Felix wasn't prepared for it this time, if a little unnerved by everything else to recognize the change. She thought she might have more time to recognize when a shift would occur, but no, she was sent through without question, without having time to consider there might be more memories with Beverly. It served her right for believing that two was enough for the emotional vessel that was Jennifer Tegmark, because the volley of remembrances would continue.

Felix would have to adapt, though right after that shot to the chest and penetration of the soul, it might be hard to start over on a blank slate, a new, clean memory to analyze.

However, she had to keep going. This was for her own good, she thought. Despite how hard it might be to experience these heart-wrenching situations, these heart-felt experiences gone wrong, she was learning about Tegmark's innate state of being, and that was the only thing that mattered right now, at least until they learned how to get out of this goddamned box.

The change of scenery was way more abrupt this time, going from the loud, raucous volume of the cafeteria to the enclosed, quiet space of an office. It looked like it was in a school hallway, because the cubicle she sat it had access to a window, showing a line of lockers hugging against themselves and the wall.

The hall was empty, vacated of students. And the clock above the large window told her why: it was ten after four, the time for after-school curriculars for those ambitious enough to last more than eight hours inside this wretched building.

From one of the other cubicles, Tegmark heard someone call for her. "Aye, Teggy."

She grimaced, looked away from the window and turned to face the grinning boy who'd called her name. Noah Frazier, one of the head journalists for the school newspaper, gave her a sly look.

"What do you want, Frazier?" she asked, leaning back into her swivel chair with a sigh. It'd been a slow day, especially with the blank white wall plaguing her laptop as the notes she took on the latest hijinks made by the football team during the pep rally laid ignored next to it.

"Your girlfriend is having some problems with her article," he claimed, jutting his thumb towards the back of the office. "And she's refused to get help from me."

Tegmark scoffed, slid out from underneath her desk and stood up. Spotting Beverly with her glasses clutched tightly in her hand and palms digging into her forehead, she looked back to the imp-like boy. "That's because you want to do the whole thing by yourself, not help," she responded.

Noah shrugged his shoulders, his devious smile enduring as she passed by him. She could already see on his laptop a wall of black text. It was almost certain that Mrs. Smith would suggest him to remove some of those words like she'd admonished him prior, yet it was also possible that Noah would refuse to delete any of his hard-earned metaphors and descriptions.

Sometimes, she'd find herself surprised if he backed down without a fight, but it was usually on busy days when that happened, when the lot of the journalists had their hands full with deadlines on essays and homework assignments, and, for the junior and seniors, college trips and scholarship letters being accepted or denied. Today was not one of those days, however, so she prepared herself for the onslaught of "debating," as Noah liked to refer to it as, which would happen later today. Perhaps she could leave before that happened, evacuate with Beverly before Noah's arrogant voice intoned his skewed reasoning. But that was unlikely, given that they'd have to stay at least until five to be approved, and that's when Mrs. Smith came to dismiss them all.

"Hey, it'd be better if I was the one who had done the whole lot of the school paper," he said.

"Then no one would read it," she replied as she kept coming towards the traumatized Beverly, who seemed to be devolving into a mass of frustration every second that passed.

"Everyone would read it, Teggy, and you can't tell me otherwise," he argued, his confidence never wavering. "There'd be clearer points made and articles which actually sound like they're professional instead of amateur."

"Keep telling yourself that, Frazier, and maybe one day, it might come true," she said finally, and he didn't respond after that, only laughing to himself and turning back to his laptop with his confident grin still plastered on his long, sharp face.

Tegmark came up to Beverly's desk, placing her hands defiantly on the table. Shocked out of her torpor, she suddenly proclaimed, "Sorry, Mrs. Smith, I'll get right on it!" She looked up nervously and saw Tegmark's smirking face. The anxiety melted from her face as she realized who it was, replaced by a film of calm which relieved Tegmark. "Oh, it's just you."

"Just me?" asked Tegmark deviously.

"Thankfully, yeah." Beverly put her glasses back on. Her forehead was blistered with red spots from her furious rubbing. "You're a way better sight than Mrs. Smith, that's for sure."

"Uh-huh." She pointed to her blank-screened word processor. "So Frazier was right for once. You are having problems."

Beverly sighed. "For once," she replied. She picked up the letter which sat next to her laptop. Tegmark took it from her hesitantly, looking at the furious chicken-scratches which covered the lines of crumpled piece of parchment. "Mrs. Smith gave me this. It was one of those hand-written papers kids turn in to the suggestion box, but this is more than just a minor suggestion."

"Most of the suggestion slips are jokes," said Tegmark, looking at it closely.

Beverly sighed yet again. "Not this one. Mrs. Smith wanted me to respond to it, but . . . I can't. It's way out of my knowledge. How am I supposed to break it to him that there's no way to change up the school? Therapy here is simple, not this complicated bunch of settings and precautions people are willing to dish out."

"And you don't want Frazier to handle this?" she asked curiously.

