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Kayla wasn't known for being sad or depressed.
On the contrary, she spent most of a given day with a big grin on her face and an air of energetic exuberance. Whether she was inimitably trying to sing some of her musical favorites or enthusiastically attacking her training in the Danger Room, or cooking for her friends (it was easy to fall into that role, as she actually enjoyed it ...) , she usually seemed happy, well-adjusted and carefree. But over the last few days, that'd faded a little and she'd become more and more quiet. At first, she'd managed to cover up by pleading a cold, but it was pretty clear by yesterday that something was bothering her.
She'd kept an online subscription to the Winnipeg Free Press, so she could keep track of things that had happened back home, partly just out of interest, but in a desire, a hope, to keep track of her family somehow. The people she couldn't help but love. It'd been through the paper that she'd heard that her brother had died. No one in her family would bother telling her, because as far as they were concerned, she was dead, singled out for damnation, a demon in human form. An affliction which they had nursed in their family for far too many years. It was hard, hard as Hell to face that, but she'd found a precarious sort of peace here. And friends, and maybe even a purpose. She'd accepted the likelihood that she'd never speak to any of them ever again.
But hearing that Michael had died, she'd tried to contact them. She had to try. She was prepared to be yelled at, to be hung up on angrily, but the click had come gently, coldly, instantaneously. It would have seemed more like Kayla to rage, yell, scream, smash things. But instead she simply put the phone down, sat on the bed, put her head in her hands and started to quietly weep.
On the contrary, she spent most of a given day with a big grin on her face and an air of energetic exuberance. Whether she was inimitably trying to sing some of her musical favorites or enthusiastically attacking her training in the Danger Room, or cooking for her friends (it was easy to fall into that role, as she actually enjoyed it ...) , she usually seemed happy, well-adjusted and carefree. But over the last few days, that'd faded a little and she'd become more and more quiet. At first, she'd managed to cover up by pleading a cold, but it was pretty clear by yesterday that something was bothering her.
She'd kept an online subscription to the Winnipeg Free Press, so she could keep track of things that had happened back home, partly just out of interest, but in a desire, a hope, to keep track of her family somehow. The people she couldn't help but love. It'd been through the paper that she'd heard that her brother had died. No one in her family would bother telling her, because as far as they were concerned, she was dead, singled out for damnation, a demon in human form. An affliction which they had nursed in their family for far too many years. It was hard, hard as Hell to face that, but she'd found a precarious sort of peace here. And friends, and maybe even a purpose. She'd accepted the likelihood that she'd never speak to any of them ever again.
But hearing that Michael had died, she'd tried to contact them. She had to try. She was prepared to be yelled at, to be hung up on angrily, but the click had come gently, coldly, instantaneously. It would have seemed more like Kayla to rage, yell, scream, smash things. But instead she simply put the phone down, sat on the bed, put her head in her hands and started to quietly weep.