“Jocelyn!”

It takes a moment for her to hear her brother’s voice calling her name—a moment longer to realize how long the alert has been going off. When it dawns on her just how long she’s zoned out, Jocelyn almost immediately stumbles up on her feet. “Sorry!” she shouts, nearly tripping over as she makes a run back home. All the while Andrew’s just standing there at the open backdoor, not saying a word.

In barely any time at all, she passes him by and makes her way inside. Once she’s inside, her brother closes the door and the alert’s noise all but disappears. “Sorry about that,” she murmurs, nearly out of breath, “I was looking for a rock out there and…something happened.”

“It’s fine,” Andrew sighs. “There’ll be plenty of time to find rocks tomorrow, anyway.”

At that, Jocelyn flinches. “Wait—so we’ll be able to go looking for rocks tomorrow, after all?”

Already he can tell he’s going to regret speaking. “Probably,” he says, worried he’ll just be digging himself into a hole if he tells her anything other than that. Jocelyn has very much the same mindset, considering the fact that almost every time she trusts Andrew to go through with something, something work-related comes up and prevents him from keeping his promises.

Just for a second, she pulls herself from that topic. “But hey—Andrew? Did you see that boy out there?”

Andrew, making his way to the faucet, hesitates. “No—no I didn’t. Is he the reason why the alarm went off?”

“I think so,” she replies. “I mean—I saw him from our backyard and he was running away from the guards outside the fence. I don’t know what he did, but—”

“Probably best not to dwell on it, then,” Andrew interrupts, keeping a hand in his pocket, looking like he wants to pull it out so he can put a finger on her lip. That would’ve been the icing on the cake when it comes to silencing her.

Though she still wants to dwell on the topic regardless of what her brother says, the smell of dinner pulls her attention away from the boy almost immediately. One quick whiff and the topic changes entirely. She looks over to the source of the aroma and sees just what they’re having today. “You made beans?”

“Kind of,” Andrew replies. “Martin made and brought them in after you went to school this morning. He couldn’t finish them off by himself, so that’s why we’re having them now.”

Aside from Martin’s baked beans, everything at the counter is just the kind of thing she’d expect from him: microwaveable food. Looking at the beans, Jocelyn sees what would be quite an impressive departure, had they not already been cooked by Martin.

Packaged or not, she would prefer to eat as little as possible, so as to not upset her tiny stomach. As a result, by the time she’s filled up her plate, at least half of the possible space on it is left empty. Some beans, three squares of ravioli, and a handful of chips: that’s all she puts on her plate—and it’s a fine dish for her.

Just as she’s about to take her plate over to the table, Jocelyn turns around and nearly bumps into her brother. It’s then when she realizes how runny her beans are. “Hey!” he gasps, her plate just at his waist; an inch lower and she could’ve burned his crotch. “Careful; those things aren’t easy to clean out of the carpet.”

Jocelyn feels like apologizing, but the thought of having to spend time scrubbing beans on—as opposed to working on this taxing project of hers—has her moving over to the table as quickly as possible. Along the way she grabs some silverware, but not a single napkin.

By the time she settles down, Jocelyn is left with little elbow room and a good view of this wooden desk’s frame. Its rickety nature always makes her wonder whether it will stay up another day. Every time Andrew takes a seat at this table (which he’s about to do right now), the legs almost seem to tilt toward his gravitational pull. How long will it be before one of them finally snaps off?

Now Andrew is settled, but the teen at the other side doesn’t know what to do now. Does she eat or talk to him? She would feel more comfortable with eating if she didn’t have such an irritable stomach.

He has no problem devouring his meal. He has no need for asking his small sibling how school has been; he has no desire to ask, considering how preoccupied his personal and professional endeavors have made him.

He digs in; her flaws sink in. He’s underwhelmed by packages; he’s her inverse. She feels like gagging when she glances down and sees this half-clean dish.

Can she speak? Gunk may be wedged in his windpipe; can she speak up?

Did he glance ahead?

He’s looking at me, she tells herself, realizing she hasn’t even touched her spoon yet. He expects her to start eating now, no doubt. Other kids would take this time to look out the window and gaze into the beyond, but Andrew made sure to take care of that before sitting down at the table.

Before she can swallow some beans, Jocelyn needs to swallow her pride; she does just that and dips her spoon into the pile of beans. Being as runny as they are, there’s not a lot of resistance when she shovels her spoon inward and brings it up to her lips; a few drips splash from her spoon down on the plate below before she finally puts the beans in her mouth and struggles not to cringe as their sour-sweet taste lands on her tongue. She can’t help but think of the stuff like vomit with almost-solid chunks in it—and it’s swashing around in her mouth. Jocelyn makes sure to swallow it down before she ends up vomiting, herself.

