Nathan avoided the others all afternoon. No one completely ignored him, but he sensed they all knew.

He didn’t get a chance to see Sang before he left in the afternoon before school was over. He’d asked Kota to take Danielle and Marie home.

He took Silas’s car home. He really needed his own car. He sent a text to Silas to let him know, and to feel free to pick it up later.

He told Mr. Blackbourne in a text he wasn’t feeling great. It was a bad time to be out but he thought having crashed in a car into the lake the night before warranted a little down time.

He just didn’t want to be around the others right now.

Not with the way the way they looked at him.

Maybe he was more paranoid, but he couldn’t help it. He was in his own head, consumed by what Dr. Green had said, but mostly about what North said at the end.

This might kill us.

The weather had warmed slightly with the sun bright overhead. He’d built a static charge in the car, and he zapped himself on the metal doorknob of his house before he stuck the key in. It caused his hand to shake and he dropped the keys to the ground.

He grumbled to himself, looking down at his keys and not reaching for them.

What a week. Maybe he needed the weekend off. Or a month.

“Nathan?” Erica’s voice came from behind him.

He considered banging his head against the door. Not now. Instead, he grimaced and turned slowly.

Erica was in her nurse’s uniform. She was either home early or on her way out. Her car was parked in her own drive and she was heading over, halfway into the yard.

“Hi,” he said, trying to mask his dour mood.

She walked closer, looking at him and then his keys on the ground. “Did you drop them?”

“Yes,” he said and stooped to pick them up quickly. “The door zapped me.”

“Oh,” she said. She crossed her arms over her stomach, with her purse hanging over his shoulder. She stood there, looking at him, her face stressed.

“Look,” he said. “I’m sorry about what happened yesterday. It was a really bad day. And this morning, we really needed to get going...”

“I don’t know what I should do with all of you,” she said quietly. She looked up the road and then back at him. “Could we talk inside for a moment?”

Nathan couldn’t recall the last time she’d been inside his house. Not that she wasn’t welcome, but he was always the one to hop over to her house. “Sure,” he said. He jammed the key into the door, unlocking it quickly and stepping aside. “Come on.”

Erica walked around him, going inside the house. Nathan closed the door behind them.

They met up in the kitchen. The space was clean, just a few leftover dishes sitting out on the counter. Erica put her purse down, pulling out a chair and sitting in it. Nathan pulled out one next to her for himself. He pressed his elbow to the table, waiting, unsure what he should say. They hadn’t gone over what to tell her. Kota wanted to talk to her himself, but he avoided her this morning. Did he manage to talk to her sometime today, perhaps over the phone?

“Did something happen between Kota and Sang recently?” she asked.

Nope. He didn’t. “I don’t know,” he said. He had to guess they were still not supposed to be talking to him after the incident earlier that week. “I haven’t seen much of them. Just Sang last night when you picked her up.”

She pressed a palm to her cheek. “I just don’t know what’s going on. She’s out there in the middle of the night, at a grocery store alone. He’s lying to me, coming in only during the god-awful hours and then leaves before I get a chance to talk to him. I know you all have school, and he’s usually so responsible.” She sighed. “It just feels like something is very wrong here.”

“Whatever it is, maybe it isn’t as bad as you’re thinking...” Vague. Keep it vague. Let Kota come up with something on his own.

“I think they broke up,” she said. “Maybe he doesn’t want to tell me about it.”

Nathan made a face, struggling to stay composed and not groan or grumble. “Maybe...but I think he’d say something.”

“I don’t want to put the blame on you,” she said, “but he’s been strange since that time with you and Sang in the bathroom. Do you think it triggered something between them?”

Nathan put a hand over his mouth, rubbing slowly. “Maybe you should ask Kota...”

“I know I should, but he’s never here.” She sighed and combed some of her bangs away from her forehead. “I’ve a confession to make, too. I meant to tell Kota, but...” She reached into her purse and pulled out a pink-encased phone. She held it up for him to see. “I found this in the car. I went to get something out of it and found it sticking out under the seat.”

Oh no. Volto didn’t take it. He wasn’t sure this was better or worse. No wonder he hadn’t tried to use it to manipulate one of the others.

She placed it on the table, face down. She pressed her fingertips to the back of it, sliding it around the wood surface. “I thought about looking at it. I didn’t, but I considered maybe I should.” She groaned and then pressed her palm to the phone, lowering her head. “I know her parents are going through a bad time, and it feels like she needs us to be supportive. But if Kota’s trying to make a clean break and she’s hanging around, maybe...”

Nathan held on to his breath, swallowing shortly. He hated seeing her struggle like this. After the craziness last night, she still picked them up, took them home, made sure they were safe and fed. His insides shook, regretting lying to her so much. She didn’t deserve it.

