Ethan's eyes blink open, he instantly notices Trudy's shoulder supporting his head. He doesn’t move, she’s asleep. Ethan's face turns a bright red but there’s a soft, blissful smile on his face. He looks up at her and notices part of her hair has fallen over her face, covering her nose, mouth and one of her eyes. Ethan slowly rises to his feet, careful not to make any sounds. He stands face to face with Trudy, her eyes still shut delicately, he leans in until there’s less than half a foot between their faces, he feels her breath gently tickling his chin. With gentle fingers he brushes the hair out of her face, making sure he doesn’t make any contact with her face. Then he looks down to her lap and sees two pools of blood formed on her pants, one on each thigh. The raw smell of iron hitting him like a truck. He sees blood dripping from either one of her palms onto these pools of blood, from the point of contact of her fingers to her palms. He slowly reaches down towards her lap and holds her right hand up delicately, he gently pulls her fingers away from her palm, she wakes up slightly and sees him repeating the same action on her left hand, she smirks and drifts off back to sleep. He picks up her notepad and opens it to the newest page. On the left hand side is a drawing of a tree that he himself can’t identify, but it is the Erdtree from Elden Ring. On the page next to it he writes “soz, had to go to Kyle’s, you were still asleep I didn't want to wake you, see you at Miss Jackson tomorrow x”. He looks up at the ceiling then back down at the page, he crosses the ‘x’ out of his note, but it's still visible. As he is about to leave her room silently he looks over at her, the corners of his mouth turning up as he sees her peaceful state, “sleep tight Trudy” he whispers sweetly before closing the door slowly, the bang of the door no louder than the squeak of a mouse.

Ethan walks the streets with a bounce, he pulls a piece of paper with a postcode on it out of his pocket, he then types said postcode into google maps. He stops, only three minutes from Trudy's house, it's here. He pulls the piece of paper out again and notices “floor two, second room” written in the bottom corner. He walks in the door and sees a hallway and a staircase before him, he walks up the staircase. As he reaches the 3rd floor he stands before the second room, he checks the time, 12:30, he knocks. A child opens the door, maybe about six or seven years of age, looks like a shrunk Kyle, “is Kyle there?” Ethan asks politely, the boy calls out for Kyle. “Well let him in then you little shit”, Kyle shouts back from deep in the apartment, Ethan laughs awkwardly and walks in. “He's in his room, the messy one, the first down the hall…and knock first, trust me” the kid says before walking away. 

“Come in”, Kyle says as he hears Ethan knocking on his bedroom door. As soon as Ethan opens the door he is caught completely off guard by a poster, he sees a black, he sees white, he sees the big letters, letters he has seen so many times before, letters that he reads with both his eyes and his mind, Fight The Power, this kid has a Public Enemy poster. “What's up Ethan”, Kyle says, “take a seat”, he points towards an office chair in the corner of the room which Ethan sits on. Kyle pulls out his laptop, "I looked at my old project and honestly it already meets all the criteria, except for the word count we need to beef it up a bit, we need exactly 1016 more words. It's honestly kinda sad though, it's a little bit tragic, the story of van gogh. He was laughed at when he was about, everyone acted like he was some sort of lunatic, like he was shitting on the canvas… Now he’s one of the most famous artists in the world… anyways enough of that lets get to the project”.

Then the sirens start again, panic, “you don't want to be here”, Ethan thinks to himself, “you’re behind enemy lines, feel that sweat, feel the way your legs are shaking, you want to go home, no, you want to go to Miss Jackson, she’ll be there, not this hypocrite. You won't last long, you’re panicking, ooh ya van gogh how tragic, that's what the next few hours will be like, you won't last, you know I’ll get the better of you eventually, I wonder what you’ll do Ethan, will you run away? Will you crumble? Will you break down? Would you…no, you aren’t gonna befriend the enemy are you? After all Trudy’s done for you, you slept on her shoulder for fucks sake, have you forgotten? She bled for you you dickhead, nobody has ever worried about you like she does, nobody cares about you, except her of course, you wont fight the power will you? You fucking conformist, that poor girl, ooh he’s still the enemy is he? And now you want to be friends with him, he likes Public Enemy, talk about that, you like Public Enemy don't you? Make friends with him why don’t you, you don’t give a fuck about Trudy’s feelings, shes the fucking devil isn’t she”

