Jane looked at her reflection in the pink heart-shaped mirror standing on her white desk and faked a smile.
Ever since Charles started working on the Spring Expo presentation project, their meetings were reduced to him picking her up in the morning and a few occasional five-minute meetings in between their classes.
With him getting busier and Felicity leaving to pursue her dream of becoming famous, Jane succumbed to an almost overwhelming lethargy, and although she was still surrounded by people who were delighted just to be around her, she could not help but feel lonely.
The only thing that was keeping Jane's tired mind from going numb was her continuous tutoring sessions with Vernon Lin, whose teaching techniques, however peculiar or unorthodox, were rather fruitful.
And now that she had more time to spare, she actually found it interesting to make an effort and study for a change.
***
"Professor Taylor has informed me that your tutoring sessions are going great. Well done, Jane. I don't expect you to be the best among your fellow freshmen, but I also don't want you to waste your potential like that. You are too smart to be looked down upon."
Ian Devold cut his steak with a knife and put a slice in his mouth, washing it down with a sip of his favorite red wine.
Jane was reluctant to eat and was simply pushing her broccoli around the plate with a silver fork, contemplating whether she should ask Mrs. Kim to make her some chicken soup instead.
"... S-sure, I know that."
Her father, clearly worried by his daughter's lack of appetite, put down his silverware and cleared his throat.
"Why aren't you eating? Are you not feeling well again? Should I call Doctor Williams?"
Jane shook her head and let out a short sigh. After a relatively long period of four months during which she felt fine, the regular headaches had made their unwelcome return once again, making her feel dizzy, sick, and tired most of the time unless she chose to resort to the aid of the rather strong prescription painkillers.
"N-no need, I just n-need him to g-get me more painkillers."
Ian could only sigh at that reply.
On top of acquiring a stuttering disability, his dear daughter had been suffering from various types of headaches for almost thirteen years now, and despite all the money that had been spent on her treatment, it did not seem like she was getting even slightly better.
And it was breaking his heart.
"I will l-leave first, I'm t-tired."
"Of course."
Jane went upstairs and quietly closed the door to her room. She then turned off the lights, lay down on her large, soft bed, and slowly closed her tired eyes, focusing her attention on the right side of her face, which was pounding as if it were being hit with a hammer from the inside.
Ever since that incident back when she was six, the headache was her constant companion, and while it liked to change its localization, intensity, or nature, the amount of pain and discomfort it kept causing Jane seemed to grow with a never-changing consistency.
'I just need to take the pill. I can't endure it anymore.'
Reluctant to turn the lights back on, Jane opened the drawer of her bedside table and found a small rectangular box ––the prescription painkillers that were delivered directly to her house by the kind and considerate Doctor Williams, their family's physician for over twenty years.
The box felt a little lighter already, she really needed to replenish it as soon as possible.
Downing the small round pill with half a glass of water, Jane blindly shoved the pills into her backpack, making sure that she would have them at hand in case the pain struck during her classes, and went straight to sleep, hoping for the morning to find her in better health.
***
April was rather moody that year. The rainy season started early, and the overwhelming gloominess of the weather, not to mention the drastic change in atmospheric pressure, mercilessly compounded Jane's already somewhat fragile state.
Having managed to go through her classes without resorting to the help of pills, Jane's pain tolerance began to rapidly give up, and since she still had to meet with Vernon for their now-regular Thursday tutoring session, the girl could not help but finally reach her hand into her backpack and pull out the small carton box only to realize that it was completely empty.
'This is just perfect. I don't think I will be able to sit through the lesson with a hammer hitting my head from the inside...'
Jane checked the time on her phone and let out an irritated sigh.
'Ugh, he will be so mad if I tell him I can't come minutes before the lesson... And I don't think I have enough time to buy myself a coffee to ease the pain a little. It's just another ninety minutes, I'm sure it will be alright.'
She rubbed her throbbing temple as if in an attempt to erase the headache with the mere movement of her fingers, then took a deep breath, and started walking, wincing each time either of her feet touched the stone floor of the university's hallway.
Vernon was already calling her a "spoiled princess", it was her chance to prove both to him and herself that she was stronger than she seemed.
When she opened the door of the empty classroom on the third floor of the university building, Vernon was already there, typing something on his large black laptop.
Setting aside her usual politeness, Jane sat in the chair beside him, took out her own laptop, and fixed her deep blue eyes on the guy who, on the other hand, was so absorbed in his current task, that it took him a good couple of minutes before he finally noticed her presence.
"Oh, I did not hear you come in. Let's start by going over your homework."
Vernon pulled the girl's laptop closer to him and started sliding his long fingers over the touchpad, his eyes moving left and right as they read the lines on the bright screen. Jane was patiently waiting for his verdict, touching her forehead and temples from time to time, hoping that the cool sensation of her fingertips would ease her suffering.
Once her tutor finished checking her homework, he wiped his face with both hands and let out a long, exhausted sigh indicating that he was not entirely satisfied with what he had just seen.
"Alright, we will go over your mistakes later. Now, show me the code you were supposed to fix."
Still silent, Jane pulled her laptop back, opened the text editor, and began to type, when all of a sudden, her laptop screen first turned bright white and then started flashing a blinding white light right into Jane's shocked face.
"Ugh..."
The girl covered her eyes with both hands and dropped her head on her chest. Her headache suddenly intensified, making her feel dizzy and disoriented, while the immense pain seemed to expand inside her skull to the point where she could no longer bear it.
"What's wrong with you?"
Vernon widened his eyes as he saw Jane's pale face covered in a mixture of cold sweat and tears, which were uncontrollably streaming down her cheeks.
"... Jane?"