Maya also votes for Genghis Khan. The scale of the battles involved is much more to her taste than a story about serial killers, though she also notes that Hailey continues to be so adorably herself.

H-Hey!

No, Maya's right on this one, Hailey's adorable, as are her interests. Sable abstains from the vote, saying she'd enjoy either just as much.

He agrees that Hailey is adorable but will not visibly broadcast this sense because What If It Would Be Unpleasant For Hailey. 

"Ugh, I hate y'all," she huffs as she rests her head on Sable's shoulder. There's a little frozen hitch in the motion at the moment of contact, and then she nestles in.

"Love you too," Sable replies as she strokes Hailey's hair gently.

They're really, really cute. He feels warmer, like the world is a better place, just from being near them. 

What little remains of lunch passes cheerfully, and then everyone stands to clean up and depart.

"That was fun."

"Yeah. Thanks for the great distraction, Joshua."

"I hope the rest of your day is enjoyable, Joshua. See you tomorrow."

And off he goes. The rest of his day is mostly decent. But he gets into an argument with someone on the internet late in the day and then finds he can't sleep. He reads instead, and then tries to sleep starting at three in the morning. He finally manages it at six, and then his alarm wakes him two hours later.

He turns off his alarm and tries to get back to sleep. He can miss one day of school- it's not the worst thing in the universe, he's been doing well enough.

After lunchtime comes and goes with no sign of Joshua, he gets a text from Sable.

Hey, missed you at lunch today. Hope you're doing okay <3

Is too early in their friendship to send hearts? Is she allowed—

No that's just overthinking, she's a cute girl, she's allowed to send people she cares about hearts. Even boys are allowed to send people hearts, there are no rules. Anxiety is cordially invited to fuck off.

Sent.

When he wakes up he feels a bit like shit. He was doing so well at showing up. It's hard to feel good things, right now. Depression sucks. He knows it's just depression, though. He'll feel better eventually. It feels like he'll never be happy, like he's never been happy, but that's not true. He just needs to remember that.

He doesn't notice the message on his phone for a few hours, he's not in the habit of checking it. He does look at it eventually, though, and- it helps. It helps a lot.

Okay enough. Couldn't sleep until real late last night and figured I wouldn't manage to learn anything if I showed up on two hours of sleep, so I just turned off my alarm and went back to sleep.

Ah. Okay, she gets that. She fills her girlfriends in, because this is not a group chat, and then replies.

Oh, okay. That's a relief. Very understandable.

Then after another few moments, another message.

Hey, what d'you think about science museums? We're going to see one tomorrow. You could come along, if science museums are your thing. We'd be glad to have you.

His new friends have invited him to a thing! This actually manages to successfully banish the rest of his lingering sadness.

Science museums are absolutely my thing! Which one are you talking about, and what's the entrance fee?

He's not actually sure if there are multiple science museums in the city, actually, and he feels a brief moment of anxiety that he's going to be thought stupid for not knowing that, but actually no, objectively that's silly.