Who: Kai and Open When: 11PMish Where: The theater, door propped open
Kai was having a rough couple of days. Waking up in her room with the door locked not once but twice had been pretty awful. The panic attack she'd had this morning hadn't been as bad as yesterday's, but it had still been significant, and the aftermath was a bitch. She felt exhausted in every sense of the word; physically, mentally, emotionally... just absolutely beaten down. As soon as she could she'd immediately propped her door open again, and then had gone into the toilet for a good cry. To be honest, she hadn't even liked shutting the bathroom door for that or even for showering, but she figured there was a limit to what she could get away with. People might not mind that she kept her bedroom door open at all times, perhaps it was just quirky or endearing. Start taking more-or-less public showers, people would probably start questioning her sanity. And she definitely didn't want that.
Kai tried to make the best of it. Did everything she could to convince herself it was okay, and for the most part, it worked. During the day, at least. Within an hour or two the horrors of the morning were mostly forgotten and she was cheerfully (perhaps overly-cheerfully) going about her daily business. But as the sun set, her nerves started to rise. Would it happen again tomorrow? Could she do anything to stop it?
The answer, of course, was no. She knew as well as anyone that it wasn't possible to stay awake if the boys upstairs, as she'd taken to thinking of Them, wanted you to sleep. But the idea of going to bed filled her with dread, even knowing that she'd sleep in one of the public rooms. The idea that she might wake up in her room with the door shut and locked was bad. The idea that she might wake up somewhere else and entirely alone was unbearable.
So the night stretched on, and though Kai was exhausted, she sat planted in the theater, door propped wide open, working on her second can of Monster and already feeling jittery. Clueless was playing on the screen, which was usually a good choice when she needed a bit of cheering up, but it wasn't doing the trick today. She kept thinking aaaand now she's dead every time Tai was on screen, and it really, really wasn't helping. Then she felt bad about thinking a celebrity dying had kind of ruined one of her favorite movies. It was a vicious cycle, with Kai feeling lower and lower by the minute.