In actual, ineluctable physical agony, Jayne slumped to the floor in a heap, heaving and afraid and entirely unraveled. Not only did she not know what to think at this point, she didn't know how to think. She didn't know that she could think anymore. What was true, what could be trusted? Her own eyes, or worse yet, her own body were both lying to her. It now seemed as if Jayne was not only pitted against everyone and everything around her, but that now the battle lines were drawn between something at the core of Jayne, her soul perhaps, and literally everything else. Her mind, her eyes, her body, her friends, her colleagues, everyone and everything that mattered, everything that made life worth living, that made Jayne Jayne, were now hostile beasts that she was crumpled up on the floor hiding from with her eyes shut tight. The shocking sight of herself as orange-tan with that same multicolored hair that she saw flash before her not too many days ago. This time she didn't know that she would get up. As the cosmic battle for Jayne (no other view now seemed appropriate) intensified in her thoughts there on the floor, Jayne lost consciousness as one does when seeing blood, and flopped over onto her side like a corpse to sleep the night away.

She awoke, fluttering her eyes open but refused to move. She laid there with a melancholy expression frozen on her face, as immobile as her body. All she beheld was a wall of white festooned with gentle white Christmas lights and photos of friends hung in a mock-random and disheveled fashion. Entirely disgusted with herself, her life, and generally anything happy and lighthearted, Jayne jumped up like a wild-woman to tear down the pictures and nick-knacks in a flurry of misguided rage. Before she could, though, she stopped frozen in front of her mirror.

Her hair was blonde again, with nothing but the fading dark low lights she put in three months ago. Her skin was back to its hum-drum, not-pallid-but-not-dark tone. She laughed, stroking her hair. She actually laughed. Tears streamed down her face. She composed herself, however, as the implications of her return to normality dawned on her. She no longer had any preclusion or delusions when it came to interpreting this situation. Something was happening. This was painfully obvious to Jayne. But, something that was outside of everyone that she once thought guilty. It was activity at another level, and it didn't matter how little sense that made. Jayne now decided nothing was off the table, no matter how ludicrous it seemed.Something, someone, anything, anyone was at work. But while Jayne couldn't avoid the curiosity, the question of "but who? But what?," but that sensation of feeling that nothing was off the table was a strange freedom. Jayne had a sense of still, serene abandon. That it didn't matter anymore what it took. She wanted this to end. She wanted to be free. She wanted to be happy. The sense, however, of freedom she felt at forgetting the whole thing, at deciding that she wasn't just going to hard-nosed bear the brunt of the blasts of public disapproval, but rather continue in the daylight she was standing in and that seemed to be cracking into the dark, in leaving it behind like a bad dream despite the utter reality of it all, was a strangely effective release. The knot that her stomach had been worked into was releasing as she just sat there and thought, "I don't care what this is. I don't care what it's done. I can't get anything back, but I want it to end." It was as if she were a cast-away who didn't want to go home but couldn't say where she was anymore. She liked the way these thoughts sounded, and she actually repeated them, out loud. The poetry of these ideas seemed to have a soothing effect on her, but it was more the impenetrability of them that had an appeal and attractiveness to her. They were stalwart in the face of her anxiety. They were unflinching and she knew they demanded something of her, vaguely, but it was always balanced with that indefatigable hope that she would be free. She repeated them to herself as if she were flipping a precious family jewel in her hands over and over again. A sense of home-like comfort accompanied them, as abruptly as the calm settles in after the storm. Despite the calmness of the seas, a wave did crash over Jayne in this moment. She all the sudden had a strong urge and sense of necessity surrounding going and trying again to talk to Tina.

