I sink deeper into my small sofa, holding my phone high so I can see the screen and the camera captures my entire face. A heavy sigh escapes my lips for what might be the one hundredth time this afternoon. Two hundredth if I count my uneventful morning.

"I'm so bored," I complain.

"Me too," Courtney agreed in a sleepy voice. I can see her siblings chasing each other in the background. She had gone to the kitchen to grab and snack and still wasn't back to the safety of her bedroom.

AJ is the only one who doesn't look like death might be near. "Well, I'm great."

"You're quarantining with your stupid boyfriend." Courtney points a butter knife at the screen with an eye roll.

I sigh. Again.

I always talked to them via FaceTime, with or without lockdown, since they live in London, so they would never provide me with the type of vivid human interaction I crave for. I'm still thankful we talk regularly, so I keep myself sane, but this is not really what I want. There is Nina, who is flesh and blood and lives across the hall, but I haven't talked to her in 2 days and she makes me nervous.

"So?" AJ interrupts my trail of thoughts. "I might have James with me, but Jade has a neighbour that could be a friend if she stopped cowering inside her apartment."

"Hey!" I stop her. "I'm not a coward! I just... she makes me uncomfortable."

"Why? What did she do?" AJ asks.

I shrug. "I don't know. She just looks unexpressive. I don't know..."

Courtney nods in understanding. "I get it. She's got Botox."

AJ gasps. "Your neighbour has Botox? How old is she?"

"She doesn't have Botox!" I protest. "She just doesn't smile much. Which is weird because she was nice when talking to me."

"It's giving... What's the name of the old Drama teacher?" AJ asks. "Deeks? I feel like it's Deeks. You thought he was scary too, until suddenly he was all nice to you."

I cringe at the name. My mother expected me to be an actress, just like her, but my acting career died as soon as my mentor left. I hated him the moment we met, mostly because he just seemed uninterested in his job and his students, but a couple of private sessions were enough for me to feel more at ease with him.

Unfortunately, he had to leave, and my parents decided I had no business trying to become an actress when it was clear I had no talent. They said I should focus on jobs I could memorise for. Specifically, being a doctor like my cousin, Jackie, or a businesswoman like my grandmother.

"You hated him too!" I complain. "I'm pretty sure you left crying out of a rehearsal."

"Details," she brushes it off.

Courtney isn't paying attention to the conversation anymore. I see her corner of the screen move and I assume she is coming back to her bedroom before one of her siblings inevitably clashes against her.

"You're being mean to me. You're aware of that, aren't you?" I ask.

"Very much, yeah," she says.

I roll my eyes at the provocation. She is just trying to force me to talk to Nina because she knows I'm bored and sees this as an opportunity, but she hasn't met Nina. I bet they wouldn't be friends if they met. Avery is a drama queen and Nina seems the opposite of dramatic.

"Of course you are," I deadpan. "It wasn't enough that you replaced me. Now you also have to mock me?"

"She's nice," Courtney argues once she is safely sitting on her bed with her food, at the same time Avery says, "she's a bitch."

I try not to smile at their disagreement. It hurt me to know they had a new friend. It made me feel like I wasn't as important. But knowing AJ doesn't like her, and hearing her criticise the girl, makes up for it.

"A bitch? Avery! Stop being rude to her. You guys made peace," Courtney opposes.

"So? She's still a self-centred bitch."

I intervene. "AJ, you've got all my support if you want to call her bitch."

"Thank you."

Courtney's mouth falls open. "You don't even know her!"

"I don't need to, Court. She's a replacement. I can dislike my replacement."

AJ giggles at that, but Courtney is looking annoyed.

"She's not a replacement," she argues.

"Yeah, she's a parasite." AJ nods.

"AVERY!"

"What?"

A laugh escapes my lips. I love them so much and it breaks my heart that we're so far apart. I'd be lying if I said Avery's discrediting the other girl doesn't make me happy, but I also know she doesn't truly hate her and might just be saying that to make me feel better. Or maybe the girl really is a bitch. I mean, Courtney is terrible at judging people.

"So, we agree that Jade should befriend the girl next door?" Avery asks.

"Technically, it's across the hall," I correct.

"Same difference."

Something falls on Courtney's side, and her picture gets distorted and pixelated before she disappears from the call. I frown and try to re-add her, but no luck.

"Great, woman down," AJ protests. "I hate this freaking weather."

I see her looking up at something or someone and her lips twist into a smile. I don't need to ask to know who it is. After all, there is only one other person in that house with her.

"Hi, James!" I greet him before he had the chance to say anything.

"Hey," he responds. His voice is different than what I remember, but I haven't seen him since he was fifteen and I was twelve. I assume he doesn't remember me, but I don't mind. I'm not really a memorable person, anyway.

