulders drooped as he sighed. What was it now?

He shuffled over toward the noise and saw the graves, Lanie's marker knocked over.

"Geez, the one girl here that didn't make Aussie or I miserable and I mess her grave up," he groaned under his breath as he began to fix it. "You wouldn't believe what's happening now."

Somehow it was easy to talk to a dead person so he kept going.

"Another guy showed up today and he recognized Aussie. Yup. You heard me, he recognized Aussie. And even worse, he 'gives her a funny feeling'," he said in a mocking tone. "You know who else had a funny feeling? Me. But now I know what it turns into."