Pearla—

        I've risen into your beauty. So much that you've gotten me to rise into love with you, not fall. It didn't hurt, was not abrupt; but I assume that it could truly be deadly. My love.

                                      —Ira.

       Disregard the incidents that have been going on between me and the elder Quagmire boy. The reason for this is because we'd acted like nothing's happened, we don't ignore it, it just so happens not to be a topic of discussion.

       I thought about this as I read about this woman— Pearla— hiding a sack of sapphires in a remote location. Something about a needing them in a secret future. How can the future be a secret?

I suppose it always has been.

        This reminded me of my favorite sapphire earrings that my mother's husband... my other father...yeah, he gave me them when I was young. I guess it showed me that he cared so I liked having them on. I only trade them for hoops occasionally.

        In her file he said that she was thought of as a mad woman. She did have a husband, but they died together in what seemed to be a fire. That was proven to be false when the investigation lead police to believe they died together— bled out in there home. When interrogating neighbors they thought had a fight of some sort because the husband had gone for a business trip when they were having matrimonial issues.

        I've spent all of my day in my room reading these things. I tried my best to get over my illness as my fourth-eight hour period was almost up. Klaus came in here most of the time to keep me company and so did my girls. When I asked where the Quagmire brothers went the others told me, 'here and there'. Issy told me 'a project on the roof' whatever that meant. And I wouldn't know what that mean for a long time, or at least until the end of the semester. This wasn't the end of the semester, though.

        Back to my current situation, oh, the situation I'm in is no other than Carmelita Spats herself. She's just knocked on my door, but I didn't know it was her as I hid my papers and book quickly and got up to answer it. She smiled at me menacingly in her all pink glory...or reign of terror.

         I sighed before she spoke to me, "Good afternoon, Cakesniffer." She said better folding her arms behind her back and walking into my room. I rolled my eyes at her statement and presence.

         "Hello, Spats." I crossed my arms and put all my weight on my one foot, "I just dropped by to bring a not-so-chooseable- proposition to the table." Chooseable wasn't a word but I figured that didn't matter at the moment. I raised my left brow at her before asking, "what exactly are you proposing?"

        She laughed loudly as if the thought she had teeing in her head was the most amusing, "you will be doing my psychology homework for the rest of the semester." It was my turn to chuckle as I rested my hands on my hips.

"What do I get?"

        "I've noticed that you and your orphan  group miss nightly rehearsals often and since I'm Principal Nero's favorite student, it may be possible for me to make all of those absences go away." The thought was intriguing, that meant more research for the things brewing about my friends and I; more time for homework; and, especially, more sleep. Although, it was Carmelita, after all

"And if I decline?"

        "If you refuse or cause me to fail, I'll make the rest of your year a living hell. I'm talking bugs in your food, paint in your clothes, embarrassment in front of every boy in school, and no happy ending for you." She made a mocking 'boo hoo' face at me, wiping away fake tears for emphasis.

      I blew air out of my mouth to get the bangs out of my face, "that all you got?" Yes, I'm poking the bear with a stick.

       "I'll take that little boyfriend of yours away too. I was just with him a couple hours ago."  I thought about everyone she could've been talking about. I obviously knew who she was referring to, but I didn't need her knowing that.

        "Boyfriend?" I waved my hand in the air as if saying 'carry on', "care to elaborate?" I requested.

       She shrugged seeing I was playing dumb. She then slumped in her standing position in my room. I hated having her in here, it was my domain, I felt as if she was assessing me— learning.

"The Quagmire one, you know, anyways, that's all I have to say. We'll start next week when the really heavy stuff picks up." She said walking up to me. She was a lot shorter than me, but still intimidating. I got the chance to really look at her then, from her pink tap shoes, to her baby pink tights, to her fluffy pink ball room dress, the red curls, and finally a pink diamond encrusted pendent around her neck. I haven't noticed this before. It was of someone's initials: E.S.

Carmelita patted my twice on my shoulder and then stomped her way through my door, slamming it sky behind her. "What the fuck?" I muttered at what I just saw. That's one for the files.

