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“Is he outside?” Taylor asked and then grinned, putting her tube of gloss away before she headed to the door. “Let me tell him to go away. We’ll take you.”
I gritted my teeth. I didn’t really want to go with them, but I was also supposed to be getting along with them. I hoped Kota insisted on staying with me.
April and Taylor went to the bathroom door. I couldn’t see out beyond them to Kota. When Taylor started talking, hers and Kota’s voices were drowned out by my running tap. I shut it off quickly.
“...don’t need to worry,” Taylor was saying. “We’ll make sure she gets there.”
“It’s not that,” Kota said. “She...hasn’t had breakfast yet. And then...”
“We’ve got leftovers,” April said. “Our camp’s on the way to yours.”
“And her coffee,” he said.
“We went and got more of those yesterday,” Taylor said. “To replace the ones I took from you all, and for myself. I forgot how much I liked those. They’re super easy compared to trying to make coffee out here, anyway.”
“It’s okay,” April said. “We’ll take care of her. We’re going to the same place anyway.”
Say no, I tried to yell at Kota without saying anything.
Maybe I wasn’t being as flexible as I should be around other Academy people. Last night, I’d never really gave the girls a chance. I couldn’t continue to do that if I was here to prove, in some way, that I wanted to be in the Academy. Mr. Blackbourne had said to get along with them. Reluctantly, I bit my tongue and waited.
Maybe Kota realized this as well, because slowly, he sounded like he was beginning to relent. “Well...she...if...tell her...”
“We’ll tell her you’ll be there,” April said. “We know. Don’t worry. She’ll be safe with us.”
April turned back toward me, but Taylor lingered in the door, whispering something to Kota.
Don’t leave, I said in my head as I turned from April and looked into the mirror, a hair brush in my hand, hair half detangled. Despite knowing what I should do, it was very hard to do it. There was nothing wrong with April or with Taylor, or the others. I just wanted...my team.
I sucked in some air, seeking out the calmness that Kota had tried to instill in me earlier. I needed to be braver than ever this week.
Tonight, I’d be in a tent with just him. I could look forward to that. As long as I had time in the evening to relax with people I was familiar with, this might not be any different than a normal school week.
Or so I hoped.
???
I finished getting ready, clipping my hair back away from my face.
“We almost match,” Taylor said, and then showed me her boots: black with gray fuzz at the top. “April won’t let me get her more fashionable clothes like this.”
Gabriel usually picked out my clothes and what to wear. I wanted to tell the girls this, to let them know how great he was, but I didn’t know how to say it. I missed him, despite our fight the night before. Now that it was morning, I still wanted to talk to him about breaking my tent, but I also wanted to say I was sorry for not listening when he was trying to keep me safe.
Taylor shuffled her boots against the concrete floor as she walked. “I just hope they won’t get full of sand.”
“I just assume all of our stuff will need to be replaced after this week,” April said and then sighed. “It’s why I said to bring old clothes along. I wish you’d let me shop for you at the Goodwill.”
“They never have anything fashionable or in my size, otherwise I would.”
When we left the latrine, as I’d feared, Kota was gone.
I pressed my lips together. I’d hoped he’d linger. I wrapped my arms around my stomach, squeezing my clothes and kit to my chest as I fell in behind the girls.
Just walk to wherever we are going, I told myself. I’ll be fine.
As we walked to their camp, I paused. “Oh,” I said, looking down at the things in my arms. “I should...take this back to our tent.” It was a good reason to go back to camp, and maybe I’d see one of the guys there.
“Our tent?” April asked and then paused in the road. “Didn’t you have your own tent?”
I grimaced. “Well, it sort of broke last night and I...”
“Oh, well then you can stay with us if you want,” she said. “We’ve got room.”
“No, it’s okay. Kota was going to get another one.”
“He doesn’t need to do that,” April said. “We’ve got more than enough room.”
Taylor smirked. “You know he likes you, right? I asked him and he told me he does.”
My cheeks had already been burning but now felt like they’d lit up in flames. I looked down at the road. “I...” What could I say to that?
What would they say of me if they ever learned about the others? That I’d kissed two of them last night before climbing into Kota’s sleeping bag? They wouldn’t be able to understand.
The fact that I couldn’t say anything about it made me question what we were doing. Were we wrong to try the plan?
“Don’t worry,” April said, waving her hand through the air. “And never mind the crush right now. We’ve got things to do. You’re new and most likely they’ll stick you in a tent with other new girls. But you can stay with us if you prefer.”
My mouth opened. “I don’t...need to.”
“No, it’s okay,” April said. She turned to walk toward their camp again. “You won’t be the only one who shows up without a team. Sometimes you just know your group from the start and that’s all you know. If you come into the Academy without a prior group, you get put with other people who don’t have one already. It all works out in the end.”
She assumed Kota and the others weren’t my team, but that I was a straggler looking to join. “...Oh,” I said. The guys never told me new people were put into random teams until they found one for them, but then, had they formed their group before they joined the Academy? It was Dr. Green and Mr. Blackbourne who had sought out Kota, Nathan, and the others, bringing them into an already formed team.
And then I remembered that Dr. Green and Mr. Blackbourne had been put into a team together. They’d said so. That’s how they’d started. I wondered what other teams they might have been a part of prior to finding each other.
April headed into a campsite where there was a large tent, similar to the one North had set up, but this one was a shade of brown.
April walked over to it and opened the flap, showing me the inside. There were three cots lined up around the walls. Since it was only the three, their tent had more room in the center, but it was filled with small chai
rs and on top of the chairs, were three suitcases, identical brown.
The potpourri scent was strong here, as was the smell of other perfumes: sharp fruits and flowers, fighting the natural scents of pine trees and the ocean outside.
I couldn’t sleep here. I’d suffocate.
“Just put your stuff on the cot,” she said.
I entered and placed my sleeping clothes and the bathroom kit on the nearby cot. I was reluctant to leave my things; I didn’t want them to pick up the strong perfume scent. “I can come back...”
“I’ll make sure your stuff gets put in whichever tent you end up in.” April poked at her temple through her long brown hair. “I think of these things.”
“Thank you,” I said. What else could I say? I had to be polite.
We emerged from the tent and I watched Taylor, who had wandered off toward a brown, old Jeep Cherokee. She opened the back to reveal a cooler inside. She opened it and pulled out two bottles: Coffee Frappuccinos. I followed April over and Taylor handed a coffee to me.
They were different from the ones the boys normally bought for me. I looked at the light brown label. “I haven’t seen these,” I said. “Coffee flavored coffee?”
“It’s just coffee without all the flavor,” she said. She reached further into the back of the Cherokee, and pulled out an aluminum foil packet, handing it to me. “April makes us easy to-go food.”
I tucked the coffee under my arm and took the packet from her hand, feeling the contents. “A burrito?”
“It is,” she said. “Don’t worry. It’s vegan.”
I tilted my head toward April in a silent thank you and then forced a tight smile. Vegan what?
“Eat on the way,” she said. She and Taylor headed toward the road.
On the way to what? And where was their other teammate? My only hope that wherever we were going, Kota and the others would be there.
I did my best to balance the coffee while I walked and tried to open up the burrito. For some reason, I was thinking potatoes, maybe eggs... No, she’d said it was vegan; do vegans eat fake eggs? What’s even in fake eggs?