But he couldn’t tell her about the Academy and what they were doing.

And he didn’t feel it was right to tell her about the relationship dynamic they’d developed with Sang. Kota should tell her, if he wanted to.

If he hadn’t fucked it up after last night.

The lie formed on his tongue, and he hoped this was the best solution. “It might be my fault, and for it, I’m sorry. But I don’t think they’ve broken up. It may just be a rough patch. But Sang...yes. I think it’s okay if you still tried to be supportive of her right now. Kota wouldn’t want her to feel she had to walk to the grocery store so late.” He sighed and rolled his head back, looking at the ceiling. “If I hadn’t done...what I’d done...maybe she would have felt safe to ask me if I’d been home or...”

“I don’t know why she couldn’t have asked me,” Erica said. “Do you think maybe I embarrassed her? She’s not ashamed of what happened, do you think? Ever since then, I haven’t seen her much. I wonder if I made her feel uncomfortable, so she’s avoiding the place.” She put her palm to her mouth, covering it as she spoke. “You know, maybe that’s it. And it’s causing them stress when she doesn’t want to come over. And he can’t go over to see her...”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Maybe it is. And why wasn’t he at home last night? He’s avoiding her by coming in until super early in the morning, the time to go to school, so he won’t have to talk to her?”

Her struggling with her son’s relationships and trying to put the pieces together seemed to make the whole situation much worse. It must be hard seeing Kota unhappy, and knowing Sang is in a rough patch, and not being able to do anything to help either of them. Blaming everything last night on the relationship got her away from thinking it could be the Academy or something else, so maybe he needed to encourage this line of thinking.

But he was already collaborating on admitting to this, and not revealing things she shouldn’t be looking in on. Instead of making her feel any worse, he did what he could that might help Kota and Sang, as well as her.

He reached out to Erica, taking her hand and holding it in his, looking at her face. He needed her to trust him this time. “I know Kota,” he said. “He wouldn’t give up on Sang. Sang...she’s complicated. With her parents... and at school...Kota’s the one that’s been there for her. Helped her. And...they’re perfect together. He’s not going to just let that go.”

“So where was he last night?” she asked.

Nathan swallowed and shrugged. “I’m not totally sure but...I think...it might have something to do with Sang. Maybe in his own way he was helping her with what she’s going through. Maybe he couldn’t tell you or her what he was up to.” He scooted his chair closer. “I just know that maybe I did mess things up a bit. This is on me, okay? It’s not you. And I’m sure if you give Kota some space, he’ll figure it out and tell you what he wants to tell you.”

Erica pressed her lips together and nodded shortly. “I thought to mention to him that first relationships...they don’t last. I wanted to say something to make him feel better. But I thought maybe it was too soon, or too negative Nancy of me to think in such a way.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Nathan said, although her comment settled into him hard.

First relationships don’t last.

It was generalized and perhaps true for most people. The others had off and on dates in the past, at least some of them, as far as he knew.

For Kota, was it his first? At least his first steady...

Nathan bit his own tongue before thinking too much further. It was hard enough expressing to Erica that Sang was Kota’s girlfriend.

Not himself.

Not after all those nights he’d spent with her. Close to her. After all those moments they shared, kissing and just being together. It ached in his heart to think she wouldn’t be around as often.

Erica tapped her fingernails on Sang’s phone case. “Maybe you can pass it to her. When you see her? Let her know I found it?”

“Sure.”

She rose, taking up her purse. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said. She touched briefly at her brow, closing her eyes. “This Academy you two go to and how it’s got you going to that public school this year, maybe it’s stressing them out as well.”

Nathan stood, putting a hand on her arm. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

“I worry,” Erica said, and she smiled at him. “It’s my job.”

“Don’t worry about this,” he said. “I’ll talk to them both. And I’ll get Kota to talk to you. If it takes me apologizing to both of them again or getting the other guys to help me out, I’ll do it.”

Erica seemed satisfied with this and left. Nathan stood in the kitchen alone, looking at the pink phone on the table. His heart raced at the thought of it in Erica’s hands.

Did she tell the truth about not looking at it? Because if she had...who knows what Sang had said to him, or the others.

Maybe she was telling the truth, but she didn’t give it up until just now. If Victor hadn’t turned it off because they thought Volto had it, who knew what she would have thought of them all. Of the Academy, as well.

Erica was too close to the truth. What would she think if she knew her son, and Nathan and the others, and now Sang were involved in the Academy and what it was about? Not to mention the relationship they constantly talked about.

They couldn’t risk her getting any closer to finding out.