The next three days went by quickly and easily, for the most part. They were so peaceful I found myself getting anxious from it, and I used that time to work on my Shimmer, which was getting stronger by the day. Even shattering shields by force barely recognized in my head. I broke thirty in one session with spear and orb attacks, and only then did I finally start to feel some discomfort from it. Rebecca liked the progress I was making. What she seemed to like more than my progress was throwing me on my backside all the time. Knowing she was getting something out of it did help dull the pain a touch.
She kept smiling at me whenever I did something neat. Whenever she threw me on my back, it seemed that she made a point to have our faces be as close as possible without touching. Sometimes our foreheads or our noses brushed against each other, and I may not have been the most socially adept guy around, but not even I was going to ignore what she was doing. The thought that she might be into me—me, of all people—elated me and threatened to make me violently ill, because I definitely felt some kind of connection to her. To me, it really felt like there was chemistry there. Everything just felt better when I was next to her.
Mrs. Carmichael announced to everyone that it was estimated McLeod would arrive at Luna in seven days, which left me four to prepare at that point, and it did bring me down about the whole Rebecca thing. A lot of people evacuated to another Luna compound in Nebraska. I had been sure that was Big Sky Country, but Shelly awkwardly had to inform me that I was thinking of Montana. Everyone had been given the option to leave, and everyone I knew personally decided to stay. Mrs. Carmichael begrudgingly let Megan stay, so long as someone was always with her, and she was the top priority to get her out if the attack happened. She confessed to me that there weren't any families willing to take her. I understood that. Evacuating your own family out was stressful enough without throwing on another little girl you didn't know. If we weren't able to make it out, it wasn't fair to another family to make them watch over Megan. Like Pittsburgh, they couldn’t enforce an evacuation, so Mrs. Carmichael entrusted the kiddo to Shelly and her judgment. By extension, that meant she was entrusted to me too.
Mrs. Carmichael seemed nervous about the whole thing. She tried her best to cover it up, of course, though I could see a few nervous tics emerge whenever I saw her. I was in that camp too. The danger of McLeod was starting to set in, making me realize how lightly I’d been taking it since arriving. I didn’t want to be like that anymore. After nearly dying in the Tomb, I had to get in better shape with how I tackled everything. I could have fun, but I really had to start being on my toes.
I’d reunited with Megan finally, and I got to start that puzzle with her. When the little girl ran up to me and gave me the biggest hug she could manage, I had to battle to keep my emotions in check. She thought I was sad, and she couldn’t have been further from the truth. I spun her around in the air while maintaining my embrace, which seemed to make her forget about my reaction. It felt a bit soon and weird to say I loved the kid, but man, it had to be something close to it.
She’d spent the past two nights with us in Shelly’s room, where my sister was more than happy to have her. She adored that little girl as much as I did. Part of me knew that she would be staying with us full-time from that moment onward, even though we weren’t a complete family with parents who would be expected to have the skills to take care of a little girl. Despite my awkward attempt at apologizing, she accepted it without any fuss. She’d even made a card that said, “Get well soon!” in her big, blocky handwriting. That one melted my heart and threatened to turn me into a puddle.
Rebecca was over a lot too, mostly to help Megan with school, but I couldn’t avoid noticing that she was trying to get closer to me. I was just about positive she liked me, but I kept telling myself that maybe Rebecca was just like that with her friends. Lizzy was openly affectionate in that same way, but something felt...different. Rebecca was a little more awkward around me, which made me more awkward around her too. I didn’t consider myself overly perceptive or paranoid, but it really did feel different. All in all, that made the combined effort to teach Megan challenging. It was still one of the brighter spots of my days. We’d only just started and she was starting to take to homeschooling very well. The rest of us were too.
That day’s lesson was on telling time. That proved to be difficult since Megan struggled with numbers and we didn’t have any analogue clocks for a good visual example. We were able to find a site with world clocks, which Megan found cool with all the different time zones, sending us into a small tangent about those. That turned into a brief geography lesson with some maps. With how many digital clocks we had, I almost scrapped trying to teach her about it. Really, with things like phones, she probably would have been fine. I just couldn’t have her growing up unable to tell time. It wasn’t like calculus where the day-to-day practicality of it was small unless you worked in a field that used it. You kind of had to know how to tell time.