She knew, as if by some unspoken but powerful reality, that this time it was different. At least, in herself. It was... decidedly odd, as all of the sudden she felt , among other thing but perhaps foremost, a deep sense of awfulness at Tina seems to have been going through. Jayne couldn't quite make perfect sense of the way she felt, partially because she didn't feel. She felt utterly divorced from herself yet was aware of the feeling that she too had problems. Big ones. An sick mother, a near-destroyed social and personal life, an existential crises of apparently supernatural proportions; all these things were not entirely absent from Jayne's mind, but she felt all the sudden that they seceded to something else. It was almost childish and out-of-body, but she just felt like Tina was hurting and wanted back the way they were ... for her. It had to come on Tina's terms, it felt like. It wouldn't have been good, it wouldn't have been right, and it wouldn't have been beautiful just to vent herself. As she walked down the hall, turning her thoughts around and around again like that ever precious pearl, she became painfully aware of the reality of Tina's problems, successes, joys, failures, experiences, knowledge, opinions, and questions. She had always known about these things. But now, she was more aware of them in herself. Despite not knowing who or what was, she felt more purposeful than ever, and her only driving principle at present was a desire to share in Tina's joy. Even if she didn't get to talk, she was content. For that matter, she didn't quite know what to say. What could she say? "So, I've been having a sort of like psychotic episode lately, and its got me super bummed out, ya know?" For certain, it wasn't fear that kept her away from speaking to Tina, mind you. She had millions upon millions of words to say. No, she was the aggressor. If there was to be any peace, she had to wave the white flag, and she knew that that meant giving up her right to be gratified in being heard. But she had this nagging sense that she wouldn't be giving up that much.That she would somehow be gaining in this deal. That is, if she could get Tina to listen, she would be the participant in someone else's peace despite being the creator of their discord. The whole thing, this drive to Tina's hurt, this endeavor for her, was apart of her yet apart from her all at the same time.

Jayne knocked on the door expecting yet another burst of rage. And it seemed as if she would be getting one as Tina's face instantly turned sour on seeing that it was Jayne knocking. But Tina's face had to be quite dexterous, for just as quickly as it shifted from interest to disgust, it shifted from disgust to bewilderment.

“Jayne? You look… different.” Tina looked Jayne up and down and noticed that the spray tan and hair color was out of her hair. It was out of her hair too soon, for that matter. “How did you… get the color out of your hair so fast?” The question sent shivers down her spine as she thought about seeing herself that way.

“My mom knows a way to get it out really quicker than norma – ”

“Whatever. What do you want?” Her voice seemed less enraged than it did annoyed.

“Listen, Tina, I can’t help what it’s already been done, and I can’t quite explain it either… I have no excuses to bring you. I just… I’m sorry.”

“What’s wrong with you? It was like you changed overnight. Like, you became someone completely different and awful.”

“It must have hurt quite a bit to think of that, after all we’ve shared.”

“Yeah… It was.”

“I know that you don’t really want to trust me right now, and I don’t blame you, but can I come in?”

“No, Jayne. Not now. I… Couldn’t.”

“No, yeah, I get it, totally! I'll be in touch, Tina. Thank you for hearing me out." Tina took a deep breath and gave let a wilted smile cross Jayne was at pains to be as conciliatory as possible, but they weren’t pains for stepping over the line or botching something. She was indifferent to the outcome of the situation in such a way that she could step into it, like a visitor or a benefactor. She could stay and roll her sleeves up and touch people, without being so tied to down as to fear being tripped. All she wanted to do was help take this load off of Tina, and that's all she knew. She couldn’t help but feel the tinge of rejection, however. But she knew, for some unknown reason, that she had to dust that away. As she was, she walked back into her room with a deep breath, and noticed that she had a text on her phone.

It was from an unknown number.

It merely said "stop," in all caps.

A sense of dread like the feeling she had when she saw the photo online descended on her. She felt her stomach knotting up, but this time it felt quite literal. It got worse and worse, as her stomach felt it were being clapped into a vice grip. She stumbled to the bathroom to get some Motrin, or Advil, or something to ease this pain. She took it, and returning to her phone she saw another text.

It read, "you're getting in my way. Stop."