October 17th, 2016

Kinsky, California, USA

Janus, I

Cole woke up from another nightmare. He breathed deeply, and felt the blanket around him soaked in both old and new sweat. Still in a level of high distress he took his phone off the charging cord and checked the time. It was 4:29am.

Close enough to wake up, he thought. It’s not like I’m going back to sleep, anyway.

He walked over to his bathroom and splashed cold sink water over his face. He looked in the mirror, and saw a reflection — a reflection he knew was his own, and yet seemed wholly separate. One that looked at him, judging him and all his actions. It made Cole queasy. He walked out of the room.

The next few hours he spent trying to snap himself out of it. He made a black Folger’s coffee downstairs and brought the mug up with him, going on social media on his phone to try and relax. At some point he looked over at his calendar, and saw the date.

It’s today, he realized. The terror went through him again.

…

He was the first to the gym that morning. He heaved some dumbbells before a now familiar partner appeared in the room with him.

“Yo,” Isaac called out as he placed his backpack down on the bench. He walked over to Cole, looking at the two of them in the mirror. “Man, you look like shit.”

Cole sighed, placing the dumbbells down next to him. “Yeah, I… had trouble sleeping again.”

Isaac turned to look at the boy’s face. He gave him a look of sympathy, then began to walk over to the barbell. “If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t been doing all that great either.”

Cole got up from his seat and followed Isaac. “The thing with Kat didn’t go well?”

“Nah, I mean… It’s all good now. But I feel like I’m steppin’ on eggshells, right?”

Cole didn’t respond. He stood up in front of the bench while Isaac loaded the weights onto the barbell in silence. Isaac laid down and started lifting, while Cole spotted him.

“Has Kat… mentioned me, recently?” Isaac asked between lifts.

Cole shook his head. “Not really. Nothing in particular.”

“Okay, just making sure. I… don’t want… her thinking bad of me. I don’t want anyone thinking… bad of me, you know… but her in particular.”

“I get that.”

“What do you think?”

“…What do I think of you?”

“No, I meant… what do you think Kat thinks?”

Cole shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t read her most of the time.”

Isaac smirked. “Known her for… this long, and you still… can’t tell, heh?”

The standing boy shrugged. “She’s still a woman. You can’t read women.”

“Amen… brother.”

Isaac put the barbell back onto the metal stand. He got up. “Alright, you’re up next. Just remember to wipe off the bench first — you don’t want my pheromones all over you, people will get suspicious.”

Cole grinned as he grabbed a towel and wiped off the bench. As he adjusted the weight, Isaac got out a protein bar from his backpack.

“Alright, now it’s my time to play your psychiatrist.” He spoke as he walked back to Cole, who was already in position. “You started coming here back in September, almost every day, saying you’ve got insomnia and all this other shit that keeps distracting you. What about?”

“The insomnia?”

“Yeah. What else?”

Cole began lifting. “I mean… just, random… personal stuff, I guess.”

“Is it about Anita?”

Cole stopped lifting. “How did you know?”

“Guessed. You’re around Maria all the time. I know Kat says you always went to their place to babysit. Figure you took it hard, like her.”

Cole continued lifting. “Yeah… I guess it is… that.”

Isaac nodded. “You ever consider going to a doctor about it?”

Cole shook his head. “No, I’ll… I-I’ll be fine.”

The rest of the gym session was mostly uneventful. As was now the standard, Isaac and Cole worked out together until the other players began to drop in. Then Cole went to grab his bag, went out the back door, and disappeared. 

…

It was a cold morning. Aaron walked down to the courtyard with a heavy Kinsky High letterman jacket, his hands rubbing against themselves as he walked briskly. At some point along the way he was stopped by Maria, who leaned against a nearby concrete wall, her hair flowing with the path of the wind.

“Hey, Aaron. Can I talk to you real quick?”

Aaron looked around. No one else was there. He turned back to Maria. “Yeah, sure. Can we… go inside first, though?”

Maria gave a slight smile. “Yeah, of course.”

The two went inside the hallway of a secondary building, the same hallway that Rodrigo had invited Emily and Lukas into the day it had all began. This time there was a small table and two plastic chairs sitting out by the door. The two sat down there.

