“you need to apply yourself more.” Mr. Jacobs said flatly. he gave me a cold stare from behind a compulsively organized desk, tapping a ballpoint pen against it with marked annoyance. “track and field won’t get you everywhere.” he continued, prompted by my silence. 

“i am trying, sir.” 

“your grades have slipped every semester since you enrolled.” 

“well, things at home have gotten more complicated. i have less time for academics.” i breathed out, focusing more on the ceiling tiles than the man in front of me. his white dress shirt was pressed, sharp, almost lethal. it was a bundle of clean lines amongst many others. thin brows and thinner lips, facial features that would have seemed gaunt if not buried underneath wire framed glasses. he’d disposed of his coat when we’d sat down, razor lapels still visible behind his chair. 

“do you know what happens when an airplane loses pressure, mr. hawthorne?” 

“uh, the oxygen drops down?” 

“precisely, and do you remember the procedure?” he asked, tapping the pen again to emphasize his point.  

i sighed, returning my attention to his piercing gaze. “yes. you put your own mask on first.” 

“excellent, perhaps there is some hope for you yet.” he breathed, turning to the slim all-in-one PC at the corner of the desk. several hurried keystrokes later, a grayscale piece of paper was ejected from a printer at our knees. “put your mask on first, mr. hawthorne.” Mr. Jacobs stated, handing me the printout. 

an enrollment form for summer classes. great. more things that would pull my attention away from keeping the balance of power in check at home. more distractions from my mission. i took the paper without complaint and dropped it into my backpack, giving Mr. Jacobs a hard look and scooting my chair back. he returned the look in kind, clearing his throat and once again tapping the pen against the desk. 

i left the admin building and took the long way around, not through the service road on the side of the gym to the parking lot, but behind it, across the X shaped courtyard that sprawled between each ‘wing’ of campus. St. A’s was split into a hub and spoke topography connected by long concrete walkways. some buildings had similar walkways between floors, but the main campus concourse was simply four large patches of grass and a large concrete cross that joined each path. a fountain had once run in the center, though too many boxes of soap had found their way into it, and now it was a dry tub with a sad looking angel statue on top. 

most of the buildings had been renovated, crisscrosses of metal and glass that blinded you at midday and gave the appearance of affluence. appearances, image, something that was inescapable in this kind of town. keeping up with the joneses had become keeping up with the kardashians, and now it had slowly crept its way into keeping up with the bezos’. after all, what kind of school didn’t have a 400-million-dollar engineering building?  

i reached the easternmost structure and was thankful for the crisp air-conditioned atmosphere that washed over me in the lobby. everything here was just as flat and striking as Mr. Jacobs’ office. gray dappled carpet, the kind that was much too thin, but easy to clean. flat plastic trim and dull paint already showing signs of age at having been on the walls just a few years. signs pointed to different classrooms, noting floors, locations of bathrooms, and elevators amongst other things i had already memorized in my four semesters on campus. 

the computer lab was on the third floor, accessible by elevator, but the stairs were closer and i didn’t mind the walk. i tapped my student ID on the door and the magnetic lock clicked open. nobody was inside, which i was silently grateful for, and i chose the closest computer. signing in to school systems was just a matter of tapping my ID again and the blank desktop with some preloaded applications for productivity greeted me with little fanfare. 

every student had a limited amount of storage and access to a semi-local network for sharing files, most of which was pretty unused, but it made sharing things for projects and coworking relatively painless. no annoying third-party accounts, and if somebody were techy like lace, it was trivial to access files via ssh at home. i was not techy like lace, hence my presence at the lab today. i opened my group project presentation on the shared server. no reason to check the edit history, it was still a blank collection of slides with placeholder titles. great.  

another project i would be staying late for. it was mostly busy work, cross checking grade items on the rubric and making sure my vocabulary definitions were correct. i had a mostly foolproof philosophy of ‘put everything into the slide so your deadbeat classmates can just read them’ that had served me pretty well thus far. it was a lot easier to just get the bare minimum done and rely on the fact that you were only getting a third or fourth of the blame, but as much as i wanted to phone this one in, the paper from academics counseling in my backpack threatened to light a fire under the uncomfortable plastic lab chair. 