She shifts in the bed and glances at me. "I'll call you later, okay?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Go talk to Nina!" is the last thing she says before hanging up.

I sigh as I find myself all alone again and feel the suffocation of being by myself take me. If I were to do what my parents wanted me to, I'd be studying right now, but I've spent all Sunday morning studying and I can't look at anything university related anymore.

Maybe I should do it. Maybe I should just suck it up and go knock on Nina's door. She surely won't bite my head off. Plus, she said we should hang out again.

I walk up to my room and stare at myself in the mirror. The blue dress I'm wearing looks wrinkled in the back, so I change to a pair of jeans and a white shirt. I comb my short hair, placing bobby pins to keep the loose strands away from my face, and look me up and down one last time.

Sucking it up, I knock on her door, waiting patiently for her. The door opens slowly, and she looks at me while rubbing one eye. Once again, she does not even smile. That is enough to make me regret everything.

"Hi!" I greet, trying to keep my grin. "How are you?"

"What do you need?" she asks with a yawn.

"I... mm... I was bored, and I remembered what you said last time and I thought, 'Hey, maybe she's bored too. We can do something together'. But now I see I'm just being annoying, so never mind."

She backed away, allowing me to enter her house just as I was about to run away and hide in my apartment forever. Unsure, I take a couple of steps inside her house and she closes the door behind me.

"I was going to watch Pirates of the Caribbean if you want to join," she says, motioning to the living room

The room is messy and makes me want to fold every discarded sweater and blanket and clean the empty bowl of cereal on top of the centre table that will, for sure, stain the table. I could never have my apartment looking like that. I need every thing looking clean and back in place after used. But considering that Nina is probably living permanently on that sofa, her blankets must be in permanent use.

"I never watched that," I answer. "So, sure."

She cocks an eyebrow. "Are you living under a rock or something? I don't know how I would survive quarantine without movies."

"That kind of content makes your cognitive activity drop."

"Says who? Mommy and daddy?" she sneers. "What do they let you watch? Documentaries? The news?"

I bite my cheek. That's how it starts. I'm slowly becoming the girl being pushed around in high school by the pretty, popular girl.

"Pirates of the Caribbean is hilarious and a must watch. We're watching the whole saga," she explains.

"I don't really watch movies," I say with a shrug. "It's never really been my thing."

"We have to do something about that," she states, like making her goal to educate me on the big hits of Hollywood. "Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is watching all the greatest movies the cinema has ever seen."

"Isn't that a very long list?" I ask, feeling very unmotivated.

"I never said we were going to do it today." She throws some shirts that were on the sofa over her shoulder and looks at me. "Sit. I'll get us popcorn."

I do as told, sitting straight while playing with my ring as I stare at the room to entertain myself. I hear the microwave where she must have put the popcorn in, and I hear her cursing when she hits something. She takes too long for my liking, and yet the idea of her coming back makes me twist my ring harder.

"You look tense," she says when she walks in. She places the bowl of popcorn on the table and throws herself on the sofa, leaning back with a sigh.

"I'm not," I deny.

She plays with the remote to get the movie ready and I stare at her hands because she doesn't speak and I don't know what to say. Even her hands are pretty. She's got long fingers and short nails that don't look completely bitten off like mine.

"So, um, are you studying? In university?" I ask, trying to make small talk.

She nods, ignoring that we've had this conversation before.. "Yupe. You?"

I nod too. "Me too. What are you-?"

"Do you read?" she interrupts, looking at me for the first time since she sat down. "You look like a reader."

"Yeah. Sometimes."

"What are you reading right now?"

I blink. It throws me off how her voice comes out so secure while I was struggling to even say anything to her. I want to match her energy a lot.

"Little Women," I say. "It's great. If you like that genre, I mean."

"Alright. I'll give it a try. I'm more of a Stephen King fan. The movies I mean."

I flinch at the thought. Nina looks the type to like those stories, but I hope she doesn't invite me to watch anything of sorts. I wouldn't be able to sleep for months.

"I'm not. I hate horror," I say.

"Yeah, it's not for everybody. But Pirates is," she says very certain.

Nina leans back on the sofa, and I do the same once she presses play. Thankfully, the conversation is over, because I never felt at ease trying to talk with people I barely know. I sigh once more on this dull day, and try to focus on the movie.

Hello!

Hope you're liking it. If you read BM, hope you liked the small AJ and Court integration, they might show up more. If you are reading this in real-time, if you're bored while waiting for updates, check out other stuff of mine, please! Or don't, I'm a shit writer.

Also, Nina is kind of legacy here so if I already wrote Boundless in English by the time you reach this, go check it out because Nicole and Andrew Whitmore >>>>

Thank you for reading ;)