Me and Rudsolav got back to the others and they were surprisingly... normal. Maybe because they sat in their own bubbles and didn't even acknowledge each other. Philip was presumably writing his article, Lola was on her phone doing something and Nathalie was writing in her notebook. I don't even think they noticed that we walked in.

Until Rudsolav slammed the newspapers on the table. All of them flinched and looked up at him. He and Nathalie began discussing what to do next while Philip continued writing, not really interested in their conversation. 

I wasn't either so I sat down next to him and asked: "What's up with that robbery?"

"From what I heard someone broke into Mr James' shop and stole some supplies. I might need to ask him about it after school.", he explained without looking away from his laptop.

After school? So he wouldn't walk me back to the house anymore. Not a big deal, I remembered the way. I think...

"Can I go with you?"

He turned to me, surprised: "Um, sure."

Nathalie immediately glanced at both of us before taking a deep breath and announcing: "Fifi, I would like for you to write at least one original article for the newspaper before the end of the semester."

At least one? Hm, that didn't sound that difficult. I just had to find some lame story, write for like 30 minutes and then hand it in. So, I just nodded to her. At least one school project was going to be easy.

"Until the end of the semester!", Philip laughed as we walked out of the school.

I just looked at him, not getting what was so funny about that. He turned to me and quickly explained: "It took me 3 weeks to write my first article and let's not forget that Nathalie has to approve it before it goes into the newspaper."

"Is she harsh with approvals?"

"It took me 10 drafts to get that thing approved the first time. If you want to finish the assignment in time you need to start now." He swiftly turned around and started walking, I quickly followed him. 

10 drafts? Either he was a terrible writer or Nathalie was truly really harsh. It was just a school newspaper. Why would anyone take it so seriously was beyond me. Did that girl have to make everything so difficult?

We made our way through the town. At that hour it was really busy, well busier than in the morning. People were walking around, talking and doing stuff. What was so weird to me was that a few people stopped to greet Philip. It seemed like the whole town knew who he was and also that they all knew each other. They just smiled and stopped walking to chat to each other. Honestly it was more shocking than the fox that jumped out at us previously that day. In the city people would usually rush to where they were going, stare straight ahead and hope no one would talk to them. Everyone seemed so busy, but there it seemed like time had slowed down. Once again I wasn't sure if I liked it or not.

We suddenly stopped in front of a small shop. The big front window was broken and wrapped in police tape. Yeah, someone definitely had broken in, if it wasn't obvious by the police standing in front of it, talking to an older man with barely any hair. Totally without fear Philip just walked up to them. I've never seen someone so confident to talk to the police before. The police woman seemed to recognise him.

"Writing another article?", she smiled as she scribbled something in her notebook.

"You bet."

She glanced over his shoulder and noticed me. Her smile slightly faded before she turned to him again: "Is that the city girl?"

Philip turned to me before answering: "Yeah, this is Fifi. Fifi this is my aunt, aunt Molly."

I looked over at her and suddenly saw it. She definitely was his father's sister, a strong body build but also straight light hair. Steve and Molly looked like twins in a weird way.

Before there could be any awkward silence between us I turned to the broken window and asked: "What happened here?"

Molly sighed: "Exactly what it looks like. Someone decided to break the front window and steal a dozen candles."

Candles?

"More than a dozen! There were like 30 out that night!", Mr James corrected.

30 candles? Who would need to steal and risk getting arrested for 30 candles? Me and Philip seemed to share the same thought since we both looked at each other, a bit confused. 

Philip continued questioning them about the robbery while my brain decided to zone out after that. These are the usual questions that come up in such cases. Did someone hear anything? When? How? And so forth. 

I started looking around and noticed that there was a small alleyway next to the store. They all seemed occupied so I guessed they wouldn't notice if I had disappeared for a bit. 

I walked down the alleyway and sure enough, the back window of the shop was also broken and taped off. Well, not enough to stop a curious teenager to walk in. What? Like you wouldn't! There was a crime scene right in front of me, so I had to investigate.

But before I could make my way fully in, someone frantically whispered at me: "What are you doing?!"

It was Philip, standing there like a frozen deer seeing car headlights.

"What? I thought we were supposed to be journalists.", I shrugged.

"Journalists don't sneak into crime scenes!"

"If anyone asks, say it was Nathalie's idea.", I shrugged.

He laughed: "You're insane."

I scoffed before hopping into the shop. Walking further in the smell of scented candles hit me like a truck. Winter, fall, spring, Sommer, all the seasons and all the fruits you could possibly imagine just hit me straight across the face. How Anyone could work there for more than a few hours was beyond me. 

What I found was what I expected, candles everywhere. On shelves, the floor, the tables, everywhere. What I didn't expect was to see the floor absolutely covered in dirt and mud with a few shoe prints scattered around. Whoever robbed that place seriously needed to clean their boots. I leaned over and picked up, well what I thought at first was grass was actually a pine tree needle. It was pretty small and I almost didn't even notice it.

"Fifi!", Philip called out from the outside.

I quickly put the needle in the pocket of my jacket and walked out. As I hopped out of the shop Philip breathed a sigh of relief. 

Before I could ask anything Molly popped her head out of the corner: "What are you two doing here?"

"Oh, Fifi just wanted to look around. See if there was anything interesting.", he lied.