people came and went while i worked, which i paid little attention to, my focus entirely encompassing the overly simplistic presentation on the human genome. despite my love for athletics, i had very little interest in the human body or its functionality. at least not my own, or most everyone elses. the B- i held in sophomore biology hardly reflected my passion and if left to those desires entirely, i would probably be failing. 

when i finished it was still a very bright 6:30PM. my back ached from the horribly designed seat, seemingly incapable of raising itself a human distance off the floor. i stood, stretched, and silently bemoaned the drive home, the scrounging out of leftovers, and mentally calculated how little i would need to interact with every component of my dysfunctional family. well, not every component. my thoughts lingered on lacey, some jealousy returning at the idea of her eating chips at the kitchen counter and doing much the same work as i had the last few hours. 

the drive home was painless, though, with minimal traffic. i even saw keith at the intersection before home, with a girl i didn’t recognize, in his drop top. some shining red sports car with a horse shaped hood ornament and white lined rims. the girl was pretty, a brunette in a white tank top, who smiled at me under her large sunglasses. keith was in his usual baggy sweater, the heavy cotton type with green, yellow and red lines assembling a makeshift flag. i gave him a honk and he hit me with the ‘hook ‘em horns’ before revving the engine, shooting off like a rocket when the light turned green. i had to smile at that. 

martha was home, so was dad. kelsey and lewis were nowhere to be found. lacey was still in her school uniform scrubbing dishes. i gave her a sympathetic look as i tossed the car keys on the counter and slid off my backpack. she didn’t return it. 

“Mr. Jacobs says you have a form for us.” martha announced, not deigning to look in my direction. her hair was pinned in a ponytail, bangs loose. all attention focused on an episode of real housewives that was blaring on the TV. dad was on his phone ignoring it, his evening attire of a loose t shirt and sweats drowning him in the living room recliner. 

“let me fill it out and you can sign it. i think i can register for the evening sessions and still drive lewis to bible school in the morning.” 

“and how will he get back? you can take the morning classes and carpool.” 

“you want me to take him to VBS at six AM and loiter in the parking lot until my class at eight?” i asked incredulously. lacey finally returned some sympathy, pulling off her rubber gloves and starting the dishwasher. 

“can you do that for your brother, cain?” dad said, looking up from his phone. he had clearly just tapped into this conversation. 

“my day is going to start at 5:30 and end at almost seven PM after practices.” 

“you’re a young adult, that’s life.” martha stated, matter of fact. i made pleading eye contact with my dad and he only shrugged. i really did not want an ‘i walked uphill both ways to school’ speech right now. god forbid lewis took the bus once. 

“okay, whatever.” i said. “but somebody needs to make him renew his permit because he will be driving himself next year.” i dropped the completed form on the couch and hoofed it upstairs before i could hear the next round of complaints start. my door slammed a bit harder than i intended, but in that moment i didn’t care. i slumped onto the futon and groaned. 

the rest of the evening was typical; homework, scraping up the aforementioned leftovers, and staring at read receipts from kirsten, wondering if it was worth asking her to come over this weekend. maybe. my indecision was streaked with stress from the past week and the rapidly approaching conference meet that absolutely would have scouts present. i wasn’t exactly scoutable yet, but they would be making notes, judging aptitude, putting things together for the coming years. i wanted to make a meaningful impression and i was still trapped on the 10 second plateau.  

a knock at the door caught my attention. i strolled over to open it and half jumped out of my skin seeing kelsey lazing against the wall on the other side, arms folded over her long sleeve crop. a lacey garment with puff shoulders and frills at the wrist. she had enough midriff exposed from low rise jeans that most eyes would’ve been drawn down, but the highlights in her unyieldingly straight hair were what stood out in the glow bleeding from my doorway. streaks of orange in the midst of light lengths, framing a smug expression.  

she flashed a smile at me that was all metal. “can i help you?” i asked. she gave me a look like i had said something gravely offensive and kicked off the wall as if to cross the threshold. i stopped her with an outstretched hand. “uh, hello? what are you doing?” i tried again. 

“lacey comes in here all the time, right?” the question was more of an accusation, said with some snark and almost a scoff. a similar implication to the one i had levied during the conflict on the stairs some days ago. 

“she did, when you were up late or out late.” i replied, adding emphasis to the latter half of the statement, reiterating our mutually assured destruction. she sniffed and cocked her head to the side, eyeing me up and down. i frowned. 

“kay, well, i want to.” 

