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I sit up to watch her, my arms draped around my bent knees.
“Relax. He left.”
“He can’t leave. He’s my ride.”
“Ride for what? You have your own car.”
“To the airport.”
“Are you going somewhere?”
“On tour.”
Did someone forget to mention she’s a celebrity? Or in the…military?
“What kind of tour?”
“Cheer tour. I told you about it. We go around to, like, I don’t know…fifty…something cities, teaching cheer skills to kids.”
She didn’t say anything about traveling to do that.
“Fifty cities? How long are you gonna be gone for?”
“Until August.”
August? That’s all of summer.
“And you leave today?”
“If I can make my flight.”
She wasn’t going to tell me? Nobody was going to tell me? I was just going to be living here, without Kota, and no one—including Kota—thought I’d want to know?
“I need to tell you something.” I was planning on easing into this but it looks like I don’t have time.
Kota disappears into her bathroom.
I sit on the side of her bed closest to it.
“Kota?”
She pops back out with a toothbrush in her mouth. She’s still in her swimsuit and the sight makes me smile.
“Hm?”
My smile dims. She’s not going to like this.
“Last night, when I came in here, I wasn’t sure if…” I nod at her bottom half. “If…anyone had done anything to you.”
Her eyebrows inch downward.
“And in case someone had, I wanted to make sure I could get to them in time, you know, before they left.”
She stops brushing her teeth while approaching.
“So I checked.”
“Checked?” she asks around a mouthful of foam.
