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"'ope...Hope?" Lizzie waves her hand in front of her best friend's face. "What?" Hope snaps out of her thoughts.
"I was just asking if you're alright" Lizzie smiles.
"Oh, uh. Yeah, I'm fine" Hope answers. The truth is she's not that fine. Hope has been fighting against her little side the entire day. All she has to do is get through this studying session with Lizzie and then she can peacefully be alone in her room and regress.
She hasn't regressed in over a week, there hasn't been any time and when she hasn't been in class, doing homework, or fighting monsters, she was so tired and knocked out right away.
Lizzie raises an eyebrow, "Okay, spill." "What do you mean?" Hope tries to act oblivious.
She rolls her eyes at her friend. "You know what I mean. You've been acting strange all week, and extra weird today. What's going on? I'm worried" Lizzie crosses her arms, worry displayed on her face.
Hope's eyes start to water from the stress. No, no, no! This can't be happening, she thinks to herself. No one is supposed to know about this side of her. She's been hiding it from everyone. Her friends, her best friend, her aunts and uncles, and even her parents. But you can't blame her, it's embarrassing enough as it is just knowing that she regresses into a young child's mind without anyone knowing.
She knows she should love everything about herself. And she does. She usually does love her little side, but sometimes it can be a total nightmare.
Her lip starts to quiver against her will. She feels so vulnerable. All she wants to do is go to her room and cuddle up in her blankets.
"Hope, what's wrong?" Lizzie asks, concerned. Hope's eyes start to tear up, turning Lizzie into freak mom mode. "Oh, oh, okay, it's okay, we're okay! Right? Oh no. How about we go to your room, yeah?" Lizzie starts blabbing out as she gets out of her chair and rounds to the other side of the table where Hope is sitting.
Hope looks up and nods as the first tear dribbles down her cheek. All at once she can feel the wall between her normal teenage mindset and her regressed one collapse, the latter taking over.
"Okay, alright. Up we go, not a long walk" Lizzie guides hope to stand up and as soon as she starts to leave, she feels a hand grasp hers. She looks to her right and finds a teary wide eyed, with her lip trembling, Hope, clinging onto her hand like a life line.
Lizzie just smiles and brings her friend closer to her, knowing she's vulnerable, and resumes leading Hope to her room upstairs, conveniently across from hers and Josie's.
Hope watches as the tall blond girl leads her through the massive house and up old creaking stairs through her blurry eyes that are due to all the tears gathered in her tear ducts.
Once they get to her room, Lizzie closes and locks the door behind her. Her left hand is still engulfed in Hope's as she leads the shorter girl to her bed.
Hope takes it as a means to sit on the comfy bed fixed up with a fluffy blue blanket and a stuffed bunny lying between her two pillows.
She must have forgotten to put bunny away when she was big in the morning.
"Okay, Hope. I know you're not feeling well right now, I think, but is there any way you can let me know what's going on or what's happening?" Lizzie asks in the gentlest way possible to her former frenemie-recently turned friend.
Hope looks down and bites her lip. She knows big her doesn't want anyone to know. But little her really wants someone to be with her and play with her, and not feel so alone. She weighs her two decisions the best she can in her headspace before looking back up to where Lizzie still stands in front of her.
She takes a deep breath before whispering, "little."
Lizzie's ears pick up on it and her eyebrows scrunch together. "Little? Little what, Hope?" She asks, confused among all other things.
"..me" Hope responds, eyes wide. "Okay, um, let's take a little break for a moment, huh?" The siphoner says and Hope takes a moment to understand what she means before nodding her head.
It feels good, finally succumbed into her little space after having to push it away for so long, Hope thinks.
Lizzie takes time to ponder over what Hope just told her. As she does, Hope reaches over to her pillows and grabs bunny, she brings the light grey stuffed bunny close to her chest, squeezing it in a hug.
After Hope becomes occupied with her stuffed animal, Lizzie pulls her cell phone out of her back pocket. She unlocks the device and goes to Google, searching up little terms and what it means for a person to be little. At least that's what she thinks Hope meant.
After scrolling through articles and different answers, she settles on the one that seems the most realistic to what's happening. It explains a lot of Hope's behavioral changes in the past hour, especially the past ten minutes.
She shuts off her phone and sets it on the bedside table before sitting beside Hope on the bed. "Hey, Hope. Are you regressed? Like age regressed, that's what it's called?" Lizzie asks gently.
Hope looks up from bunny and slowly nods her head. How did Lizzie know? But at least she doesn't look mad, right?
"Okay, are you feeling little right now? Is that what's been happening?" Lizzie places an arm around her shoulders. "Mhm, am I bad?" Hope's puppy dog eyes gleam.
"What? No, of course, you're not bad. You deserve to have an escape from the school. There's no need to think you're bad for doing so" Lizzie pulls her closer to her. Hope leans into the siphoner while still clutching onto her bunny stuffy.
Lizzie smiles at the softness of Hope at the moment. "You want me to stay here with you?" She asks. "Stay," Hope snuggles closer into her. Lizzie smells so good, just like vanilla.
"Of course I will" Lizzie rubs her hand in circles on the cute, auburn girl's back.
Hope pulls away from Lizzie but not before she pulls the taller girl to lay across the bed. "Oh, okay." Lizzie follows Hope and opens her arms, inviting Hope to lie in them.
Hope immediately takes up the offer and crawls into Lizzie's arms and nuzzles her head into her chest. She closes her eyes and breathes in her vanilla scent.
As Hope gets comfy on her, she wraps her arms around her back. Lizzie kisses the top of her head which seems to settle the regressed girl right down.