"How much longer," I sighed, and Rose flopped onto her bed. She buried her face with a pillow.

"I don't know," she said, her voice muffled. "That was attempt number 9. It's been two weeks. This is getting tiring."

"And Paul doesn't even trust me anymore," I complained. "Ever since we tried that 'make Paul drunk!' plan, which, let me remind you, did not work at all because he smelled the alcohol off the water right away, he won't trust me with anything."

"Same. He keeps giving me a wide berth during work, and that interferes with serving the customers. The cook yelled at me."

Idel looked just as crestfallen as both of us, though she didn't show it as explicitly. Instead, all she said was, "Paul is avoiding me like death," but the quiet way she said that just made both of us want to cry on the inside.

Rose suddenly sat up, her golden eyes flashing in anger. "What is wrong with Paul? Shouldn't it be around time that he realizes how much Idel wants to talk to him and just give it up already?" She ticked off her fingers one by one. "We tried getting angry at him, we tried making Idel fake cry in front of him, and we even tried pinning him down ourselves."

"Don't forget the alcohol attempt, too," I added, "and trying to lock him up in the back room with Idel." That sounded kind of inappropriate, but he'd been out of there in two seconds, too short for anything remotely scandalous to have happened.

"How was I supposed to know the cook gave him the keys too?" Rosa crossed her arms and huffed. "He's like a, a... slithering snake. Yeah, a snake, always slipping out of our grasps." She lifted up her hands and mimed capturing something without success, her fingers twitching.

"He's more like a scared puppy," Idel said softly, looking down at her hands. "A puppy scared of me."

I exchanged a worried look with Rosa. We were both outsiders to this issue, but for Idel and Paul? This was more than personal, and probably a lot more hurtful to Idel than it was to any one of us involved.

After a moment or two of sullen silence, Idel spoke up again, her voice so small that I had to strain my ears. "Maybe we should stop," she whispered. "Maybe I should just go back to Ribdus."

Rosa straightened up.

"Idel," I started, but she wasn't done.

"Maybe," she said, looking up at us, eyes pleading, "Paul left because he didn't--" She bit her lip. "Because he doesn't like me. Anymore. To the point of hating the sight of me."

I inhaled sharply, but I couldn't say anything. I opened and closed my mouth in vain, trying to think of a good response but drawing a blank. If I told her to try some more, she might get her hopes up just to have them crushed again. If I told her to give up, she would be giving up closure, too. What was I supposed to say in this kind of situation?

Idel continued. "If Paul doesn't want to talk to me, then there's nothing I can do about it." She attempted to smile at us, though her eyes remained dim. "And I think I've tried hard enough, thanks to you two."

My eyes welled up. Thanks to my mom's line, every single person in our family had easily moved tears, and I was no exception. I angrily wiped them away. "But Idel--"

"Then are you going to give up your chance?" Rosa said quietly. 

I faltered and looked at Rose, vaguely surprised. Spine straight and hands folded, her eyes were burning into Idel, who'd looked up at her in surprise, too.

"Are you going to give it up?" Rosa said again, in the same deathly calm voice.

"But Rosa," Idel pleaded softly, "it hurts."

Rosa didn't reply, only waiting.

"It hurts when Paul looks at me and runs away. It hurts when he doesn't come running to me, like he used to. It hurt that he left, Rosa, without telling me a thing, and now he's done that to me nine more times and I--" she bit her lip, struggling to contain the trembles in her voice. She breathed hard, gripping her fingers together. "I don't want to go through that anymore."

"That's your choice, Idel," Rosa replied, just as quietly. "That's your choice. But think, Idel. He's still here. He's still alive and talking and next to you. You're next to him. The chance is still yours, Idel. If you let it go right now, if you let yourself give up, you'll live the rest of your life wondering what he never said to you, what you never got to ask him."

"But what if he never answers?" Idel whispered, shrinking back. "Then I'd get hurt again and--"

"What if he does?" cut in Rosa. "What if the tenth time does it? So what if it's the thirtieth time? Idel, you have a chance. So many people out there would probably kill to have the chance you do. If only I could--" Rosa stopped herself, looking shaken, and Idel and I stared at her as she sucked on her bottom lip and focused on the wall for a long, long moment. While we waited with bated breath, she exhaled slowly, her shoulders visibly falling. Softly, she only said, "So many people would kill to have the chance you have."

The heavy air that stilled around us after her words stifled me, and it reminded me of the glimpses of sadness I would see in Rosa that would appear every once in a while, just when I would be about to write off her previous episodes as my imagination.

There was something about Rosa that disturbed me more than I would ever let her know. Sometimes, she would get this faraway look in her eyes, unfocused, wobbly. She would look utterly lost, like a child who'd been ripped from her mother, and her mouth would droop at the corners as she pressed her lips together, suppressing some kind of sadness. She would get all still and silent, pondering deeply over something that I could not understand. 

She would quickly resume the usual fire in her eyes and brighten up, appearing normal again, as if I had just imagined the entire expression. But she would still be reserved for a while afterwards just enough for me not to forget that I had actually seen her, and then I would never be able to get over how completely dejected she had looked and how hopeless she appeared whenever she had that face. I had never asked her about it, but I had also never stopped wishing that whatever was ailing her would be completely washed away.

Idel was crying mutely next to me, and I wordlessly held her hand, tears running on my face too, for the pain that I knew Idel felt and for the unknown pain that Rosa always held close in her heart.