After I could tell that it was getting a bit much for the youngster, Rebecca and I dismissed her for an hour so she could clear her head, watch some TV, and eat. Megan didn’t try to hide her excitement and she rushed off to Shelly’s room to enjoy her break. For a little while, I was scared to let her go unsupervised, but she was a little angel. Any time she did something wrong, she told us right away, and we never yelled at her. With her gone, an awkward silence quickly filled the space she left behind.
“Do you want to go out sometime?” I blurted out. Then I paused and furrowed my brow, not sure if I had actually just asked that or maybe just hallucinated it. Maybe I was just having a really long dream and I was still living back in Oregon and didn’t have any powers. Rebecca looked similarly stunned. Oh well, no point in trying to dance around it anymore. My heart was thumping in my chest and I could feel my ears getting hot. “Like, more than we have been. An actual date. You and me. Together. More than friends.”
Rebecca looked down at her lap and played with her hands, almost for an uncomfortably long time. My stomach started to churn, and my throat felt tight. I kept looking between her and Shelly’s room, hoping Megan would burst back in to bring us back to the endless joys of first grade schoolwork. If I had a window, I might have jumped out of it to escape the jumbled mess of words I left hanging in the air.
“I would absolutely love that,” Rebecca said. I snuck a glance at my phone to confirm that an hour hadn’t really passed. Then, she looked up and smiled at me. It was warm and maybe the best thing I’d ever seen. I almost had to look away.
“Tonight, maybe? You know, before McLeod shows up and we have to handle that.”
“As good a time as any,” she said. Her face scrunched up in a cute way, drawing more of my attention to her freckles. “Not a movie, right? I know that people do that today.”
“I always heard a movie would be a bad first date,” I replied, remembering overhearing some girls at my old high school talking about bad dates they dealt with. They had plenty of long lists with movies topping out as the worst first option. “It’s dark and you have to be quiet, or you get kicked out. That’s something for marriage when you’ve been together forever and know each other inside out.”
That gave me an idea about where to go. The previous two nights I had trouble sleeping, so I was taking some walks on the outside part of the Luna complex to help me wind down. It took me ages to find the first night, but it was easier on the second one. The weather was shaping up to be comfortable, so why not? It beat a movie or another meal.
“What’s your apartment number? I’ll come get you at eight.” For some reason, I was feeling worse after she said yes. Maybe it was all the panic that I was ordinarily too dumb to feel just hitting me at once. I couldn’t stop fidgeting and I didn’t know what to do with my hands. It felt weird that I had a date. It was weirder that it didn’t feel weird.
“Here, I’ll text it to you,” she said, pulling out her phone. With a little difficulty, she got the info sent over to me.
After putting it into the navigation app for this sprawling building, I learned that she didn’t live far away at all. Maybe ten minutes if I took a wrong turn, which hadn’t happened since I started using the map.
“I’m hungry!” Megan made her presence known again. I hadn’t heard her walk up behind me and she almost gave me a heart attack. “What’re you two doing?”
“I’ll take care of her food,” Rebecca said after getting a good look at my pathetic state. Not exactly smooth, but she was still all smiles. After throwing me on my ass multiple times, she had a rough idea of what she was getting, so if she said yes despite how lame I was, maybe that put me in a good position with her after all.
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Megan stopped caring about what we were up to when she was promised some snacks, so she followed Rebecca to the kitchen. The more I looked at her, the more it hit me how pretty she was. It was something that I already knew, having gotten plenty of good looks at her since our first meeting. Since agreeing to a date, I was already seeing things a little differently. She was doing very well with cooking, considering she’d only been near those kinds of appliances for just over a month. She hadn’t burned the entire complex down, at least. She kept it simple by making the three of us some grilled cheese sandwiches.
While she did that, I took a few minutes to practice with my Shimmer again. In any downtime I had, I was trying to get as much control over my power as possible. I made two hands, but I still needed to tie their movements with my real hands. Things like barriers, spears, and orbs were easy. While they didn’t require the same level of control that my hands did, they were far simpler in overall application. Improving that aspect of my power was coming slowly to me. Still, making two hands was, well, handy.
