She woke up with the biggest headache she has ever felt in her life. All her focus glued to the radiating pain, drowning out all other cognitive activity, including the screaming voices; it was both relief and torture.

Instinctively, she reached to her pile of shirts, feeling a dying itch to shower. The absence of fabric on her hands woke her up, and her room seemed foreign to her. Did her mother clean her room? Hadn’t she given up on that futile endeavour years ago?

She rolled to her side, and found Honey absent. Had she gone home? Her heart winced at the thought, and reluctantly she got out of bed. Reaching to her cabinet, she discovered all the drawers pushed in, as opposed to the usual few sticking out, giving her convenient access to her clothes. She opened the top, and saw every white article of clothing staring back at her. Who rearranged her clothes? She opened the next drawer, black, and then the next drawer, grey. Annoyingly enough, someone had the audacity to colour-code her cabinet, and made picking her outfit unnecessarily tedious.

Her mother definitely did not do this. Which meant the culprit was Honey. Why would she arrange her clothes? She shook the thought away, and picked her outfit. Walking to her toilet, she stopped again. Her feet brushed against the floor a few times, and then she crouched down to observe it. Sparkling clean tiles with not a sign of dirt or dust anywhere. Honey had given her bedroom a make-over.

Her heart winced again, and the dam broke out of the blue. Tears flowed in pin-drop silence. Why would she do that? Her room is disgusting, she is disgusting, but Honey would never think of her that way. Instead, she offers her heart and cleans her room unprompted. The mess probably made her eyes bleed and she cleaned it to satisfy her germophobic tendencies, but she knew that explanation was an excuse.

She changed, and then began crying exactly like Honey. Her mother came a second later, hugging her in sheer confusion. “What’s wrong?”

“Why did she fold my clothes?” She cried out.

“Who? Honey? What are you talking about?”

“She cleaned my room.” Tears couldn’t stop flowing.

And then Honey came in and answered her questions. She’s the only person stupid enough to clean her room, thinking it makes a difference.

**

“Ok… so I don’t know if you’ve- where were you this past week? What happened to the set?” Erin asked her. Everyone seemed oddly calm.

“I- some stuff happened… sorry I was absent for the whole week.”

“Oh, are you okay?”

“Yeah. Did Honey tell you anything?”

“Huh? No, why?” Honey didn’t spill the beans, how surprising. It would’ve been the perfect net to catch pity with.

“Nevermind. So, what did you want to tell me?”

“Um… the interviews are over… and we had a little voting thing, but you and Sam weren’t here for it… I tried texting you but you didn’t- whatever- what was I saying? Right! I’m the leader now!”

“Woah- wait, what?”

“Yeah, everyone voted for me- for some reason. Yay!” She clapped her hands together in delight. There could’ve been worse outcomes for the club, Sonia consoled herself to no avail. “And I’ve been like… shuffling things around or whatever, making people happy… and what do you think about… being a writer?”

“Hm?”

“Or- or you can go back to editing if you like that more.”

“No, no, I’m good with writing, so you’ll be the director?”

“Well, I know nothing about acting, or writing, or anything… So I’m just leaving it to them to like put it together. You’ll just be like… guiding the actors…to act!”

“Wait, you’re still filming ‘Raft’?”

“Yeah… why?”

“Nothing.”

“Although we’re still trying to get more of the um… fake sand- what even is that actually? And another green-screen.”

“Oh, cool.” Sonia felt relieved. At least her work persevered through Sam’s attack. “Thank you.” She said that with more sincerity than intended.

“What? Uh- you’re welcome? Anyway, since we still don’t have the fake sand yet, we’re just pitching ideas for episode two.”

“Um… episode two?”

“You left it on a cliffhanger! Did they actually go back home on the raft? Did they drown after arguing while out at sea, because the final scene was them quarrelling. So I decided to just make it like a mini-series.”

“Oh… okay, cool! Um… why was no one here, like a week ago?”

“They were trying to throw a coup, it was so stupid… a lot of people quit…” Erin went silent. “This is all we have left.” She pointed to about five others in the room. Bryan was nowhere to be seen.

“Sorry.”

“What? No, it’s not your fault- well, ok, maybe, but being a leader is hard man. And there were so many rumours flying everywhere, it was terrible.”

“Uh… ok… and just so you know, if I was here… I’d vote for you too.”

Erin squared her shoulders, and straightened her posture in confidence. “Thanks.”

