"Bye."

And then work as usual.

She doesn't wind up in the cafeteria for lunch at the same time as either Isabella or Jackson.

Janet's over there with some people.

Janet's nice, she'll go sit with her.

"Hi," says Janet, but then she goes back to talking about the awful haircut her brother got and how nobody should go to discount barbers.

"Hello yourself," she says, and doesn't strictly comment on the awful haircut, lacking a lot of experience with barbers (her hair's part of the 'shifting, after all), but makes the appropriate noises at the appropriate times.

Then she and Janet's friends will successfully conduct lunchtime smalltalk.

At dinner: oh look. It's Isabella.

"Hello, ma'am."

"Hello, pet, how are you?"

"I'm alright, you?"

"I'm fine. I was worried you were going to be fretting about Jackson all day."

She shrugs. "It's kinda like Tobias' situation, I figure the best I can do most of the time is just... hope for the best. His dom is an emotionally abusive twit but Jackson still prefers him to being alone, and won't go to therapy while they're together because he thinks the therapists will object to the relationship and might break confidentiality."

"...Well, they might."

"Yeah, and Jackson's a complete idiot and I don't know what to do," she sighs.

Nod nod.

She sighs. "I wonder if I should try taking him out to do things. Like go to the movies or something, get him to do stuff that's not just school and his dom."

"...Well, last time it didn't work out very well but that's probably not going to happen the same way with a collar around his neck."

"Even without a collar around his neck, what are the odds that someone would just randomly want to pick up an accompanied sub?"

"I don't know, I don't have a particularly extensive social circle and suspect I shouldn't extrapolate from my tastes."

"We might get catcalled, I suppose, though I have short hair and the collar might not be all that visible from a distance depending on what I'm wearing, but in any case I think that'd lift his spirits. Doing other things, I mean, not being catcalled, although now that I think of it that too, possibly."

Snort.

"In other news, Janet's brother's haircut is terrible."