“kay, well, no.” i said, mimicking her tone. i pretended to consider it and cocked my head in a more exaggerated way. she snorted and put her hands on her hips. 

“lacey is doing some nerd shit and it’s really fucking loud.”  

“tough break. this is my room, not Cain’s Wayward Home for Runaway Youth. put on some headphones or something.” 

“you really hate me that much?” 

“is that a genuine question? or are you expecting me to ignore the fact that you torture my sister?” 

“our sister.” she smiled. it would have done martha proud. a facsimile of genuine, oblivious benevolence. i knew it was to prod me and yet i let the anger bubble up anyway. 

“30 minutes tops and if you touch anything you’re out.” i strained through grit teeth. 

“okayyyy.” she trilled, practically skipping in and tossing herself on the futon. i rummaged around in the drawers of the TV stand, quickly shutting the one containing some of lacey’s underwear she had forgotten to retrieve, and found an old egg timer i hoped still worked. 

“30 minutes.” i repeated, loudly turning the egg timer and putting it next to the TV. kelsey rolled her eyes. it irked me to have to idle, to not be able to relax. i felt like i was aware of my entire environment and everything in it that she might have access to, that drawer especially. maybe that was the point? unable to torture lacey she decided to torture me? otherwise it was her interest in me, which, ugh. i did my best not to think about it. 

it was an agonizing thirty minutes. i opened and closed my laptop probably forty times in the span of it. kelsey, on the other hand, was absolutely demure. totally relaxed in a way that pissed me off even more. i couldn’t get any work done, i couldn’t sit still, the stupid drawer and all of the other potential landmines i wasn’t sure if i was imagining or not bugging the crap out of me until the egg timer finally rattled and died. kelsey pretended not to notice. “last call. all patrons please exit and watch your step.” 

“can i sleep in here tonight?” she said to the room, absentmindedly. 

“excuse me?” i balked. my heart rate went sky high, punched a hole in the rafters, and shot into the stratosphere. 

“did i stutter?” 

“no, i just assumed you were overcome by temporary delirium.” 

“ha ha. i’m serious.” she said, tossing her phone and glaring at me. 

“what on our saviour’s beautiful green earth makes you think i would ever let you crash on my futon?” i practically laughed back, trying my best to keep any nervousness out of it. kelsey remained silent, standing up and taking a step towards the TV. i was on her like a flash, my body blocking her access to the TV stand and its incriminating drawers. coach lindsay would have been proud. she sneered at me, some agenda i couldn’t parse working behind her flagitious gaze. 

“move.” she said, as though it would levitate me out of the way. 

“i said no touching.”  

“you’re awfully defensive, i just wanna look at some movies.” she smiled, all benevolence gone. it was like staring down a shark, not even malice behind her eyes, just pure intent to kill. “if i can’t stay, then can i just be up here a bit longer and watch TV?” 

“i don’t have movies and the CRT barely works.” i replied through grit teeth, every muscle in my body poised to stop her from reaching for the drawer handle. 

“stop acting weird cain. it’s not like you have a loaded gun in there.” kelsey drawled. it felt like she was coiling around me, squeezing the air out of my lungs and crushing my ability to think straight. she knew. she had to know. her visit made sense now and it dawned on me what must have transpired for her to be aware of that particular drawer. it took every piece of restraint i had to push my frustration and anger away, to not loudly accuse her of trespass and self-incriminate. 

“out. now.” i snapped, pointing at the door. she smiled again, another perfect imitation of Our Lady of Perpetual Wretchedness, and waltzed out of my room. when the door shut i grabbed my phone, wiping sweat that collected into a bead at my brow. 

Cain: Cerberus knows. Get your stuff later. 
Lace: fuck. how? 
Cain: Double fuck. She probably snuck in here when I was at school. 
Lace: ugh, okay. sorry 

the floorboards of my room had a whole lot of wear put into them with how i paced between the futon and my desk. i wanted to console her, to tell her that it wasn’t her fault. in a way, it wasn’t. part of me had avoided reminding her about the drawer, and despite never having really opened it or interacted with it, i knew subconsciously a part of lacey was here. i wanted a part of her here. hubris. guilt. waves and waves of guilt. i covered my face with my hands and groaned, falling back into my chair to lay flat on the desk. something needed to change. i needed to put a lock on that damn door.