“Uh,” a girl stuttered, and then shouted, “Cotton fibers separated from seeds, enabling clothing to be more quickly produced!”
I looked up, seeing it was a student from Team One, so I jetted over to the board and tallied a point for her team and one for Rayder’s.
“What else?” I called out.
The students flipped through their notes and charts, working vigorously and still going strong despite being worked like machines from the moment they’d stepped into the room today. They sat or stood scattered around the room in organized chaos with their groups and with their noses buried in their research. I would’ve loved this level of participation if my intentions were noble.
But they weren’t. I’d needed the distraction ever since my brother’s visit yesterday. He’d denied leaving my kitchen a mess, and now it was all I could think about. If Jack hadn’t left the drawer and cabinets open, then who had?
He should’ve known. The minute he’d walked into the apartment the night before and seen the kitchen out of sorts, he should’ve known something was wrong. I never left things out of place.
Four cups in a stack in the cabinet, two turns to close the toothpaste, closet organized – blouses, shirts, pants, skirts, dark to light – everything was always in order.
But upon further inspection yesterday, I’d found my shower curtain also open and two skirts I hadn’t worn lately hanging on the back of my bedroom chair.
My heart started to pound again, and I swallowed.
While I arranged and organized things as a way to achieve a small sense of control, it had begun as a way to tell if anyone had been in my space.
At sixteen, when I’d started obsessing, if something was mussed, crooked, or out of place, I would know that I wasn’t safe.
And while now I still did it for a measure of peace, I hadn’t felt unsafe in five years. Not since the last time I’d seen him.
Maybe I’d taken the skirts out two nights ago, when Tyler had wanted to take me to dinner. Maybe I’d opened the cabinets and drawer before that, when I was arguing with Jack.
I hadn’t counted anything lately, so maybe I was starting to loosen my grip on the order I’d once needed. Maybe my brain was so preoccupied with my class and with Tyler that I’d started to do what I’d needed to do for years: move on and let go.
Or maybe my brother did open the cabinets and drawers and just forgot.
Maybe.
I blinked, the class’s commotion growing louder.
I took a deep breath, forcing myself to relax. “Come on!” I clapped my hands, rejoining the class. “Team One is in the lead here!”
I looked to Christian, who sat with his team but was not participating. “Christian?” I prompted. “Any ideas?”
He didn’t answer but only flipped through his notes absently, not attempting to even look like he was trying to work.
“The steam engine!” someone shouted.
I let my aggravation over Christian’s continued defiance go as I met Sheldon’s eyes and mentally tallied Team Three.
“Which did what?” I called out, walking for the whiteboard again.
I heard a chair screech behind me as someone shot up. “It allowed a wide range of machines to be powered!”
I recognized Marcus’s voice and placed another point for Team One and one for Team Three on the board.
“What else?”
“The telegraph!” someone called.
“And what was its purpose?”
“To um…” The girl’s voice drifted off, while everyone else whispered in their groups or flipped through their notes.
“Come on,” I urged. “You’re heading for Earth, and your spaceship is out of control. You’re going to crash!” I shouted, a smile tilting my lips.
“Communicate over long distances using Morse code!” Dane called out, his eyes wide with excitement.
“They already could communicate over long distances by writing letters,” I challenged.
“But the telegraph was quicker!” he shouted, pointing his finger up in the air as if declaring war.
I laughed. “Good!” I praised, walking to the board and marking points.
Turning around, I walked back down the aisle, paying special attention to Christian.
“Now,” I started. “Imagine that you need a ride home, and cell phones don’t exist. How do you get home?” I asked.
“Find a phone,” Sidney Jane answered.
But I shot back. “The school’s closed, so you can’t use theirs.”
“Go to a business and use their phone,” Ryan Cruzate called out.
I shrugged. “No one answers when you call.”
“Walk home,” Shelby Roussel continued the problem-solving.
I nodded. “Okay, you got there, but you don’t have a key.”
“Sit your butt outside,” Marcus joked, a few kids joining in the laughter.
“It’s raining,” I argued again.
Trey Watts locked his hands behind his head. “Go to a friend’s and wait,” he suggested.
“They’re not home, either.” I winced with fake sympathy.
“Call someone —”
I stopped her with a head shake about the same time she realized we’d already been through that. The class laughed when they remembered that they don’t have cell phones in this scenario. How easy it was to forget that we no longer had something we didn’t realize we relied on so much.
And there really was no solution. You adjust and cope, but you can’t make it the same again.
I paced the aisle, feeling Christian’s silence like a deafening weight to my left.