"'Course not," Beverly replied, shaking her head. "You know what he'll say. Something along the lines of: 'This is out of the control of the authorities present in our education system.' I don't want him getting wordy and arrogant with a kid that seems really unstable, y'know?"

"Yeah, I feel it." She looked over the parchment. Prominent words were emboldened by several rewritings like serious, necessary, palpable, and dusgusting, and as she skimmed it, she found herself getting equally frustrated. "Jeez, what does this kid think we can do about this? It's not like we have any power."

"That's what I'm saying."

And a thought, bold and brash, struck Tegmark. "Do you think Mrs. Smith will care if we switch our articles?"

"She will," Noah said from across the office.

"Cut the shit, Frazier," she snapped. "She did it before, right? Remember when Emily couldn't do the article on the death of one of her teachers and so she had to get it switched with Randell?"

Noah didn't seem to like this idea, his normally sly face morphing into a disgruntled grimace. He said, "This isn't a case of emotional trauma, though, it's a case of just being unable to tell the poor kid the truth."

"Noah's right," Beverly agreed. Tegmark whipped her head around to look incredulously at her. In defense, Beverly held up her hands. "Hey, it's not a bad point. I can do it, I'm just really --"

Tegmark shook her head, dissauding Beverley from arguing further. "I'm gonna talk to Mrs. Smith, and she'll let me have your article while you take mine, all right?"

Beverly tried to snatch the letter from out of Tegmark's hand, but she pulled it away just in time. She pouted. "Babe, I said it was --"

"All right?" Tegmark pressed.

After a moment's hesitation, staring at Tegmark with fleeting disbelief, Beverly nodded slowly. It was a defeated motion, like the one Felix had seen when Gordy had deflated visibly in front of her. She closed her eyes, pushing her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose and said, "Okay."

As Tegmark triumphantly smiled and went back to her desk to give Beverly the notes she needed to write the unwritten article, Noah looked at her, shaking his head. He followed her with his eyes, his disapproval prominent within the flaming irises, but he didn't voice any of his discomfort, rather allowing for Tegmark to go about her dirty work. And besides, it wasn't as though the two of them weren't completing any work. They'd just gotten a switch-up because a situation which abounded them called for it, and Tegmark wasn't about to let something like that slip the newspaper up.

Her hand shook as she picked up the stack of notes. Quickly, she recovered from the slight and returned to Beverly, who sat back in her swivel chair with her head leaning against its backside. "There you are," Tegmark said, lying the notes onto the desk.

Beverly opened one eye to recognize the action. "You sure you wanna do this? I told you, I could do it myself, I just need to find out how to respond to him politely."

"Doing it politely will probably expand into several days of rewrites to this single response, right?"

Beverly sat forward, the chair squeaking loudly as she readjusted in it. She held her head as though there was a throbbing which affected its front. Though it was no concern of Tegmark's at the moment (she was more focused on getting the article for the day done so she could sit at home and watch some Netflix, or read some of the books she had in her home library, the ones she started reading prior but never fully finished), Felix caught hold of it. She, too, suffered through unbearable headaches which stunted her everyday activity, some lasting hours or days depending on whether or not her dad had enough money to buy her medication. If she weren't in someone else's body, she might have had the same migraine ailing Beverly, seeing as Tegmark's constant berating -- she can do it herself, Felix thought, she doesn't need you to do it -- began to grate on her nerves; even if she cared deeply for the girl, it didn't stop her from getting annoyed at her stubborn demeanor.

"It will have been worth it if I did it myself, though," said Beverly, her voice wavering. She groaned, the low sound resounding from her mouth and into the quiet atmosphere of the office.

Tegmark got on her knee, placed her hand on Beverly's thigh and looked up at her. "Hey, I got this. Don't worry about it, I can tell you're already stressing."

Beverly smiled sadly. "Really?"

"Of course, babe, I don't want you to be all tied down by this stupid thing, all right? It's not that important that you have to respond, even if Mrs. Smith gave it to you. She didn't know how hard it was to read these complaints and write words which didn't sound offensive."

"She didn't even read the letter," she said lowly.

"Exactly! Look, you can proofread my response, all right?"

"You mean it?"

"You think I'd lie to you?"

"No. . . . "

"Then there's your answer!" Tegmark smiled. "Just get whatever you can of this done in" -- she looked up to the clock; it was half past four -- "the next half-hour before Mrs. Smith comes back."

Beverly didn't look as bad as she had before, a little color returning to her bubbly face. "Okay," she said, but her voice was still meek, unable to speak anything more than a mere whisper.

Tegmark came up from her knee and leaned in to give her a kiss (oh, I don't think I'm ready for this, oh no, oh no, thought Felix, I've never done this before, how does it feel?), but Beverly smiled deviously and pushed Tegmark's face away before their lips could meet. Noah laughed from behind her, and this got Beverly to chuckle, and hearing her snort was something that always made Tegmark chortle with delight, so soon, after a few seconds of stifled emotion brimming from the hem of her lips, the three of them became a mass of laughing fits, unable to control the chuckles which plagued their bodies.

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