JEM IS RIGHT, AND IT MAKES LAINEY FEEL UNEASY. three people are dead. isn’t that something? two of them came back quite wrong, and one of them is definitely not making cheer practice. their complete unseriousness is building a bodycount, and no amount of reading spellbooks, drawing sigils, and even dabbling in a bit of necromancy will fix any of it.
“ i’m just trying really, really hard, jem. ” it’s obvious, in the way candle wax sticks to her skin and makes her hands scaly, or the burns in her palms, or the way she’s drawn sigils, chants, everything on every space in her dorm room … that she is trying. but it’s not enough. it never is. lainey feels a lump forming in her throat, and she finds herself gazing down at her shoes. converse, drawn on, charms stuck on the shoelaces, and this makes her angrier it may be dramatic, but she can’t stand to think about her former wonder, and the way she found joy in the littlest of things, despite being outwardly hateful. strange, offputting, odd … a shaky inhale : “ i don’t want credit, i just want to be told that i’m trying. it’s hard. i’m scared, and i fucked up, and i can’t bring you back right, or lucas, and i sure as hell can’t bring back i don’t really remember her name. ”