WHO: Josie Reed → Christina WHEN: Evening of May 23 WHERE: Her bedroom SUMMARY: Josie takes a brief homework break and gets a quick flash of one of Christina's fears. WARNINGS: MOTHS
Josie was so over studying.
It was ten days until graduation. Eleven days. In eleven days she would be the proud owner of a high school diploma. The summer would be spread wide before her and while she knew that more of that time would be devoted to the YMCA than she might have preferred, she had every intention of making each minute of the summer count. There would be parties. There would be trips to the beach. There would be long car rides. There would be late nights spent with her very favorite people.
But first she had to make it through eleven days. It might have only been seven days of actual school, but those days were filled with presentations, exams, and deadlines for projects. It all felt so useless with her future already secured thanks to an acceptance letter that she had tacked to her bulletin board alongside movie stubs, polaroids, and dried corsages, but she was trying to focus. Trying.
Josie let out a breath, her eyes trailing from the paper she was trying to edit. Her phone was notification free and she was tempted to change that with a few text messages, but she knew that she shouldn't. She was supposed to be focusing and anyone that she might have texted should have been focusing, too. Bea had the same end of senior year expectations as she did and Beau was in the middle of finals week. For a brief second she considered that maybe they might have needed breaks to… and then found the willpower to ignore her phone.
Instead of looking back to the computer, though, Josie pushed herself to her feet and went to her bedroom window. With one easy push, the window opened and a gentle breeze of night air hit her face. The air conditioning was on in the house thanks to her father's insistence on it running the moment he felt an iota of humidity in the late spring and early summer air, so the fresh air felt nice.
At least, it did until the moth that had been trapped between the screen and the glass saw it's escape and flew straight toward Josie.
"Get it off! Get it off get it off get it off!" Christina screamed, shrieking and slapping at her cheeks. She felt the paper wings of the moth graze her cheeks, the sensation making her skin crawl. She was making such a commotion that she didn't even notice when the moth flew off in another direction.
"It's gone!" Tris said before letting out a laugh. "You're afraid of… moths?"
"They're disgusting," Christina replied without hesitation, trying to resist the urge to shudder. "Those paper wings and their stupid bug bodies…" Her will power disintegrated and her entire body shook at the thought.
She watched as Tris kept laughing, actually sitting down and holding her stomach as she did. "It's not funny!" Christina said indignantly. Then, her candor side got the better of her -- either that or she just saw the actual humor in the situation. She wasn't sure as she admitted, "Well… okay, maybe it is. A little."
Josie jumped back, but as found herself back in the comfort of her bedroom and no longer at Dauntless headquarters, she realized she had no idea where the moth went. Normally she had no issue with the little creatures, but now as she thought of it crawling around or fluttering about her room with her completely unaware… she shuddered in a way that would have made Christina proud.
It had been a while since Josie had seen Christina's life. The dreams hadn't stopped, not really. They had just been so much of the same, to the point where she'd found herself feeling numb to the events. This was the first time in a long time that she'd felt levity in the images. Thinking of Tris laughing like she had, even if it might have been at Christina's expense, drew a smile across Josie's face. It felt like as much of an accomplishment as making Bea herself fall into a fit of laughter.
Josie moved to close the window again, not wanting to let any of the moth's friends join him in her room, before returning to her paper. She wasn't sure if she was relieved or not to have new images from Christina's world being presented to her, but she tried not to focus on it -- at least, not right then. Eleven days.