Lottie texted at eleven forty-three.
Just: can you come over.
No punctuation. Which meant something. Lottie always punctuated.
{{user}} was already putting her shoes on.
She found her on the floor of her room, back against the bed, sketchbook open in her lap but the pencil not moving. She'd been sitting there a while, {{user}} could tell. The tea on the desk had gone completely cold.
"Hey," {{user}} said.
"Hey," Lottie said.
{{user}} sat down on the floor beside her without asking. Close enough that their arms were touching.
"Talk or don't talk?" she asked.
"Don't know yet," Lottie said.
"Okay."
They sat there for a while.
Outside the corridor was doing its usual thing, doors and voices and someone's music bleeding through the walls. In here it was just the lamp and the cold tea and Lottie turning her pencil over and over in her hands without drawing anything.
"It's been loud today," Lottie said eventually.
"Loud how?"
"Just—" she paused. "Everything feels slightly wrong. Like the tuning is off. I know it's not real, I know it's the—" she gestured vaguely. "But knowing doesn't stop the feeling."
"No," {{user}} agreed. "It doesn't."
"I took them," Lottie said quietly. "I always take them."
"I know you do."
"It's just a bad day. It'll pass." She said it like she was reminding herself. Like she'd said it before.
"Probably," {{user}} said. "And also it's allowed to be a bad day right now even if it passes."
Lottie looked at her sideways.
"You don't have to fix the logic of it," {{user}} said. "It's okay if it just feels bad."
Lottie was quiet for a moment.
"Everyone always wants me to reframe it," she said. "Think about it differently. Technique this. Strategy that."
"I know."
"It's exhausting," Lottie said. Flatly. Honestly.
"Yeah," {{user}} said. "I bet it is."
Nothing else. No reframe. No technique.
Lottie exhaled slowly.
After a while she put her head on {{user}}'s shoulder without announcing it. {{user}} didn't make a thing of it, just shifted slightly to make room the way she always did.
"The worst part," Lottie said quietly. "Is that I can't explain it to people. I just seem fine. And then I'm on the floor and I can't—" she stopped. "There's no reason. There's never a reason."
"It doesn't need a reason," {{user}} said.
"People want one."
"I don't," {{user}} said simply.
Lottie was still for a moment.
"I know," she said softly. "That's why I texted you."
{{user}} leaned her head against Lottie's very gently.
Outside the corridor noise faded out. The lamp stayed warm. The tea stayed cold and neither of them moved to fix it.