I hear words go past me backwards.

Funny how what felt like hours of throwing the girl around yesterday had barely put a dent in her energy, and yet an early morning and an hour or so of class today had completely exhausted her. Maybe it was getting her into to plenty of leapfrog and hopscotch... Or maybe it was learning not to go along with endless requests for tea parties and sugar.

Well, whatever, Adele was currently crashed out asleep with her mouth open, and using Effy as a cushion. Tempted as she was to sneak off for a smoke, for now, she was basically stuck, cause moving was only going to wake her up again. It was actually quiet. Hadn't got that for the best part of a weekend. It was something to make the most of for however long it actually lasted.

Meantime, her phone was going to have to do for entertainment. People to text, games to play... few pictures to take (yeah yeah, of her kid). That sort of thing.

[[Open door, open post, etc etc. I'm around tonight and bored.]]

Most days, Effy found issues could be pretty easily buried. She was practiced, good at it, and spending time away had helped. Skiing wasn't her, snowboarding, hot tubbing, relaxing. It wasn't really her. Actually it was easier not being her.

But. Reality had slowly leaked back in, and there were days like today, when she let her guard down and dreams of other places slithered in and got comfortable and brought friends, and bothered her. A lot.

Without class today to take her mind off things, she had to make her own entertainment. Shift her focus away from whatever shit was taking up space in her mind. No, today she had a... project.

Effy could be surprisingly productive when she was thrown into the right -- or possibly wrong, mental state. She should probably be considering what Peter would think of her new decorative impulses. Whatever. It was a little marker pen, and on her side of the room at least.

[[Door and post are open, Effy is... weird.]

Effy didn't know any dead people. Not well enough to get any visitors the last couple days, anyway, and for that she was grateful. Her live and kicking relatives were more than enough for her to deal with.

Or they had been. Right now, she was hearing so little from any of them, it was... weird. Tony was on an island in South East Asia doing some kind of voluntary crap, her mum had skipped off to Italy with no return date in sight (and had already been there a week before she decided to mention this, in a voicemail no less), and when it came to her dad... Who the fuck knew. Either way, it meant a quiet few weeks. She'd claim until the end of time she didn't care but... she was here, and they all seemed to be forgetting she even existed. It was a shitty feeling.

She didn't have much to unpack, and even if she had she wouldn't be in the mood to do anything about it right now, and just being in a small cabin with eight other people with nothing to distract her wasn't really her speed tonight. Like it ever was.

So, brooding. Sulking. Smoking. Whatever. On the roof. No dead relatives or friends necessary.

[[It's a roof, so, you know... ooopen, if anyone else would clamber up there. Or wants to talk at her from down below. I'm bored.]]

One of those benefits of being roommate-less, always gonna be there was no one to kick out when it came to the end of the night and, as planned, she didn't leave alone.

And still wasn't alone. Lying up against someone else, face turned into their chest, wasn't a bad way to wake up after all that. Enough so, that unless someone gave her a very good reason, she wouldn't be moving in any way other than a subtle shift closer.

It was not cuddling, no.

[[for that one that's there already, and a weetiny!]]

Relaxing as days without classes could be, they did have a tendency to give far too much time to think, and over-think about just about everything that had gone on in the last week or so. There was a good lot of stuff that fell into that frustratingly complex category, and Effy had spent her day avoiding that, by being out and about and doing things, cold as it was.

It was only on the way back she'd noticed the overabundance of candy canes, grabbed a couple from the cafeteria and was sucking on one as she pottered around her room and returned a couple of calls from Panda and Tony.

It kept her oral fixation satisfied and was probably better for her lungs. Win win.

[[Open door/post!]]

This was just exactly the reason that Effy avoided phone calls home, (except for the ones to Tony) like the plague. Couldn't manage one sodding five minute conversation without going off on one about something.

( Today, as was the theme lately, it was at each other. )

Didn't take much of that back and forth before Effy deliberately hung up and threw her phone down onto her bed and cranked up some music in the hope that might drown out her thoughts. Ten quid said it took them a good twenty minutes to even notice she wasn't on the line anymore.

Just when she thought she was four thousand miles away and they couldn't keep fucking with her emotions. Just fantastic.

[[NFB on the contents of the parental conversation, which once again was taken with some modification from Skins 3x05, because I can't just let her be yet. Door's cracked, and the post can be open, sure, if someone actually wants to deal with her emo.]]

Last class for the term finally out of the way, and it was really about time Effy started to think about her trip home tomorrow, and... well, the packing she had to do for it.

Sure, she probably had enough stuff back in Bristol to get by for a week, but an overnight bag at least might be a good idea, and she yanked one out from under her bed to throw a few things into.

If nothing else, she was looking forward to seeing Tony, maybe even Pandora, though she might be less likely to admit to that second one. The couple of things she actually missed about home were the people. That was something she'd never really imagined would be the case.

[[Door and post are ooooopen, feel free to bug her.]]

First week or so in this sodding weird place, really hadn't been as awful as she'd expected. There were a few people even weren't too bad (and the ones that were she could still annoy the hell out of), a bar where they didn't even try and card her, and there were even a few parties. What else did she really need, right?

For all the last few days had been quieter for her, a couple of classes and not much else, making her way to find other people felt like just a little too much social effort. She could see the light of a couple of other cabins dotted around through the dusk from here, and that was good enough for her.

It was still relatively warm out, so she settled on the steps of her cabin and stretched out to enjoy a bit of evening air, and a bit of evening spliff, to watch the odd moose wander past (and god, being stoned made that a lot easier to digest).

... And hope that she didn't get bitched at for being a fire hazard, or whatever. She was not a fucking fire hazard. She was great with fire.

[[I neeeeed a study break. SO open!]]