Carmelita's offer was more of a threat so I was forced to do our work for the next week or so of school. What kept bothering me was how she knew anything about Quigley, she wouldn't remember anyone else's name unless they were important. What kind of connections did they have?

That's besides the point, right now I'm mostly over my cold and writing my fingers to hell by writing two term papers. The Anatomy of the Deceased, Tortured, and/or Mutilated. Yeah, these are the kind of assignments we do in morbid psychology, Mister King is a strange teacher, a good one, but strange nonetheless. I sat at my vanity in my room, trying to make sure these two essays were good enough to pass, not look the same, but also cover the same topics.

This is when the stunning Isadora Quagmire came to play. She walked into my room without knocking, something all of us girls have been doing. I'm the one that has to be careful as there rooms contained men in them. She sat on my bed and started taking, "Hey, Desa."

"Yup."

She turned her head confused, "do you want to go to this 'night under the stars' dance everyone seems to be going to? We're all going and want you there." She explained to me as she watched my push my glasses up on my nose.

"I would," I started sighing deeply, "but I have to sit here and bust my ass for psychology." I explained, rolling my neck in attempt to loosen my muscles.

"Wow, that looks like a lot," She said leaning over onto my pillow to look past me and at the desk, "did Mister King actually assigned all of that to you?"

"Nope, but that's why I have to do it. Just gotta get this done." Or your brother might be Carmelita's breakfast.

"What do you mean, if he didn't assign it then you shouldn't have to do it. C'mon, Desa, you haven't hung out with any of us in a long time and we miss you...Quigley's even asking about you." She said as if she'd be tempting me. I rolled my eyes at the boy's name. In a way this is all his fault, he's so reckless and caring. A pain.

"Issy, really, it wouldn't be good for any of us if I don't get this done." They don't understand, I literally have a storm cloud over my life right now.

        I pushed the little bit of curls from my face as I worked. It seemed as if my vision was impaired even with my glasses on. Maybe a tiny break wouldn't hurt? No. Hustle, keep going or you and your friends are Carmelita toast.

She stood up to stand next to me, looking between my reflection and my books. Paragraph after paragraph; seemed like the worst type of torture. The front of her eyebrows turned upwards like they did when she got married. "Iridesa, you know that you can tell us anything. It's what friends are for. We shouldn't keep secrets, then we can't help one another."

Duncan and Isadora must be close, they have the same concept of hypocrisy. We'll lie to you because we think you don't know and get angry when you keep secrets from us. That totally works.

I looked at her eyes in the mirror, it almost didn't even look like Isadora. I scrunched my nose up in anger, yet still talked to her calmly, "Okay, then what's that tattoo behind your ear mean," she pushed her hair behind her right ear to feel it, "and why does Duncan have a matching one just above this inner elbow, why does Olivia have one and how come you all have been keeping secrets and leaving me out of them?"

In the midst of my calm outburst I had stood up and we were now standing so close our chests nearly touched. She started to stammer and look me between my eyes, "Iridesa we'd never hurt you on purpose. If we were keeping secrets do you think we'd be so reckless as to let you know?"

"That's just the thing, you didn't know I saw yours or Olivia's, and Duncan's just kinda slipped. You were reckless with your secrets and you did do it on purpose. Everyone has secrets, I get it, but why make them so noticeable. Maybe I'm tired, but no side character would've noticed these things so they must pertain to me somehow." Prufrock-3 Desa-2.

I continued with, "and here I am busting my brains out onto these papers to keep Carmelita off our asses. Haven't any of you noticed she's chilled out on us for the week?"

I never raised my voice with her, I kept calm and steady and spoke to her. I gave her time to explain but she used it to say, "what do you mean, what's Carmelita got to do with this?" She cared, that's what matters.

"Fine, I'll go, I'll go to your dance and dance the night away. It's what friends are for," I took a break to gesture to the vanity, "all of this."

She smiled sadly at me before taking my arm and leading me to my closet to change. Party the problems away.

Finished: Monday, February 11, 2019. 10:44 pm.

Published: Wednesday, April 10, 2019. 11:12 pm.