This time around doesn't feel too different until she hacks into the parking clerk office's website and deletes her parking tickets. She had been intending to pay them, but once her fingers hit the keys, she slipped into autopilot. It wasn't exactly the right thing to do, but sometimes Chloe does things just because she can. She stares blankly at the screen for a minute before she is able to put together what had happened. It is the single most delightful thing that has happened to her since waking up in this life. She is no longer resigned to moping around about her relationship issues - a distraction, even if it is a lovely one. She can do something, she can try to figure this out.
Chloe sees people as puzzles. Figuring them out excites her. Sometimes she forgets that people are people, and not some new challenge for her to figure out. She likes to think she knows how people work. There is always something someone needs, and if she can find it, they owe her a favor. And favors are her favorite currency. She feels like she left Cassie behind this week. This doesn't concern her. She has work to do, and she doesn't need her getting in the way. These weeks have been wasted with pointless discussions about things that they have absolutely no control over. She knows this time will pass, and Cassie will wake up feeling a little confused again. Wasting time worrying about how all of this impacts Cassie isn't her priority this week. She will get over it, she's tough.
She knows having all of the information doesn't mean she has all of the answers, but as she skims through emails and bank records for her friends and acquaintances, she has no problem ignoring that annoying little voice. Right now she has no answers, and she doesn't know what's relevant yet. She knows her snooping probably wouldn't be too welcome by her friends if they knew, but this is her thing. They have their things to bring to the table, this is hers. This is the one thing she can do to try to figure things out, to help. She can't try to put the pieces together if she doesn't look for them. People will get over her minor transgressions. What they won't get over is being stuck here forever.
Her trip through AJ's online footprint is last, mostly because there isn't much she doesn't know about him at this point. She doesn't think she's going to find anything of relevance, so she isn't being too thorough in her search. Her eyes are glazing over from staring at her computer screen so attentively over the the past eight hours, which is why she thinks she's imagining it when she stumbles upon a ring purchase and a few emails that are likely relevant to that ring purchase.
"No." She closes her eyes tightly and opens them again, trying to will the information off of her screen by the sheer force of her thoughts. It stays put, much to her annoyance. They're together, Cassie and AJ. This is an unsurprising progression for them, with the way they've been blowing through relationship milestones. The part of her that is still Cassie, the part she's trying desperately to drown out this week, feels excitement. Chloe feels nothing but dread. Cassie and AJ are in a relationship. Chloe and Arthur are in a situation, at best. There are feelings, but who knows how much of those feelings have been influenced by their counterparts in this world? She knows she cares for him, but it's not important, how she feels. It never is. She still maintains the theory that this is a manufactured distraction, as much as he had hated that idea. Sure, he didn't leave her, but that was more or less for the sake of not blowing up their lives in the weeks this wasn't happening. There was a big difference between not blowing up their lives and making the decision to start one.
She's not going to confront him. It's not going to help anything. He's likely dealing with this piece of information right now too. Hopefully he looks at the situation at hand and makes the right decision and that ring goes back to where it came from.
Because she knows exactly what Cassie's going to say.
