"So you actually know how to edit?" Mark asked, watching over Jasmine's shoulder as she worked on editing her latest video. Jasmine nodded her head but her attention was all on the video in front of her. She clicked around, dragging files around the screen like she couldn't decide where she wanted to put them. Mark watched her silently. It was another one of those days where they had planned a sleepover but Monet ended up being watched by Anna so that left Mark and Jasmine to be stuck having a sleepover by themselves. It wasn't that they hated being alone together or anything, quite the opposite, actually, but that didn't mean that they didn't miss Monet when they did stuff like this. After all, that meant that when Jasmine was editing her videos, Mark had no one to play with.
"Mom told me that if I wanted to have a YouTube channel then I had to learn how to edit," Jasmine said, though her answer was delayed by a few minutes at the very least. She finished editing her clips and closed her computer. She could always just end up finishing it later. "So, I taught myself how to edit. It's pretty hard and I wish that I didn't have to do it but I guess I've got no choice." She sighed and laid down on the best, staring up at the ceiling.
"So don't do it," Mark replied, laying down on the bed next to her. Jasmine groaned and threw her arms out like she was making a grand gesture before letting them fall down again, one landing on Mark's chest. It wasn't hard enough to hurt him at all but that didn't stop him from letting out a grunt of pain.
"I have too! That's what it means to run a channel. You can't just stop. There are so many people watching you," Jasmine protested. They laid in the silence for a while. Jasmine stared up at her ceiling, looking at all the glow-in-the-dark stars and lights she had up there while Mark remained silent simply because he didn't know what to talk about.
"It's pretty quiet here without Monet, isn't it?" Jasmine asked with a sigh. She turned on her side to face Mark. That's what her world had been like recently. Quiet. Really, really quiet. It was too quiet and that was scary. It left her alone with her thoughts. Sometimes she wished that she still lived with her father so that it wasn't so quiet and scary anymore.
"It gets quiet when you're not around too," Mark pointed out like he was trying to make her feel better about it. It didn't help but it was worth a try. Jasmine was thankful that he was trying, though, she shrugged her shoulders and laid down on her side. She tucked her arm under her head to use it as a cushion, even though it hurt. Everything seemed to hurt a lot now. "Hey, Missy, is everything okay?"
"Yeah, it's okay. I just miss Mom," Jasmine replied, smiling at him weakly. She was an actress. Everyone knew who she was. She was supposed to smile for them all. She was supposed to pretend like everything was okay and her life was going well because if they found out that it wasn't, then they wouldn't believe in her anymore. Everyone who watched her told her that they loved how happy she was. She couldn't ruin that image for the people.
"You know that you're allowed to miss your mom, right? Mom told me that it's gonna take a long time for you to start feeling better about it," Mark said, frowning slightly as she spoke. Jasmine shrugged her shoulders, trying to look anywhere else but at him. "I mean it, Jas. It's okay to be sad about her. Mom said you're always going to miss her but it's gonna get better eventually."
"Yeah but this hurts. It hurts really badly right now," Jasmine sighed, not looking up to meet his eyes because if she did, she knew that she would cry. Mark frowned again and hugged her tightly, trying to pull her as close as he could to him while they were still laying down on the bed.
"Hey, that's okay. It's gonna hurt. You're allowed to be hurt. You shouldn't have to do anything if it's gonna make it hurt more," Mark said. He started to pull away but Jasmine started to whine and hugged him again, squeezing him lightly. Mark wrapped his arms around her again, pushing them up so that they were sitting up now.
"No, no. You don't understand. I can't. I can't hurt. I have to be who everyone thinks that I am because it's not fair to them if I'm not," Jasmine cried out, sounding like she was about to cry. Mark only sighed and hugged her tighter. How was he supposed to make her feel better if he didn't know how her world worked?
"But that's just crazy. You shouldn't have to pretend to not be hurt just because people want to think that you don't. People shouldn't be able to tell you how you are allowed to feel." Mark frowned and held her close. That's when Jasmine started to cry. The world of acting was stressful. She couldn't handle the stress of it most of the time. Mark hugged her, shushing her gently and rocking her back and forth carefully. It wasn't often that Jasmine or Monet cried. Most of the time, they could express how they were feeling and how sad they were without needing to cry. This must have really been bothering her if she was crying over it.
After a while, Jasmine calmed down and pulled away. Mark gave her a smile and she smiled back, reaching a hand up to wipe the tear stains from her face.
