I blinked my eyes open as I heard footsteps down the hallway outside of my room. When he got to the place that the gate would’ve been if it was still on it’s hinges, Lawson tapped on the bars, making a gentle metallic knocking sound. I cooed and tilted my head at him, unsure what he was doing.

“Can I come in?” he asked, still waiting outside of the room, despite having being able to see that there was no reason he couldn’t.

I responded with a small, confused, nod, and he entered and took a seat on the bed. After settling himself and providing a comment on how stiff the mattress was, he took off the bag he was wearing slung over his shoulder and pulled out an object that I didn’t recognise. He carefully used his fingers to open it outwards so that it was double its size.

Curious about what he was doing, I struggled my way out of the bean bag and tentatively walked around to the side of the bed to see what he was doing. From this angle, I could see that this… thing… had a screen on the top half, and buttons with letters on them on the bottom half. Lawson was mashing at buttons too quickly for me to tell what he was doing, but eventually, he looked at me and told me that I could sit next to him so I could see better. I accepted the invite, although I was still wary of Lawson.

I still didn’t know what Lawson was doing on the screened-device, but watching him, I began to pick up how it worked. When he moved his hand over the square at the bottom, a little white arrow moved on screen, and when he pressed the unmarked button under the square, the screen would change in some way to give him new options. On one screen, he pressed on a rectangle box and then moved his hands up to the lettered buttons. When he pressed a button, the corresponding letter popped up in the box. When he had written some letters on the screen, he pressed the “Enter” button, and that took him to yet another screen.

Now the screen was filled with small images of furniture. Some of it was so foreign to me that I wouldn’t even know how to describe it by comparing it to things i did know, but some of it was easily recognisable, like beds and such. After giving me a short time to absorb the content of the screen, Lawson spoke up.

“So, what do you want?”

Confused by the intent behind the question, I looked at him and shrugged.

“Well, you mentioned you wanted a couch, right? And if you like this bed you can keep it but it’s pretty awful, haha. We’ll start with the couch, though. Any ideas on what kind you’d like? They make lots of different kinds.”

I shrugged, “A good one?”

Lawson paused, looking at me with an astounded facial expression, and then burst out laughing, “I’m sorry. I know you meant that honestly. It’s just that that was hilarious.”

“Lawson asks questions I don’t understand the purpose of.”

“Well, in this case, I mean the style of the couch. They make couches that pull out into beds, they make couches that seat one person at a time, there are couches that have wheels and spin in circles. I thought maybe you’d know what you wanted. We’ll just search for couches in general and you can pick out what you want,” he said, still laughing.

“Lawson will answer my stupid questions?” I couldn’t help being skeptical of his goodwill, but I liked everything I had seen of Lawson so far, and my brain kept coming up with reasons to justify trusting him. After all, it wouldn’t hurt me to take advantage of him buying me things while he was offering. And maybe he actually was a good person, where would it get me if I didn’t try trusting him? I wanted to assuage my fears and anxieties. I wanted to have someone that I felt a real connection to who wouldn’t abandon me or be taken from me. I wanted… a friend.

“Well, they say there is no such thing as a stupid question. I don’t really know what you’ve been through, and I won’t find out unless you tell me, but if I can help you out with your new life, I’d be glad to!”

“Then… why did you tap the bars before coming in?”