"Ah..." Ari groaned as a cold shiver crawled you her spine as she woke up suddenly. She laid in her bed thinking about the mission she'd just had.
Thinking about it bit by bit she couldn't understand how people could be so flagrant about someone's passing. And that made her think about Zoe's passing.
Despite grieving for weeks on end she never thought about the reason for it. Up to this point she'd just mourned losing her and thought about getting her back.
She never gave any thought to why she jumped. She never gave any thought to what she was going through, the fact she was allegedly pregnant, the fact she had sunk so deep it was easier to just swim down.
A million thoughts she'd been avoiding flooded into Ari's mind at the same time. Thinking back to when she saw Cora in the restaurant and the fact she looked shocked to see her, Ari questioned what Cora did and didn't remember about everything that happened.
She'd gone on Cora's social media and everything appeared fine. She had seen Cora with her own two eyes and she appeared healthy and didn't appear sad or disheveled.
Thinking back to the mission she remembered the faceless gnome like creatures that had been throwing garbage at her and hurling verbal abuse the entire time. Thinking back to Buttons explanation of dream logic she figured that those gnomes represented some faceless trolls which had been cyber bullying her.
Grabbing her phone she went back to Cora's social media. In her initial shock the first time she'd checked it she hadn't looked at the top post. It was a video from three days earlier which was when she had died. She clicked on it and listened to it.
It was a three minute, clearly improvised video about Cora's struggles with her mental health. She talked about getting hateful comments and how that escalated to threats and having her address leaked and fearing for her safety. She talked about living in constant fear and paranoia and how she had no one to talk to about this because no one took her seriously.
She then said something that caused Ari's ears to perk up. She said that she had a dream and something about that dream made given her the strength to go on. She couldn't really remember a lot about it but she just woke up the next morning not caring about other people's opinions. She smiled and Ari felt a sense of pride wash over her.
"So it's all still there, the person just stops caring about it" Ari thought aloud to herself. "So what's Zoe gonna think when she comes back... what's she gonna stop caring about" Ari wondered as a thought entered her mind and she felt a sense of confusion over it.
She had immediately and somewhat selfishly thought about if Zoe coming back would change their relationship and to her surprise the idea of losing what she had with Zoe didn't upset her. Despite wanting to be with Zoe for so long the sudden idea of not being with her didn't upset her as much as it had in the past.
Be it the fact that she'd died which was worse than any sort of rejection or not having Zoe constantly around and leading her on, Ari had a strange sense of indifference to the idea of Zoe not being hers. And even stranger to her, was the fact she felt guilty about that. As though she wasn't allowed ro feel this way.
Ari had gone from inconsolable over losing her friend to being on a mission to bring her back. She'd never truly accepted that she was gone. Nor had she considered what would happen to her if she didn't bring her back. And now she'd had this sudden realization.
She felt the weight of not understanding her own emotions begin to sink in and she didn't know what to do about it. Too panicked to stay calm yet too confused to do anything Ari found herself paralyzed by her emotions. Thankfully for her a distraction came up via a 'ding' from her phone.
[Dave: Hey, I know you're gonna say no and follow it up with something snarky but Orion's throwing a party in a couple of days]
[Me and Alex are going, u wanna come with?]
Despite her hatred of college parties Ari needed any reason to stop feeling the feelings she was feeling so she quickly agreed.
[Ari: Bet, I'm in]