I used them to bring my sandwich plate over to me. Megan looked on in amazement. They moved slower and the grip was clunker than I’d hoped for, but it was something. It got the food from Point A to Point B, which is what mattered most. Function over form.
“Have you figured out what your power is yet, kiddo?” I asked. Megan wandered over next to me, her PB&J sandwich cut into the shape of a dinosaur. I didn’t even know we had those kinds of cutting things lying around.
She took a big bite and did her best to talk around the food. “Not yet.”
“I didn’t know I had one until earlier this year,” I told her. “Sometimes people are late bloomers. I can’t wait to see what yours is.”
We all went through our food and Megan went back to Shelly’s room to watch TV for a bit longer. I tried to find better ways to teach Megan about time, which proved to be a greater struggle than I expected. None of it looked very fun. She could at least count to twelve, which should have made it easy enough for her to understand the concept of hours, but the smaller increments might be trouble.
“How’d you learn time?” I asked Rebecca, throwing my head back in defeat. At least my ceiling didn’t have stupid numbers I needed to look at.
“I don’t remember all that well,” she sat down next to me with a warm cup of tea. “My father had a pocket watch he’d carry around, tell me the time, and I’d use the position of the sun from what he told me. I never really knew the exact time.”
I decided there that we were just going to work on some more reading and writing for the rest of the day. I’d try to get her to go over her issues with numbers more in the future to see if that helped the time. Personally, I didn’t think she was doing terribly with math and the like, but she insisted that it was harder than the other stuff. I could see her forehead crinkle in frustration at times. I had trouble with math at that age as well, so I took it she was telling the truth.
“Maybe we should give her a holiday until this McLeod thing blows over,” Rebecca suggested.
I didn’t hate the sound of that. “Do you think we should? It would make it easier for me to try and think up ways to teach her. Or give me some time to think of anything.”
Rebecca nodded, so I spent the rest of Megan’s break working on the next few things I wanted her to work on. It was a lot of basic adding and subtracting with little colored tokens and candies, the latter she’d be allowed to eat when the lesson was finished, with some spelling practice thrown in. Whenever she spelled a word right, I would say it dramatically and do a little dance. It got her to laugh and made her want to do better, which was all I was hoping for. Her spoken vocabulary was good, but her spelling had to catch up somewhat.
“Good news, kiddo,” I told Megan when I saw her walk out, “you’re done for the next few days. Don’t get too excited, because we’ll get you caught up after the weekend.”
Despite my advice, her grin kept growing bigger. Shelly might kick mine and Rebecca’s butts for this break, but it felt like the right move. Just too much going on with McLeod to properly and efficiently teach Megan. It was fine with me if she just viewed it as another break. Whatever kept her happy.
That left me the rest of the day to simultaneously get excited and panic about the date. It was two in the afternoon, and Shelly got home at four, which would give me three hours to safely get ready and have someone watch Megan. I was dreading it, but I knew I’d have to go to Lizzy’s for help. I texted her if I could come over at around four thirty and almost immediately got a response in the affirmative. She added in some kissy faces and a few hearts. I frowned at my screen, unable to tell if that was just Lizzy being Lizzy, or if she knew about the date. Or maybe both.
The three of us spent those two hours doing that princess puzzle. That went about as well as I thought it would. Having an energetic child there to help made putting a few hundred small pieces fit together properly almost impossible, but that was the fun. I felt just like I did when my own family tried to complete one of them. Most of the pieces ended up on the ground just so we could find the easy edge pieces. Then it became a game of picking up the mess and trying to get the rest of the pieces right.
Shelly walked in just when we had three sides done. Megan ran over to her and gave her a big hug. She set all her belongings down and picked Megan up. I could tell she was stressed and tired. Whatever she had going on was exhausting her. Still, she never snapped at anyone over it. She just desperately needed a nap. Megan’s little arms around her neck seemed to brighten Shelly up a teeny bit.
“How’d school go today?” she asked, poking Megan on the nose.
“Awesome! Ethan said I can have the next few days off.”
“Did he now?” Shelly’s gaze fell to me, her eyebrows raised. Kids and their honesty. At least it wasn’t like I was trying to keep some big secret.
