I'm not a hardship. I'm awesome.

Inspecting the damage in the mirror, Kate poked at her nose and winced a little when that proved that yes, it still hurt. The slight swelling had gone down, though, and there was only slight bruising on either side of her nose, so it could've been a lot worse and Kate knew that. It'd fade before the interview with the Teach Abroad people next week.

But it was still enough for her to scrap any and all plans of hopping a portal to Fandom right now. Didn't feel like explaining her face to any randoms, and it was still too sore to the touch to cover up with makeup. So, she was going to be staying home, yes.

That didn't mean she wasn't going to communicate with the outside world. She'd ignored her phone for most of the previous night, too shellshocked and tired to deal with words and all that stuff. She was getting around to it now, though. Turning her phone back on, she noticed there were two texts that made her crack the faintest of smiles as she sent back a reply and shook her head a little at Bobby drinking appletinis.

And then, a message to Bod, who she hoped had just assumed she'd gotten distracted in the middle of their texting last night. She knew how he could worry.

sorry for vanishing last night, we had a situation happen. everything's fine now though.

More or less. With a sigh, she flopped down onto their bed, phone still in hand.

[ooc: NFB, but open to calls/texts, even from people who aren't the bf!]

After the arrest and everything, yesterday had continued to be just as moodswingy a day as many of the others before it. On one hand, her video had gained more than 250,000 hits in a single day, and Lynda had invited her to the Crossroads art shindig this Friday. On the other, she and her brother had had to listen to their parents fighting for like two hours in the evening. That always made her feel like an orphan. It sucked.

As did having to leave Marshall alone with the mess she could escape, especially when it was going to be his sixteenth birthday tomorrow. But Kate was still insanely glad when she finally managed to convince her parents to unground her so she could come back to Fandom.

She flew back, her parents paid for the tickets. She was too late for her classes, and probably would've skipped them anyway, so once she made it into her room, she just dropped her bags on the floor and fell over onto her bed, burying her face in her pillows.

Home sweet home, or something.

[ooc: Door is cracked, post is open, girl is... a lot of things.]

Nothing had happened since Tara had downed the first of her new meds on Sunday morning. And they'd all been waiting for something to happen ever since. It had been a weird two days.

Today, finally, Kate had escaped the house to go to the mall, where she promptly ran into her old gang of girlfriends, who were oh my God so excited to see her and who wanted to know everything that had been going on with her since she'd moved.

An hour later, Kate slipped away from their old usual table at the coffee shop, making idle promises of keeping in touch.

They were promises she had no intention of keeping. It had been an awkward hour of stilted conversation. She couldn't bring herself to care about any of their shit, and there wasn't a whole lot she could tell them about her life now.

They had probably never really been friends in the first place, Kate figured as she wandered around the mall. Alone again, and kind of really wanting to go back ho-- to where her potted plants were.

Somehow, this led to a slight voicemail spree, after she realized she hadn't actually replied to the two very amusing ones she'd received on Sunday. So, she replied to those, then left a couple others, too.

Then, just for the hell of it, she texted... most of Fandom, really:

Rejoice! Miss Overland Park is returning tomorrow. What should I expect from our (un)fair Fandom Island?

This was Kate Gregson showing her love. Fandom better appreciate it.

[ooc: NFB, open for calls and text messages and stuff. You know her, you got the message.]

Kate had been back from her weekly trip to Baltimore pretty late last night. After her ballet class had ended, she'd spent a long time just walking around, trying to convince herself she didn't have to go back.

But the reality was that she didn't have the money to stay off the island. Her monthly allowance from her parents wasn't coming in until next week. So she'd just have to deal. There were girly plans for Sunday. That helped, a little.

But the idea of a few days anywhere but here wouldn't leave her alone.

So, now, after a morning session down at the dance studio, Kate was once again lying on her stomach on her bed, with her laptop in front of her, and she was looking for the cheapest and least romantic place all of Maryland, and a way to get there next weekend.

She thought she might head to the club fair in the afternoon, but it was entirely possible she wouldn't.

[ooc: Open door, open post!]

Having over-slept and missed Ghanima's class, again, was not the biggest of Kate's problems today. No, the real problem was that when she woke up – boggling over the weird dream she'd had – she didn't even realize she'd overslept: she thought she still had about 48 hours until she had to be in class. She was convinced she'd only taken a nap, and that it was still Saturday morning, and so she left to go Christmas shopping.

She only realized what day it was when she saw the newspapers at a mainland coffee shop, and even then she had to ask three people before she believed that yes, it was Monday.

Yes, she'd lost two days.

For some reason, the first thing that hit her about the situation was that she needed to apologize to Ghanima, and so she left her a message. After that, though, the reality of it all set in. Unsurprisingly, she didn't get much shopping done. She wandered around for a while – quietly freaking out over the fact that losing time wasn't exactly an unusual thing in her family – and eventually decided to get back to Fandom. It had to be just a Fandom thing.

Back in her room in the evening, she looked around for something, a clue, anything. She found the letter. It did nothing to rid her of her fears; it just earned a screech of "What the fucking fuck?" and sent her straight and without any hesitation to listen to the weekend's radio podcasts.

And after listening to them, Kate laughed, happy, although with a slight hysterical edge. She'd just been in a random coma. She wasn't insane.

The island, on the other hand, was.


[ooc: For the roomie and epic timezone-challenged SP which is epic and timezone-challenged and crippled by finals week. Can be open for others before him, though, if you're not scared off by the supermassive SP warning. Last final on Thursday, guys!]

Kate was a little sad to leave the cabins, because she had just started to enjoy them. She was also less than pleased about having to make four separate trips between the cabins and the dorms to get all of her and Bobby’s stuff back to their room. The boy had really taken way too much junk to the cabins, especially considering the whole penguin situation. Which he couldn’t have known about in advance, but still. A lot of stuff.

”Couldn’t even turn back in time to help me, huh?” she asked the penguin after bringing the last bags back. Bobby replied with a penguin shrug.

Well, at least now she didn’t have to explain why there was glitter on his underwear. Yet.

With a sigh Kate fell on her bed. She was just going to go to sleep right now.

[Establishy!]

”I love you guys too. ...Okay, bye.”

Kate sighed as she ended the call. She had lied to her mom a lot more than she would have wanted to, even though she had tried to stay as vague as possible. Yes, she had been talking to people. Yes, everyone seemed friendly enough. Yes, the island was nice – or at least the little she had seen of it.

All of the above statements were, of course, true. The big lie had been this: ”Yes Mom, everything’s okay.” Because no, no it wasn’t. But it was easier to pretend that it was. Kate definitely didn’t want her mom stressing out over anything. Especially since everyone kept assuring her that despite its total weirdness, Fandom High was a good place to be, and she had decided not to talk to her family about any of the odd stuff, not at least while she was still coming to terms with it herself.

Kate shook her head in an effort to get the whole thing out of her head and started rummaging through her clothes. If she hadn’t been so damn tired on Saturday morning, she would not have unpacked all her stuff the day before the move to the cabins.


[For the roomie.]