Was he rambling? He stuck his tongue to the roof of his mouth, stopping himself from talking any more. He started arranging what he wanted to use to clean her arm, and then looked up, noticing her stare. He looked quizzically at her. Did she know? Could she tell when he lied? He wasn’t sure if he had many tells left, maybe a few, but some people were more perceptive of others. Maybe she...
“...name,” she said, in a soft voice.
He stopped for a second, confused. “Hm?”
“I don’t know your name.”
He started to smile. Of course. “I’m Kota.” She stood quietly, and he found it hard to read her. He released a chuckle. “What’s yours?”
“Uh...Sang.”
There was a short pause, like he expected more to it, or that maybe he’d heard it wrong. “As in, I sang a song?”
She nodded. “I know it’s weird.”
Weird wasn’t the term he would have used. Unique was better. “No weirder than ‘Kota’.”
She smiled, and the subtle change boosted Kota’s confidence. This had to be the right thing. She had to feel safe here. Mr. Blackbourne and the others couldn’t say anything against this.
Part of him didn’t really want to mention it. Maybe he didn’t have to. What if he could talk to her and figure out what the problem was? He normally wouldn’t hesitate to bring anything to Mr. Blackbourne or the other members of his team, but if he could solve it himself quickly enough, or at least provide some support for her, there wouldn’t be a reason to ever tell them.
He wanted to believe, but she was standing in his bedroom late at night after she’d tried to run off. There couldn’t be a simple reason for that. Most girls wouldn’t have followed him home. Most girls would have been suspicious. But this one didn’t seem like most girls.
He prepped a clean cloth with the peroxide quickly. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said. “And please don’t hate me.”
“For what?” she asked.
He took her arm, and as gently as he could, applied the cloth to her arm. She stiffened hard at first, like it was unexpected, and then started shaking.
Kota grimaced and tried to clean her arm quickly. She turned her head away, and he assumed it might be easier on her if she wasn’t watching what he was doing. The gash was raw, and bled a bit, but looked like it was mostly a surface wound. He could imagine it really stung.
He found a large bandage to cover it. She didn’t say anything, or reach to do it herself, so he went ahead and applied it. “I think you’re patched up,” he said, rubbing the edge of the bandage to make sure it stuck, and then tossed the wrapper away. “Anything else broken or bleeding?” Please say no. Not that he wouldn’t fix it, but the arm was enough to feel guilty about.
She shrugged and shook her head. “I’m fine.”
Kota wasn’t really sure if that was true. She did fall, so he imagined a few more body parts struck the ground pretty hard. Maybe she meant there wasn’t anything scraped up like the arm. If that was the worst of it, then—while it wasn’t perfect—it wasn’t so bad. He nodded. “Okay. Well, Sang, I hope this won’t ruin your impression of me right off.”
“What do you mean?” she asked. She looked...alert. Curious. Her eyes darted around, her body shook. She was nervous, and he understood, but that spark of interest in her eyes captured his attention. She wasn’t too afraid of him.
He thought of an angle he could start from to figure out what was going on. It was on the tip of his tongue to simply be blunt and ask outright, but he got the feeling she might not answer, or might quickly get uncomfortable. It’d be better to ease into it to gain her trust. “I mean we are neighbors, right? Your family just moved in?” It was an obvious question, but he had to start somewhere.
Her eyes widened. Was she surprised by the question? Or surprised that he noticed they’d moved in? Maybe it felt like he recognized her, and she didn’t recognize him. “Yes,” she said. Her head shook a fraction. “No.” Her head moved slightly in a nod. Kota’s training would normally say she was lying, but it felt more like she just wasn’t sure how to answer. “I mean, don’t worry about it. It was just an accident.” She pressed her lips together.
Kota struggled with how to ask, because her lip movement usually meant she didn’t want to reveal too much. Instinct told him she maybe wanted to talk, but wasn’t sure if she should. She didn’t trust him that much yet. Still, he thought if he asked, she’d at least try to answer. “So what were you doing out so late?”
Short pause. Her eyes darted, and Kota knew it was a lie before she even said it. “Just taking a walk. I couldn’t sleep.”
“With a book bag weighing a ton on your back?” he asked. He was trying to be delicate in calling her out. “In the middle of this weather?”
Her cheeks turned red. Her lips twitched like she wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the words.
Worse than he thought. He tried to look sympathetic. “Hey, I’m sorry. Look, it’s personal. Whatever it was, did you have to do it in the middle of the night?”
Her shoulders moved back, her chest expanding as she breathed in. “It felt like a good idea at the time.”
She answered because he’d asked, but she seemed to not want to talk about it.
Then he realized she was still in wet clothes, probably freezing, and really stressed. If he was going to get her talk, she needed to be more relaxed and comfortable first. “Okay,” he said. “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to find you something to wear. I’m going to go downstairs