She tries another spoonful and finds it’s not quite as repulsive as it seemed the first time around. In fact, it’s actually pretty good once she gets over the strange texture. After swallowing another bite, she comments, “This is actually pretty good.”

Following what felt like five minutes of almost nothing but the sounds of chewing, swallowing, and scooping things up, Andrew’s surprised to hear his sister speak. “I would say thanks, but again, this is all on Martin, not me.” A thought occurs: “Oh yeah, you made sure to take care of Martin’s laundry, right?”

“Yes I did,” she responds after swallowing again. “Actually, I was at Martin’s for some time earlier. We were talking about a few things with school…” She wants to finish, but finds herself choking on the words she’d like to say—or maybe the beans are just making her throw up.

She wants to leave it at that, but Andrew just has to prod further. “What about school?”

Immediately after he asks, Jocelyn hurriedly puts a ravioli in her mouth and realizes it’s a little spicy. Considering she used to eat spicy food almost every other day when she lived with Martin back in the day, this ravioli is hardly anything—but considering all the anxiety she has to deal with now, it’s not long before she needs to speak again. “Oh, y’know,” she begins, feeling herself starting to sweat. “Just about tutoring…for science.”

She expects him to pile all the questions on her one by one—to badger her until she needs to scream just to get him to shut up. But instead Jocelyn’s surprised to hear him say no more than, “Why’s that?”

The question makes her blink, makes her breath go still for a split-second before she replies, “Well…I talked with Mrs. Taylor about how my grades have been, and…”

This next pill is horribly bitter to swallow, “After talking about the D I just got on the latest test…” She expects him to gasp, but he remains silent, eyes locked on her. “…and she thinks I should start looking for a tutor.

“Later when I went to Martin, I told him about what Mrs. Taylor told me and he…well—knocked some sense into me. We talked about the MRF availability and if I can find a tutor there, and he suggested I talk to you about the availability. So…” At this point she’s gone almost completely red in the face. “...do you know if anyone’s available?” The food on her plate has gone lukewarm, yet her face feels hot enough to fry an egg on.

The moment immediately following this question is silent—and with the silence, Jocelyn feels herself growing even hotter, even more claustrophobic than she already was a moment ago.

“Well, I never thought I’d see the day!”

Another crack like that and Jocelyn will be cherry-red in just a second.

Fortunately for her, Andrew continues, “I’m not really sure about it right now. The MRF is really starting to run low on resources and if you sign up now, you’ll be cutting things short. If you’re lucky, someone might no longer need their tutor and you could be next to take that person’s place.”

“Oh—alright,” Jocelyn says with a warm smile, the heat leaving her face. “I just hope we don’t have to take anyone away from working on the turrets.”

At that, her brother raises an eyebrow. “Turrets?”

Jocelyn doesn’t hesitate to respond. “The ones that are making a bunch of noise to install. If you listen close at night, you can hear them when the MRF is working at night.”

“Wait a sec,” Andrew begins, thinking for a moment as he clenches his jaw. “Wait, you’re thinking about the new buildings that are being made along the canyon’s walls, right?”

This is news to her. “Um…I guess? I didn’t know about buildings.”

Andrew nods. “That’s what the noises are about; the facility is just being expanded and someone thought it would be a good idea to start making them along the canyon’s walls.” Almost immediately after saying this, he takes a chip from his plate and sets it in his mouth with a loud crunch.

“Oh…” She wants to say something else, but what else can she say without making her brother realize that she’s on to his obvious ruse. Oh, Martin, she wants to say, please tell me you didn’t just let another secret loose. Thank goodness she doesn’t still have a journal.

The rest of that dinner is quiet, but short—as within about a minute, Andrew is finished with his chips and proceeds to take care of his plate and head up to his room. Jocelyn—having barely touched her plate since she last spoke—looks down and sees her plate is only half empty, yet her stomach is almost completely full.

Well, I screwed up again, she thinks with a sigh, rubbing her temple and trying to keep the negative energy from accumulating. May as well take care of this plate and sulk in my room for about an hour. As these thoughts bounce back and forth in her head, she stands herself up on her bare feet and proceeds to make her way over to the trash can. Unfortunately for her, one step to her right leads to almost immediate regret.

With one step, she feels something mushy seeping between her toes; her face goes pale. Hesitant, she takes a look down and finds a handful of beans (some smashed, some not) wedged between her toes. When the hell did that happen? she huffs, her nose wrinkling and eyebrows twitching in frustration. When did I spill dinner on the floor and why didn’t Andrew tell me?!