Ethan snaps out of it rapidly at the sound of Kyle simply asking, “you good bro?” . “yeah I’m fine” he responds, still shaking, “have you put anything in about yellow paint? There’s a rumour that he ate yellow paint because he thought it would make him happy”, Kyle snaps his fingers, “great we can turn that into 330 words, nice one Ethan”. Ethan then pulls out his phone and goes to google, he searches “van gogh” then scrolls a bit. The silence stretches for forty-five minutes while Ethan scrolls and Kyle types.

Meanwhile Trudy wakes up, unusually on her bean bag. She stretches fuzzily, then a soft smile occupies her entire face. She picks up her notebook and reads the new page it happens to be open on, she blushes as she reads the message Ethan left for her, she sinks straight back into her bean bag, her eyes glistening. She sits back up and tears the page out of her notebook carefully, she then gently folds it up. She clenches it in her palm then clenches her hand in her other palm and holds them to her chest. She picks one of her dirty converse up off the ground and places the folded up piece of paper in it. Then she turns her computer back on and watches Aladdin like nothing happened.

Ethan finally pipes up,”how much have you got on johanna?”, “500 words” Kyle replies, “we can get that to 600” Ethan says motivated. “Fuck this is too much for me” Kyle says, lacking the drama his words imply, “let me put on some music, you ok with Public Enemy?”. “Sure” Ethan responds shakily.

The pair sit in the sound of boom bap, Ethan has stopped scrolling google and is now just scrolling his reddit homepage. After about 2 hours of this “The word count has been hit Ethan sir”, Kyle says with an accomplished tone, “I believe an A is as good as guaranteed”. “Oh nice one, guess I'll head off” Ethan responds, “nah man, stay for dinner” Kyle says, “mom’s already cooking for you, it’ll be ready soon”. Then a loud shout comes from the kitchen, “Kyle! Dinner!”, “oh speak of the devil”, Kyle says wittily, “not Gertrude though, we dont speak about that fucking devil”, Kyle laughs…Ethan doesn't.

The pair make their way down the hall to the kitchen, the kid who answered the door is sat next to what looks like Kyle but bigger and with glasses. Kyle sits across the way from his bigger version and Ethan sits next to him, “you must be Ethan, i’m his dad” the man says, “it’s a pleasure to meet you, we’ve heard so much already…did you guys get your project done” he asks politely, “yeah” Ethan responds, “although tell the truth Kyle done most the work”. Then a woman that just looks like Kyle with a wig on, places a bowl of spaghetti bolognese in front of Ethan before saying, "that's our Kyle, always putting others before himself, don’t bog yourself down over it though Ethan, I’m sure he was glad to have you as company”. Ethan doesn't respond, the steam of the bolognese does nothing to stop his thoughts.

I hate it here. I want to go home. Why is he so nice to me, to everyone, but such a dick to her. Why are his whole family so nice…and why the fuck do they all look exactly like him. This bastard, I hate him. Why do I care so much about this, about her?...fuck. I like her, don't I? She's the best friend I've ever had, we have nothing in common, yet being around her just… ugh. I don't know. I want to be with her right now, not in this fucking palace of perfection with mr hypocrite and his family of gentle folk. She makes me happy, fuck it I’m done denying it, Trudy is my best friend, I want to be with her whenever I can. She let me sleep on her shoulder, she showed me around the city, she fed me…she cares about me? But what's in it for her? Fuck she expects repayment, how am I supposed to repay such kind deeds? 

Kyle snaps in front of Ethan's face and laughs, “he just kinda does that sometimes, don't worry about him”, Kyle announces to his family before turning his attention to Ethan, “dude your food will go cold, eat up”.