A curious response

The two of you watch Jessica as she ponders the information she's been given. She's clearly taking this more calmly that you had expected her to and she just sits there thinking through it all whilst spinning the black pen in her fingers. During your explanation, you'd taken out the pens to show her and laid them on the table.

She taps her lips absentmindedly with the pen as you express a mild worry that she'll accidentally skin herself.

"So you're saying that you've been Leah for the past 4 years," she says as she points the pen at Jimmy accusingly, before directing it towards you, "And when you found out how guilty he was feeling, you decided to drop everything and become Leah without a care in the world." You nod numbly in response, your long hair feeling foreign as it swayed with your head movement.

"You didn't stop to think about your own life? How your disappearance would affect the people around you? Don't you feel guilty?" she pressed with her line of questioning, each word stabbing at you.

She was right. You had impulsively jumped at the opportunity to become Leah. Seeing Leah so depressed had immediately your reaction to protect her at all costs, which then morphed into a desire to protect Jimmy. But her last question caused some repressed feelings to start bubbling up and you lashed out.

"Of course I feel guilty!" you snapped back, Leah's raised voice sounding sharp and harsh, "I felt so guilty that I ran away from it by pushing it onto Jimmy! We were both to blame... I guess Jimmy a bit more but I'm the one who skinned Leah. I-I-I'm the sole reason why she got involved in the first place." You pause as the unfiltered words rush from your mouth, feelings that had been bottled up for years now, suppressed by the solution which had broken Jimmy.

You take a deep sigh. "Maybe it's the guilt. Maybe I'm trying to make right.... no.. make myself feel right. That's why I felt the need to take responsibility and that's why I made this decision alright? Is that what you wanted to hear?" You stare out the window with Leah's grey eyes, not wanting to face Jessica's accusatory tone.

"I'm glad to hear you feel that way. It'd good that your morality is still somewhat intact and..." Jessica turned to Jimmy, "I'm surprised that you gained a conscience. A surprise to be sure but a pleasant one."

She got to her feet and started pacing around whilst muttering to herself. You couldn't hear exactly what she was saying but you caught flashes of "no... maybe... but the plan...?"

Jessica stopped pacing and then looked at the two of you.

"This is a bit ahead of the schedule but given how things have turned out, this might be for the best."

"Jess, what are you talking about? What schedule?"

"There's no easy way to explain this but what if I told you I'm not Jessica?"

You hear Jimmy inhale sharply behind you as he realises what this means before he follows this up with a soft groan.