Nightlife ✓

29 | mask

"JESUS CHRIST, KRIS. WHAT THE fuck are you doing?"

When Jake walked into the eighth floor common room, it was about four in the morning. I wasn't surprised to see him. Though there was an away game in Pittsburgh this weekend, he operated on German time more often than not, on account of his long-distance girlfriend.

Typical of his late-night snack sessions, he was shirtless and clutching a packet of instant noodles. After his startled question registered through my murky thoughts, I realised I must have looked odd to him, sitting motionless on the couch in the dark.

Following my shift at Topaz, where I had an unexpectedly profound conversation with Jo, I felt... different. Like my world had shifted a few degrees on its axis. Outwardly, everything appeared the same as it always did. But some part of me knew—especially considering my sudden career path change that no-one knew about yet—that something had just irrevocably changed.

When I came home, I had been too tired to immediately jump into the shower, so I took to the common room. It must have given Jake a big fright to see a shadowed figure sitting alone, silently contemplating all the things that had happened this semester.

I tossed a bashful smile over my shoulder. "I'm thinking."

"You're creepy," Jake said sassily. "That's what you are." He gave my neon-green singlet and faux-leather a cursory glance, before fixating on my absent expression. His cheerful smile dimmed a fraction. "Take it Topaz was eventful?"

I sighed humourlessly. Eventful sounded like an understatement. "Yeah. It was."

I heard Jake tear open the instant noodles and prepare them. The sounds of rustling plastic and then the whir of the microwave. He suddenly asked, at length, "What are you thinking about?"

My mind was simultaneously working too fast and too slow for me to string together exactly how I felt. At length, I shrugged and said, "Life."

"How specific. Care to share?"

"Hm." I was thinking about many things, spanning many years.

I was thinking about my first modelling job and how scared I'd been. My most recent modelling job and how apathetic I'd been. That time Mom had screamed at Kevin for an hour when he told her he wasn't going to college. Quen's fingers skimming like a cool, thin breeze across my back.

Eventually, I picked the thought my brain kept circling back to. "Do you think I'm fake?"

"Fuck," Jake exhaled. "That's what goes on in that head of yours?"

"Usually, I have two brain-cells running around and occasionally sparking a good idea between them actually," I joked dryly. Jake laughed like he didn't believe me. "But tonight, yes. That's what's in my head."

Jake waited for the microwave to stop before he gave me a reply. I was sitting on the couch that faced the coffee table, and behind that the TV, so he slid his food onto the edge of the coffee table and sat down opposite me.

"I don't think you're fake. You might have a lot of different vibes, but that doesn't mean you're fake. I think... that's being adaptable?" He shovelled a large clump of noodles into his mouth with his chopsticks and threw out a disclaimer: "I don't know, bro. I'm just here to eat my noodles. But feel free to bounce your thoughts off me."

I nodded, thankful for Jake's company but too tired to voice it. He didn't push me to speak as I ruminated on myself. Admittedly, that was probably more because he was completely engrossed with eating rather than actually listening.

"I think I can mask too well," I said eventually. "I become the person I need to be in different situations. I say that I don't like socialising, but I do it so naturally, the second people expect me to. I write for science, but I'll sell stupid hair gummies and teeth-whitening products for money. I say I love my fans, but I've literally wanted to run and hide from them sometimes."