“I wanted to… apologize.” Maria spoke softly, taking off a pair of worn brown leather gloves she had on and putting them into the pocket of her purple coat.

“About what?”

“Last week, your conversation with Cole… it was all me. I set him up to it.”

Aaron remembered the occurrence, and chuckled. “Oh, that thing? It was nothing. I already forgot about it. Yeah, Rose explained the whole thing to me and… it made a lot more sense after that. I take no offense.”

Maria nodded. “I have a few more questions related to it, if you don’t mind. Nothing too detailed, just… general stuff.”

Aaron heard a door open, down the hallway. A boy came out, going in the opposite direction as where they sat. He turned back to Maria. 

“Go ahead.”

“So… what was your experience with Anita? Did you talk to her a lot, or was it mostly Rose, or-”

“The second one. When Rose did babysitting, I came more as like… auxiliary support. She would deal with Anita, ask me to… you know, make dinner, turn on the TV, do this or that… and I would do it. Rose can back me up on it, if need be.”

Maria shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I believe you. I do have a question related to that, though.”

“Shoot.”

“What about on August 20th?”

Aaron’s ears piqued. “What about August 20th?”

“Rose told me that day she had a job interview. She came with you for the first hour or so then left for an hour, meaning you and Anita were alone. I was just wondering, you know… interacting with her, did anything seem off?”

Aaron leaned back in the plastic chair. “Uh, I mean… I don’t know how much help I can be. It was just an hour, and I didn’t really… y’know, know Anita ‘normally’, outside of what Rose would tell me. I guess she did seem… distant, I guess? She didn’t get very close to me. She stayed on the other end of the room and played with her toys. Didn’t talk. To be fair, I didn’t try talking to her either. Just watched her until Rose came back.”

Maria thought about it for a moment. “And what happened when Rose came back?”

“You mean, how she acted? Not much different. She was clearly more excited to see her than me, though.”

Maria considered the information in her head. Then she smiled, getting up from the table. “Thanks, Aaron.”

“Yeah, for sure. I hope you get your closure on the whole thing.”

Maria walked back out the door. Aaron continued sitting down, thinking to himself.

…

It was lunch. Cole was in the choir practice room. He still had his notepad with him but in this case he just kept it in his inside coat pocket. A few minutes went by before Sadja came in and saw him, sitting alone on the wood bench.

“Now, what are you doing here?” She said with a smirk, dropping her bag nearby. “Trying to see if you can get a peek?”

Cole looked at her. “Come on. What kinda of guy do you think I am?”

Sadja giggled. “Yeah, you wouldn’t be getting anything, anyway. Now that the concert’s over everyone’s gonna stay as far away from this place as possible.” She sat down next to him, taking off her denim jacket and placing it on top of her bag. “So, you said in the text you wanted to talk to me?”

“Yeah. Ah, it’s actually a follow up… to a convo you had with Maria, awhile back.”

She thought about it for a minute. “Yeah, I think I remember the conversation. What about it?”

“Um… I just wanted to ask again, you know, if you remember anything about any conversation you had with Anita, on July 19th.”

Sadja considered it. Cole noticed a strange expression cross her face. She looked up at the ceiling light and grabbed hold of her knee, rubbing the fabric of her black leggings coarsely. It looked less like she was thinking, and more like she was trying to find the right thing to say.

“No…” her voice had a strange tinge to it, and her voice broke when she spoke. “No, I can’t remember anything. Anything out of the ordinary, at least.”

Cole turned his head to the side. “Okay. I was just asking because, you know, you said you didn’t remember anything about a conversation… but Kat said you did.”

Sadja’s eyes widened. “Oh?”

“Yeah, she said she walked into Anita’s room to find you, and that you and her were in the middle of a conversation when she got there.”

Sadja didn’t say anything. Her hand shook. She opened her mouth, stuttering to get out words, when eventually she finally let them out.

“O-oh! Oh, that’s right, actually! I remember now. Y-yeah, it… I remember, going to the bathroom… I came out, and I saw her little stuffed dog, Appy, on the floor…”