**

It felt like forever ago since she worked a shift, but somehow she only had one absence amongst all the mess in her life. She and Honey walked in whilst holding hands, preparing to roll their eyes at the kitchen’s reactions. Everyone celebrated more than they should, and one of the chefs had the audacity to cook them extra dishes for dinner.

“Shut up!” Sonia had to talk to all of them throughout the whole shift until they finally went home. Only the two of them and the manager remained, who offered to keep the restaurant open as they had their dinners. It was stupidity like this that reminded her how much she loved working here.

“Open.” Honey commanded, feeding her a french fry.

“I can eat it myself!” She exclaimed.

When she ate half of her pasta, the romantic mood was quashed with something more sinister. “Hey… so I’ve been thinking… We should tell Ms Eva what happened!” Honey whispered despite there being no one else around.

“First of all, it’s insane Ms Eva bought Erin’s half-baked theory that someone had a second accident during filming, and second of all, no.”

“No? He touched you!”

“He touched you more.”

“Ew, gross!”

“He tried to touch your leg, didn’t he?”

“And he actually touched your-” She pointed to her own chest. “Didn’t he?”

“Ew! No! He only shoved me on my shoulders.”

“Right, but you said he ‘lay hands on you’, I remember that very clearly.”

“Why?”

“Were you just trying to insult him? I swear I saw him like-” She looked away, shuddering at her vivid imagination.

“Why did you remember what I said so clearly? What are you thinking right now?”

“I… I don’t know!”

“Look, I bet he regrets what he did right now, okay? I think we should just drop it.”

“What? Since when did you care about him so much?”

“Well- How did you think I felt the first time? When I confronted him about the pages?”

“I can’t believe it, you’re defending him? Who cares what he feels? He attacked us both, he deserves death!”

“No, he doesn’t. Drop it…okay? For me?”

“I still can’t believe you’re defending him.”

“I just know what it’s like to do something you immediately regret after.”

“Yeah, but still-”

“My mom gave you a number to a therapist right?”

“Uh huh.”

“Are you gonna call it?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I don’t need help!”

“Says the girl who cut him with her key!”

“I was protecting you! And using keys as a weapon is just a smart self-defence tactic.”

“Meaning you’ve been researching self-defence? Since when? Since that whole thing with Sam months ago? Or even earlier before that?”

“I don’t do it all the time! It’s just like, I do it occasionally, okay?”

“Why?”

“What, you’re telling me you’ve never felt scared that someone might be following you when you’re on the train, or- or you always cross your legs when you wear a skirt or a dress because someone might try to look under it?”

“First, I don't wear dresses or skirts but- well- I won't google self-defence tactics out of nowhere! And you know it's more than that.”

“Hm, and why don't you wear dresses or skirts I wonder?"

“Don’t flip this on me, I’m interrogating you here.”

“You’re always interrogating me!”

“Because I care!” She blushed.

“I know, but it still sucks.”

Sonia couldn’t find a gentle way to phrase her concern. “I’m worried you’re being codependent on me.”

“What? Since when are you worried about that, and no I’m not.”

“Do you remember what you said when you said… that.”

“Well why are you worried about it all of a sudden.”

“We’re not gonna work if you keep doing that.”

“So it’s my fault?”

“I’m not-”

“What about you? You needed me to convince you that you were worthy of love. Your immediate response was to ask why.”

“Don’t get defensive, I’m not blaming you! And you’re right… that too… is a problem. And if we just get together with those problems… it won’t last…” She blushed even harder and looked away. “And I want this to last.”

“Me too. So what do you want me to do?”

“I think we should only be together once we fix our problems.”

“Oh.” Honey began quivering. “Well…” She retracted her hand, but Sonia pulled it back.

“We can still hold hands…”

“Well, I don’t want to right now.”

“Oh, ok.”

“How will we even know we have fixed it?”

Sonia shrugged.

“We need a way to prove it somehow.”

“Ok…”

“What if… you have to tell me why I love you… to show your problem is fixed?”

“Ok…” Sonia gulped. “And… what about you?”

“I don’t know, I gave you your… thing, you give me mine.”

“Ok… you have to… be lonely and sad… without me once.”

“What!” Honey flared up.

“As if mine is any easier!”

“Fine…” They crossed pinkies, sealing the pact. “You want dessert?”

Sonia nodded, and the two fed each other ice-cream until the manager finished all of his administrative work, and chased them out at the stroke of midnight.