I took a shuddering breath. "We'll follow whatever you decide to do, Idel," I gingerly said to her, and she nodded, holding back her sobs. I met Rosa's eyes and held it through my own tears, and she looked absolutely broken, in that small moment. "Like Rosa said, it's your choice." I tried to smile and put my arm around Idel's taut shoulders, looking at her again. "But that doesn't mean you have to make it immediately."

I thought I heard Rosa quietly gasp, but I wasn't sure. "Tell you what," I said instead, as soothingly as I could, "why don't we give ourselves a well-deserved break? We can ask for tomorrow off from cook, and we can go someplace to have some fun. You haven't been to the downtown area yet, right?"

Idel nodded, wiping her tears from her cheeks.

"Then let's go there tomorrow. We'll forget all about it for a day, and you can make your choice slowly." I grinned, though my cheeks trembled from the effort. "How does that sound?"

She nodded again, and I squeezed her arms, meeting Rosa's eyes again. She nodded back in return, her own eyes shining in unshed tears.

And that was that, at least for today.

---

The next day, after an hour of wheedling Cook for the day off (who had grumbled that he'd need to call in two of the newer kids, who didn't know a thing), Rosa and I triumphantly walked out of the restaurant free as lords... for the day. 

Hey, still better than nothing.

Besides, since we'd both been taking extra shifts around to overlap our times with Paul's, we had some extra cash just waiting to be spent. And what better way to spend it than with a new friend, outside, to celebrate good times found in the bad?

When I said as much to Rosa, all she did was scoff and say, "Celebrate good times found in the bad? What are you, a poet?"

Yup, typical cynical Rosa. I shoved her out of the way and watched her stumble. "Hey!" she complained, and I stuck my tongue out at her.

"My, that looks fun," Idel said from behind us.

We whirled around. "Idel! Ready to have some--" I stopped, my smile sort of drooping. "Oh man, we have to do something about your eyes, Idel." Her eyes screamed 'I cried for two hours yesterday!!' like nobody else could, puffed up and red and shiny.

Rosa chewed on the insides of her cheeks, evaluating Idel's apologetic face. "I've decided," she announced. "We'll go to Doctor's first."

"Perfect!" I agreed, nodding.

"The doctor's?" Idel echoed.

I smiled, coming forward and linking my arm with hers. "We call her that, but she's not an actual doctor. Nobody makes your skin as perfect as she does, so everyone just says she's a doctor."

"Yup," Rosa said, crossing her arms tightly. I made a face-- of course Rosa wouldn't realize that this would be the prime time for her to link her arm with Idel's other arm, like I had done. "Her real name is Queller. Her catchphrase is 'Look at that skin! Ready for more?'"

I frowned. "Didn't you only go there, like, once?"

"Trust me, I've mentally been there maybe three hundred times before. She affects your 'Loveliness' stat, you know."

"Loveliness stat?" Idel repeated, tilting her head slowly.

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, ignore her. Let's go!"

Queller's Palace, or so it was called, was a pink-walled store with red shades on the windows. We went in, and the Doctor Queller herself was lounging on the couch, wearing a hot pink, furry scarf on her neck (wasn't it hot?! It was summer!) and a long, shimmery gown with a slit all the way up to her thigh.

Still, the first thing Queller said actually "Welcome!" I sneaked a knowing glance at Rosa, but then she took one look at Idel and added, "Look at that skin! Ready for more?" and my jaw dropped.

Rosa flipped her hair over her shoulder and, incidentally, into my face, and put her nose high in the air. I sputtered.

"She'd like your best treatment, please," Rosa said primly. Leaning forward, she also said, "And I've heard you have a special option, known as 'How-Can-It-Be-This-Good? Eye-Opening Jealousy-Inducing Lovely Skin Production'?'"

I tried not to gape at Rosa. What in the world? And what was with that super long name?!

But Queller's perfectly mascara'ed eyes popped open, and her perfectly red lips formed a round 'o'. She pointed a perfectly manicured finger at Rosa and said, "I developed that just a week ago! I haven't even told anyone yet! How did you know?"

My proud best friend of sixteen years smirked, flipping the other side of her hair over her other shoulder. "I have my sources, of course."

Queller shook her head in delight, then said, "Nothing surprises me anymore, but you, my girl, have managed to do just that." She stroked her furry scarf thing. "You've earned it. I'll give puffy eyes the Eye-Opening Jealousy-Inducing Lovely Skin Production, and you two will get my Lovely Vacation Skin Treatment, on the house!"

She clapped her hands twice, and a row of assistants sped into the room from the doorway covered with strings of pink-painted shells. "And you," she said, pointing at Idel, "follow me."

Once they left to another similarly covered doorway, I whooped and said, "That's my best friend!" I slugged Rosa on the arm, making her yelp. "You go, Rosa! I shouldn't even be surprised anymore when you say weird stuff like that! Not that the name is weird," I amended, though I did think the name was weird. But I didn't want to make Queller mad if she could hear us somewhere inside the dark void she'd gone into.

Rosa only cackled her usual cackle and allowed the attendants to lead her to another room at the left. 

"This way to the Lovely Vacation Skin Treatment," another attendant said at my elbow. I followed her to the other doorway at the right.

But man, if Queller did manage to get Idel's puffiness back to the normal, prettily-shaped green eyes she usually graced us with, then I would totally believe that she was a true doctor for the rest of my life.

From the back, I heard Rosa's voice saying, "I have a really cool name to suggest for Queller, if you could let her know..."