Fifth Floor Common Room, Monday Evening

[not_in_the_book]

"Can you hand me the ginger?" Ronan asked, as he ground some spices with a mortar and pestle. "The fresh, I mean." The fragrant smells of cooking curry were already pervading the common room, and probably making their way through the rest of the dorms. When Isabel handed over the asked-for ginger, he added some to the mixture in the mortar, and went back to grinding. "Thanks. I hope this isn't too spicy for whoever else comes along," he added.


[OOC: Open, as common rooms are! Come have some curry. :D]

Comments

[girlzippo.livejournal.com]

Charlie felt herself turning bright red, and looking down at the notes in her lap, flustered, then really thinking about Jeff as she tried to put that in perspective. "Maybe? I mean, I'm on your side, you know that. And maybe he is kind of -- broken. But it's apples and oranges, the two of us. I don't have anything to be scared of, any more." She was quiet a moment. "And I always had someone who loved me and wasn't crazy. After my parents, it was my grandparents. It sounds like Jeff's had just this nasty, crazy person. And now you, as his girlfriend."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Well, that certainly had Turtle quiet for a moment, her head lowered slightly as she ran that all over in her head quietly. "But..." she said, softly, reluctantly, after a moment. "That's the problem. Of course I want to be there for Jeff, but there's a different between being able to help support them and carrying them entirely on your back. I have...a lot of things I want to accomplish, Charlie, a lot I already have. And I know I'm only fifteen, and this is something that I've really been thinking about lately, but I've made a decision that I'm not going to bother with anything that might threaten to hold me back, and if Jeff can't find it in him to stand on his own two feet better, then he's just going to drag me down..."

And now for Charlie to just think she was heartless and success-blind, but, hey. There was a reason why so many successful people died alone. Although the expression on Turtle's face showed that she was definitely not feeling heartless.

[girlzippo.livejournal.com]

Charlie knew Turtle a little better than that. Sure, she loved success, and winning, and being smart, but... she got upset when people didn't like her, or cut off her braid, or did something stupid and mean to other people. She really really liked Jeff, and had never expected to. So Charlie wasn't going to take any of this at face value.

"I don't know," she said slowly. "I mean, I know it's been over a week since his mom left, and he hasn't snapped out of being paranoid and oblivious. And maybe he'll always be like that, a little bit. But-- maybe give him another day or two to go back to, well, normal? For Jeff, I mean. Or, or, see if he'll get it if you give him an ultimatum? Maybe that'll break through." Charlie gave Turtle a mournful look. "You're not a shrink, though. You're not wrong. I just...."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Just what?" Turtle frowned. "Think I'm being too hard? I kinda...have to be. You don't become a teenage millionaire by being soft."

She was sounding pretty soft, though, and she sighed. "We have to do radio tomorrow night anyway, so who knows what will happen there. Will be our first time really talking to each other since last week's..."

[girlzippo.livejournal.com]

"I know. But Jeff's... Jeff." Charlie really didn't feel like much of a writer here. "He's not going to pay off in huge dividends by getting tough with him. That's what his mom is for." She made a face at the mention of the Queen Bitka From Hell, and then said, "If it's been that long, maybe he's better now? Or getting there. And maybe he'll at least listen? You guys like doing Radio together. It's a bonding thing. It could still go okay."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"I thought we liked doing radio together," Turtle said, not so willing to ever just give up and admit anyone, even Charlie, was right. "Last week, he seemed like I was putting him through the most inhumane torture imaginable..."

[girlzippo.livejournal.com]

"But that was only a couple days later. You can't go by that," Charlie pointed out. "And if he isn't snapping out of it in a few more days-- you can always change your mind then."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle nodded a little. "You know me," she said, "I'm not exactly one to make breakneck decisions. If I do anything, it'll be well after I've collected sufficient data."

And possibly have made about a billion charts. In triplicate.

[girlzippo.livejournal.com]

Charlie grinned. "True enough." She risked a peek at the notes again, then had to ask, "She really said that? In class?" while pointing to one particular note from the lectures from the day before.