"Missy, you're bleeding," Mark gasped softly. He took Jasmine's hand in his and flipped her wrist over, showing Jasmine the blood that was on her shirt sleeve. Jasmine froze, staring at the blood spot like it was a zombie that had risen from the dirt right in front of her. Her brain when into full shock mode. She barely even processed it when Mark reached over and pulled her sleeve up. She was too shocked to do anything. She must have messed up with her band-aids... She might have forgotten to cover one... Oh no.
"Jassy, what happened?" Mark gasped, revealing the multiple band-aids on her wrist. Jasmine was still in shock, her mind completely skipping over her fight or flight stage and this is what she was left with. She didn't even scold him for calling her Jassy. Indeed, one of the bandages didn't cover a cut on her wrist and now she was paying the price for it. She had been too sloppy, too rushed, and now she was paying for it.
"I..." Jasmine tried to answer but the words wouldn't come. She didn't even know how to place what she was thinking into words. Mark saw. He saw what she had done. He was going to get mad at her. He was going to hate her now. There was no saving this.
"Jasmine..." Mark said softly, reaching over and peeling back the band-aid that had failed at its job. "Jasmine, did you do this?" He hadn't witnessed it first hand and he didn't have a name for it but he had heard of it, if only briefly. His mother and Melissa had been talking about it once, all the way back when Clara had first died and they had been really concerned about the twins and if one of them took her death too hard and tried to hurt themselves. At the time, they had agreed and said that neither of them seemed to be having any issues outside of the ordinary. But this... Was this what they had been talking about?
Jasmine burst into tears again, hugging herself tightly with her free arm. "It... It hurts so much, Mark," She sobbed, squeezing her eyes shut and dropping her head, tears streaming down her pale face. "It hurts so much that I don't know what else I'm supposed to do with it. Mommy's gone... Acting is hard... Monet and I aren't together anymore... I don't get to see you as much... Everything was changing too fast... What else was I supposed to do?" Mark quickly pulled Jasmine into another hug, tighter than before. Jasmine hugged him back, sobbing into his shoulder.
"Oh, Missy. It's okay. I've got you. I know it hurts but that's why you've got me and Monet and Miss Melissa and my Mom and Dad. That's why you have all of us. So that we can help you deal with this hurt." Mark wasn't sure what to do and he was scared. He didn't know what happened after this if anything was supposed to happen, but none of it was making sense either. Jasmine was hurting herself because she was hurting so much. He didn't know what it meant but he knew it wasn't good. He at least knew that much. Jasmine continued to cry, pulling him close to her so that she could squeeze him tighter in her arms.
"Please don't tell anyone, Mark. Please. Everyone'll be so mad at me," Jasmine cried, her words shaky and broke. Mark was going to protest, tell her that she should tell Melissa and Henry, but she wasn't wrong. They would probably be very mad at her. After all, when Melissa and Rebecca were talking about it, they seemed really serious. And serious meant that something bad was going to happen.
"Okay, okay, I won't tell anyone. But only if you make me a promise first," Mark said softly. Jasmine nodded her head quickly. She'd do anything to keep her little secret at this point. "If you stop hurting yourself then I promise that I won't tell anyone about this. And if you can stop for a long time, for, like, five years or something, I promise that I'll take you anywhere you want to go. Because I can drive by then." Jasmine looked up at him like she was still unconvinced.
"But that doesn't stop me from hurting, Mark. This helps, even if it's just a very little." Jasmine frowned like she was weighing the odds of what might happen if she chose not to stop against what would happen if she took Mark's deal. Mark thought for a minute, trying to come up with something to say.
"Oh! I remember reading something in Blaten! About trying to make yourself feel better!" Mark said, jumping to his feet the second he remembered. Suddenly, they weren't in Jasmine's room anymore. Instead, they were at the library in Blaten's town, surrounded by rows and rows of books. Jasmine watched him walk over to a bookshelf, pulling a book down and walking back over to her. "It might not be as fun but we can make it into a really long quest if you want." He held the book out to her, open to a specific page that he wanted her to read. Jasmine took it gingerly, brushing her tears from her face as she read it over.
"When something tragic happens, it's often said we lose a piece of ourselves. How far would you go to find these lost parts of yourself in order to be whole again?" She read softly, leaning back in her seat. Her friend laughed and sat down next to her, grabbing her hand excitedly. And for the first time since her mother's death, Jasmine gave him a real smile.
"It looks like we'll be going on an adventure then, Missy!"