Molly nodded, he lied so well I even believed it for a second, and gestured to us to get out of there. We quickly followed her orders.

After we said goodbye to them and got further away Philip immediately started laughing. 

He lightly hit me on the shoulder and chuckled: "What was that?"

I shrugged: "I thought I would find something interesting."

"Did you?"

I almost answered before noticing that the town had quite a few pine trees. Which meant the person that robbed the place could be from anywhere downtown. 

I didn't want to hear Philip explaining that to me either so I simply mumbled: "No."

He laughed again. Clearly very amused by my action nonetheless. At first I thought he was a scaredy cat from the reaction he had in the alleyway, but now it seemed like he enjoyed my break in more than I did, and that said something.

"Where did you learn to lie so well?", I wondered.

We just kept walking as he shrugged: "I guess I'm always the one that has to pull my friends out of trouble."

Friends. That word stung way too much. I immediately took a few steps away from him. Friends. Yeah, right. Like I needed that. 

The rest of the way we stayed silent, exactly like we did at the start of the day. This reassured me a little bit that nothing has changed between us, we weren't getting closer and we weren't getting more comfortable around each other. What happened there was just a fluke.

"There you are!", Lyana smiled as we arrived.

Philip just gave a short greeting before swiftly going upstairs and probably to his rooms. Just as I wanted to do the same, Lyana stopped me.

"How was school?"

"Boring."

She gave me that same look again, the one I can't even begin to describe. It was somehow warm and inviting but also distant and kind of... off, like there was something I was missing to fully understand it. Before we looked at each other for too long she seemed to snap out of it and looked me up and down. Now the look in her eyes was more readable; disgust.

She cleared her throat: "Would you like to go shopping with me? For some new clothes?"

I knew she meant it well, but with the way she looked at me and said it it just felt a bit insulting. There was also nothing wrong with my clothes! Yeah, they were a bit old and my converse had one or two holes in them but they were still wearable. The only noteworthy thing about my outfit was the slightly oversized green fall jacket I wore, the collar and cuffs were dark brown and it was a little bit dirty, but nothing a wash couldn't fix. It was practical and comfortable, that's all that mattered to me at the time.

"No thanks.", I awkwardly smiled.

She lightly nodded her head before walking away. As soon as she turned around I booked it upstairs. I didn't want anyone talking to me anymore, I just wanted to go into that bedroom and-

Immediately after opening the door I noticed a cardboard box in the middle of the room. I looked around and no one seemed to be there so I just kneeled down next to it and looked inside. There was stuff inside. No, really, there was just stuff. Small things like a clock or a pencil holder and also a desk lamp.

"Anything you fancy?"

I turned around. It was Steve still in his blue work uniform, did he just get home?

"Is this from the attic?", I said while inspecting the desk lamp.

"Yeah, we have a few things up there. If you want to take a look you can always ask."

I nodded and stood up with the lamp in my hands. It wasn't anything incredible, just a normal black desk lamp, but I guessed I would probably need it. Steve seemed pleased with himself as I placed it on the desk. I guess I could have picked literal dust from the box and it would have made him happy.

"Door open or closed?", he asked as he was about to leave.

"Closed."

Just like that, without saying anything else he closed the door and I heard his loud footsteps walking downstairs. Closed or open. Reminded me of all the times my mom would always slam doors shut. No matter where you went she would have followed you and slammed the doors behind you. One time I was really irritated and I shouted at her to at least keep the living room door open. She didn't talk to me for a while after that. It felt weird saying "closed" now, since I used to basically beg for doors to stay open before.

I fell back on the bed. Still stiff, still had the scent of freshly cleaned sheets. The ceiling was just as blank as the room. White and boring. At least the ceiling lamp had a bit of colour though, it was a light green, so light you could barely tell it was green. The dust on it definitely didn't help the colour either. I took a deep breath, I never stayed long enough to see dust form in a room, finally seeing some felt therapeutic in a way. I may have been the first and only person on earth that was happy to see dust.

Slowly sitting back up one thing caught my eye, the worn out backpack. Nathalie gave me those notes to copy... I guess I could just lie and say I did it. I laid back down.

...

Okay, no. Laying down and doing nothing definitely wasn't better. I sat back up and stared at my backpack, considering the possibility of actually going over her notes. How sad is my life that I had nothing better to do than study?! Screw it. I jumped off the bed and threw the bag on the desk. I tried not thinking about it too much, just some stupid notes that's all. It wasn't like it was going to take me the whole day...

It was already dark when I finished. That blondie was thorough. It must have taken her weeks to write all of that, it literally took me a few hours to badly copy it. Compared to my handwriting hers looked like something a Graphologist would hang up on their wall. She probably wrote a lot.

Suddenly someone knocked on the door, which made me realise I was biting on the pen Philip gave me, gross. I quickly took it out of my mouth.

"Hi, oh you're studying.", Lyana poked her head in, she noticed the lamp on my desk and smiled: "Ah, it still works. That's good."

There was an awkward silence between us. I just wanted for her to say what she wanted. 

She quickly did: "I'm doing laundry. Do you need 

anything cleaned?"

She glanced at my green jacket hanging on the desk chair. I definitely caught on what she was implying. I gave in and handed it to her. Not to make her happy, which it did, but I guessed she was right. I haven't washed that thing in ages.

"Will it be dry by tomorrow?", I asked.

"Oh, you can always borrow something from Philip."

What?