We each took one food container that Luke had brought. They all had the same things: pancakes, eggs, bacon, hash browns, and a small container of sliced bananas and strawberries.
We sat at the table together, with me in the middle. Nathan sat on my right, Luke to my left. Nathan tore off the lid to his container and did the same to mine so he could get them out of the way.
Luke put his fruit aside, digging into the pancakes first. Nathan dumped his fruit and Luke’s onto his own pancakes before topping it with syrup. I ate the fruit first, straight out of the container, to make sure I ate something healthy before I started on the chocolate chip pancakes.
I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I took the first bite. The familiar pancakes and eggs were delicious after a week of packaged food and stress. I might have had dinner last night, but I was so tense that I didn’t even remember eating. After the initial hunger pangs started to fade, I slowed down, enjoying the luxury of being with them and satisfied at eating something so delicious.
I placed Victor’s iPhone in front of me and tapped my own heart app, finding cameras that showed me Carol. She was in the master bedroom. She dusted the carpet with what looked like baking soda. Afterwards, she vacuumed, slow and in W-shaped patterns.
Nathan sat to one side of me, eating the last of the eggs and pancakes I couldn’t finish from my takeout container. Occasionally, he leaned into me, trying to watch Carol, too.
Luke sat with arms folded over his stomach, watching the same screen.
Since they said nothing about doing this, I assumed they were just as curious about her as I was. Now that I’d slept and eaten, I was waiting, trying to figure her out.
What were her real motives?
Could I trust her at all?
She was meticulous and vacuumed the same W pattern, three times in the same spot, and then turned around and did it the opposite way. After several minutes, I was zoned out to it.
The bed in the room was made. Everything was dust-free, from what I could tell. She’d vacuumed the same room yesterday, hadn’t she? Why was she doing it again? When she left the room, she backed out of it, still vacuuming, until the carpet was all vacuum lines and no footprints.
She started on the hallway next. She ran the vacuum over the hardwood floor, although instead of the W shapes, she just followed the floorboards and then did an S pattern across the broader parts of the floor.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “It isn’t that dirty. A little dusty, maybe...”
“Some people like cleaning,” Nathan said, his breath near enough to my shoulder that I felt the warmth of it through the shirt.
The front door of Nathan’s house opened. When the others didn’t immediately jump up in reaction, I could only assume it was one of the guys. I was barely aware of it, still staring at the screen when whoever it was came through the kitchen. I caught the spice scent, but my brain was still foggy enough that I didn’t make the connection to who it was. I just knew it was one of the guys, so I didn’t pull myself from staring.
He came up behind us, looking over our shoulders. “Did she do something?” Kota asked.
I blushed, wondering if Kota thought we were wasting time, and worried about the last time I had seen him and the fight they’d had about me. I reached for the phone, ready to turn off the signal. A tight ball started to form in my stomach and I avoided turning around to look at his face. “No,” I said. “She’s just cleaning.”
His hand darted in front of me, motioning to the screen. “No, keep watching,” he said. “It’s not a bad idea to get a look at her daily schedule here and what she does. It’ll be helpful.”
“Is it weird that I want to bring her to my house?” Luke said. “It would get clean in no time.”
Nathan reached around me, weaving his arm in front of Kota and chopping Luke on the back of the head. “Stop it.”
Luke angled away, rubbing at his scalp. “What? I’m just saying...”
Kota moved around the table, bringing along bags of groceries to put on the counter. At first, he didn’t look at me, but then he glanced up, in general, to the three of us. “More in the car. Figured we’d stock up here.”
“Uh...sure,” Nathan said, although his voice faltered. He looked at me and Luke. “Grab the rest? I have to show Kota something.”
I shared a curious look with Luke, but he genuinely seemed unaware of what was going on.
Bad timing, because I was hoping Kota would do something to show me I was still at least his friend, despite all that had happened. He’d talked to me on the phone, and I remembered how desperate he’d sounded. It was too easy to doubt after how I had upset him so much only yesterday.
I wanted to ask him, like Sean said.
Only now wasn’t the right time.
I went to the garage with Luke and stood by while he sorted bags out of the back of Kota’s car, parked inside.
He went through the bags, looking in each one. “Ick,” he said. “Kota’s the worst at shopping.” He picked up one bag filled with raw fruits and vegetables. “I hate carrots.”
“You should take vitamins,” I said.
“I know,” he said and handed me a few of the bags, although slowly. “I take yours when I see them sitting on the counter. Did you take any today?”
He released a bag and readjusted it on my arm. I knew he was making time for Nathan and Kota to talk. Somehow I’d thought that, by joining the Academy, I would be a part of every conversation around them and not be in the dark as much.
Luke was out here, though. He didn’t seem to mind. I had to learn to trust, too. They’d tell me when they needed to, right?
When we were nearly overloaded with grocery bags, Luke led the way back into the house. He poked his head in, listened, stepped further in, listened again. After a second, he walked in and I followed.
Nathan was in the kitchen, going through the bags Kota had brought in. Kota wasn’t there.
My lips twitched. I put the bags on the table. “Where did he go?” I asked.
“Just into the bathroom,” Nathan said. He paused and then focused on the bags, his face turning a shade of red. “He’s... something broke in there, and he wanted to see.”
“What broke?” Luke asked. “But don’t wake up North yet. He’ll yell if we wake him up.”
“I’m not waking up North, and he already knows,” Nathan said. “It’s nothing. But the water may need to get shut off for a while.”
I emptied bags of groceries and started putting some of it away when Kota returned, shutting the bathroom door behind him. I wondered what had broken in there. Was that what they had been talking about in the garage before? Was that the cause of the dust in the hallway?
Kota collected the empty grocery bags, folding them neatly. “Yeah, next time Sang can escape for the day, perhaps we should go to my house. My mom will be at work most of the week. Jessica will be around some, though.”
“If it’s broken, can’t we just use the other bathroom?” I asked.
Kota shook his head quickly. “Water may need to get shut off for a while. Use it today, but we’ll want to get started on fixing this.”