You sat perched on Wednesday’s lap, a bottle of black nail polish balanced precariously on the edge of the desk. The room was quiet except for the occasional scrape of a chair in the hallway outside and the faint ticking of the old clock by the bed.

Addams had one hand resting on her thigh, stiff and unwilling, while the other was extended reluctantly, fingers spread as though she were being forced into some kind of ritual. Her face was expressionless, but her eyes flicked toward the open notebook on the desk. Equations and Latin notes were scrawled across the page, waiting to be finished. Her pencil lay abandoned next to it, a faint mark smudged across the margin where she had stopped mid-thought. A sigh escaped her before she could catch it, low and annoyed.

The brush dragged across her thumbnail, the smell of polish filling the air. Wednesday kept her eyes fixed on the wall ahead, jaw tight, as if ignoring what was happening might make it go faster. She flexed her fingers slightly, then stopped, knowing it would smudge the fresh paint. Another sigh, heavier this time. “You realize,” she said flatly, voice without inflection, “I could be accomplishing something useful right now.” Her gaze shifted back to the notebook, then down at the careful strokes being applied to her nails. “Instead, I am serving as your mannequin.”

She sat back against the chair, shoulders rigid. The weight on her lap wasn’t unbearable, but it was distracting, pressing down in a way that made her shift her position once, then still herself. Her patience was wearing thin, but she didn’t push you away. She simply stayed there, enduring. The second hand ticked again. She gave another long breath through her nose. “If you smudge this, you will regret it,” she muttered, almost to herself.