“Not that cut and dry,” I said, trying to do damage control. I didn’t want to scare Megan, so I took care with what I said next. “With that in the next few days, I thought it’d be smarter to focus on it for now instead of school.”
Shelly put Megan down and told her to wait in her room. The little girl ran off giggling, almost slipping on the floor, just barely catching herself. I winced watching her almost bust her butt on the ground even though she was fine. I didn’t stop wincing until the kiddo was completely out of sight. I made sure she was in Shelly’s room with the door shut before continuing the conversation.
“This Dii Consentes thing has me stressed out too,” Shelly said, sitting down where Megan had been. She idly scooted pieces of the puzzle around, not trying to complete it. “On top of just normal work stress.”
“And that work would be the work you can't tell me about?” I asked. I wasn’t bitter. If she couldn’t tell me, I trusted she had her reasons for it. I was getting worried, though.
“Yeah, everything is just getting a bit heavy.” Shelly shifted to a more jovial tone. “You bringing a kid home didn’t help. At least she’s past the diapers and waking up at the phase where she wakes up at two in the morning to scream and cry.
“Hey, I think I’m going to head out.” Rebecca looked nervous and her eyes darted between us siblings. They finally settled on me, and her face went a bit red. “Um, see you later, Ethan.”
“What the hell was that about?” Shelly asked when Rebecca shut the door, giving me a knowing poke to the ribs. Then it was my turn to go red.
“I asked her out on a date tonight.” It felt embarrassing to say it like that for some reason, so I tried to avoid meeting her gaze.
“It’s about time one of you did that. Probably had to be you, since she’s from an older era and all, and you’re a pretty understanding dude. You’re about the only guy she knows.” She patted me on the back and gave me a bit of a side hug. “Good for you, Ethan Harper. I’m proud of you.”
“You’re not surprised?” I asked, feeling stupid.
“Ethan, she’s been over here every day for, like, two weeks.” She pulled away and gave me a funny look. “You guys have been getting coffee every day too. Don’t need the world’s sharpest intuition for that. If you guys didn’t go out on one actual date, that would have surprised me more.”
“You’re not bothered by it? No long speech about not being dumb?”
“Not really, bud. You rescued her from a cave and saved her life. I feel like any advice I have might be a bit quaint for a couple who’s been through something like that.” She got up and started pulling out some pots and pans. “If I felt like she was some kind of predator or perv, I’d at least tell you that, but she seems very nice. She’s wonderful with Megan and she’s pretty. I haven’t seen you this relaxed since you were on those painkillers from getting your wisdom teeth pulled.”
“Yeah, she really is pretty,” I admitted, rubbing the back of my head. I felt like I had a stupid smile on my face when I said it.
“You’re going to be nineteen in a few months now. You don’t need my approval for everything anymore. If she makes you happy, go for it.” She stopped to pull out some ingredients I recognized and knew she would be making lasagna. “Another thing about life is that you sometimes have to make your own mistakes.”
“You think it’s a mistake?” My heart sank for a moment.
“No, sorry, that’s not what I meant. Just say that it does end up that you’re both totally incompatible. There are times when no advice I could give would tell you that. You do, sometimes, have to figure out mistakes by making those mistakes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still here to give advice if you need it.”
“Oh, I follow you now.” I was relieved that she didn’t feel like it was an outright mistake to try and date Rebecca.
“I wish I didn’t have to be both your parent and sister. I’d love nothing more than to tease you about it, but since it’s your first date, I want to be supportive more than anything.” She thumped her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Oh man, you really need something good to wear.”
“I was about to tell you that I’m going to head to Lizzy’s for some help with that.” I groaned, realizing what that explanation would be like. “She’ll do enough teasing for you, don’t worry.”
“That’s how you know you’ve surrounded yourself with a woman of character.” She walked over to me as I got off the stool and gave me a hug. “In all seriousness, congratulations. I am really happy for you. For both of you. Asking someone out for the first time isn’t easy for everyone.”
“Thanks, but asking her out was the easy part.” I pulled away and couldn’t help but give a nervous grin. “Now I just have to make sure I don’t humiliate myself. That might be the hard part.”