Chapter 11

Yesterday, he had noticed the bedsheets hadn't been washed in a while, a fact that Isabella tried to hide with the obscene amount of freshener. Since it was Saturday, Owen decided to wash it while Isabella was out taking a bath.

One would assume washing and then drying bed sheets would take too long. That Isabella would return from her bath before he was done.

Nope. Isabella, at bare-minimum, took two hour baths. Bath bombs were expensive and she intended to make the most of them.

By the time she was out, a towel around her shoulders and cleaning her hair, Owen was finished with the bed sheets and had moved onto the trash littered around.

"Oh, um, sorry about the mess," Isabella said. Fresh out of the shower, the freckles on her cheeks were much more pronounced. She wore black short shorts and a white t-shirt a size too large for her. Owen's t-shirt.

"It's okay." Owen picked up a bottle of soda, shaking it to check its contents. He threw it into the blue recycling bag in his other hand.

"But…I kinda like it," Isabella admitted, "so can you leave some of it?"

"Isabella, you said this last time. Guess what happened? We found a slice of pizza under your bed—"

"That was…one time."

"Oh yeah?" He picked up a half-eaten cupcake. "Then what's this?"

"...can I blame Ophelia?"

"You know she hates cupcakes."

"Still don't understand why. She looks like the type to love them," Isabella muttered.

"You're not getting out of this, cariño," Owen said. "Come on. You and I both know it's going to go back to normal in a month."

"Okay, fine, fine." She sighed dramatically, fingers on her forehead and eyes closed. "Strip away the pride and dignity of this room. Take it."

"Alright, now you're exaggerating."

Owen laughed and Isabella couldn't help but join him. She watched as he continued to clean her room. "Oh, about the script," she began, getting him to pause, "I think I should have something cooked up by tonight. Do you mind proofreading what I have so far?"

Owen was barely able to hide his excitement. "Really!? Wow, you work fast."

"The power of having a messy room," she joked.

The blue recycling bag was full. He put it in the kitchen area, planning to throw it out later in the end, and returned to Isabella's room.

"Here it is." Isabella was already on her computer and pulled up the script. He stood behind her pink leather chair, arms on the top, eyes flickering left and right as he read the script.

Isabella waited, biting her nail. She seemed nervous. He wasn't even halfway done when she started talking.

"The lore might not make a lot of sense," she explained, "but it's kinda complicated since I'm starting from a halfway point and it has some mentions of my personal beliefs, which most of the fandom probably doesn't agree with."

She went on and on, and in that time, Owen was able to finish reading. He waited for a few minutes, letting her get it out of her system before responding.

"Overall, I think it's good," Owen said, to her relief. "Maybe some jokes are necessary though."

"Really? I thought I included too many jokes."

"Like the one with the sun's son?"

"Yeah, and the one with the puppet and the broken string thing. A decent pun, no?"

"Eh. A bit too on the nose."

"Hmm." Isabella began typing and fixing while Owen pointed and advised. It was a collaborative effort with a lot of back and forth. Owen was too deep in the SNaF iceberg but he did listen to Isabella rant about it dozens of times and watched a bunch of videos on it last night. He understood the timeline and the basic characters well enough to get the jist of what she was trying to convey.

"You think this good enough?" Isabella asked for the third time.

"I think so." Owen paused and peered down at her. Their eyes met as she tilted her head back. "Bubble tea?"

"Sure."

Call it a remedy with the number of times they ordered it.

The knock came ten minutes later and they settled on the couch, a long single red blanket draped over them. Food meant break time. Duh. Owen got the TV remote and went on Wetflix, drinks held by their hands through the thick tiger-faced blanket.

"Shouldn't we finish the script?"

"Nah, let's do it tomorrow."

Just what she wanted to hear. She snuggled up to him, rubbing her laziness off on him and nudging him to pick a certain anime movie she liked. It was new and while Isabella had watched it, Owen had not.

"Waaait!" Ophelia wailed from her room. "I wanna watch!" Like a younger sibling, she ran into the living room, panting. Isabella kept her eyes on the television while Owen turned to her, smiling thinly. "Wait, wait, wait! Can you pause just for a minute? I need to fix my hair!"

Ophelia's normal hair was in actuality smooth and straight. However, she preferred it shaggy and took the time out of her weekend to do it. Lots of texturizing products were involved in the process.

"It's like you're going anywhere," Isabella said, having snatched the remote from Owen to keep the movie playing. "Just sit down."

"It's about self-confidence."

"You'll be fine," Isabella replied dismissively. "Oh, can you get chips on your way back!"

"Okay! Wait, no, I won't fail for that!"

"And salsa?"

"...okay, fine, maybe I will!"

Thus, Ophelia joined them in their movie watching session, a bowl of chips and salsa in hand. For the first time in a long time, Owen was able to see the blonde's "normal" hair. It was quite lovely.

Although he did have to agree, her original style was better.