Gen One, Day Eighty-One

Detention it was. Both Touya and Charlie hadn’t impressed their teacher and were held over for a lunch detention. Touya leaned over, nudging Charlie’s shoulder. “Sorry I got you in trouble,” he told him quietly. 

Charlie shook his head. “It wasn’t you,” he told him, thought he wasn’t quite sure he believed that statement. It was for sure Touya, because Charlie was never this talkative during the school day. Not with anyone, except maybe Harvey if his friend wasn’t feeling like being the talkative one that day. “I’m a trouble magnet.” 

Touya chuckled slightly. “Are you?” he asked, like he was intrigued. “I never would have guessed.” Charlie jutted his jaw out, because those words sounded doubtful, even more so when Touya smiled slyly at him. Charlie was kind of dense when it came to these sort of things, but he swore that Touya might be flirting with him. It had his cheeks blushing, and Touya’s smile growing even wider. 

Gen One, Day Eighty-One

When Robyn got home after her eventful dinner with Catarina, the first thing she did was search out Johnny. He was cleaning up the kitchen after a failed attempt at baking banana bread with some blackened bananas they hadn’t gotten to. She chuckled, wiping some flour off his nose. “I have something for you,” she said. 

“Is it banana bread? Because I was hungry, but this is like a brick,” Johnny told her, hitting his bread on the counter with a bang to show her where he’d gone wrong. 

Chuckling, she shook her head, taking out her phone and opening up the text from Nancy. Johnny took one look at it, frowning, glancing at her face, before focusing on the picture attachment. “Her name is Lily,” she whispered, running her hand across Johnny’s shoulders, comforting as he looked at the only picture of his little sister he’d ever seen. A sister he’d never met, nor would probably ever in the future unless they sought each other out after she was independent and on her own. “I ran into your Mom at the yacht club. I don’t know what I did, but she sent me this.” 

Johnny’s smile was sad, but he did smile. He ran his thumb over the picture of the little girl. “She’s got Mom’s nose,” he said, lovingly. Robyn leaned over, kissing his temple. Hopefully this would bring some closure to some of those open wounds Johnny still sported. 

Gen One, Day Eighty-One

Nancy didn’t look happy to see her. Wasn’t, in fact. She scoffed like she couldn’t believe Robyn would interrupt her afternoon mimosa to even approach her. Robyn, on the other hand, wasn’t going to be intimidated by the woman. Held her ground as she told her that she had some nerve doing that to Johnny. That Johnny was still her son, no matter if she accepted that or not and as a human being, she had a responsibility to that type of familial bond. 

After some back and forth, nasty words said on both of their parts, something surprising happened. Nancy started laughing. Not a bitter, I’m better than you, type of laugh, but a laugh that had Robyn standing there wondering what she  missed. 

“You’re not terrible, you know?” Nancy said. Robyn had no idea how she’d come to that conclusion, how they gone from insulting each other to Nancy thinking she wasn’t terrible. Maybe she done something to impress her? It took Robyn for such a loop, all she could muster out was a simply thanks? before Nancy took another sip of her Mimosa and motioned for Robyn to come closer. “Let me see your phone.” 

Hesitantly, Robyn pulled out her phone. “Why?” she asked, before she even thought about handing it over. 

“Just, hand it over,” she demanded and Robyn was going to make her pay for a new one if she decided to smash it. Instead, Nancy texted herself from Robyn’s phone. Then pulled out her own and texted something back. Robyn’s breath caught in her throat when she saw what Nancy had sent to her, eyes wide as she looked up at her. 

“I did love him once,” Nancy told her, a little quieter. “We’re just both better off without each other in our lives. He knows that.” 

Gen One, Day Eighty-One

“She really called you a bigot?” Charlie asked as he took some energized swings at the punching bag. He paused so he could hear Eris’s answer, the two of them catching up for a quick workout session after school. The school’s sports teams were all done for the season, getting ready for the next school year already and it granted them free access to the gym without worry that an entire team would be there to judge. 

“Yeah,” Eris bemoaned the morning she’d had. “And to be fair, I was a little...I don’t know, put off? Just because of what she was.” 

“I mean, it’s not like you don’t have reason to be cautious,” Charlie tried to convince her. He’d known about Eris’s abduction only through several well thought out conversations about why curfew was important, about why Robyn flipped out when she couldn’t locate her children, etc. He didn’t know the details and they certainly didn’t talk about it, especially because Eris barely remembered the whole ordeal. She’d been so young. And luckily, she’d been unharmed during all of it, so to her, it had just been like any other day except she couldn’t find her Mom. 

“Not of her, though,” it was like Eris was trying to convince herself that she was a bigot. Maybe just self aware that she harbored feelings from the incident still. Feelings that, unfortunately, someone from Sixam could sense. “I don’t know.” 

“I do,” Charlie commented, a little bit angry at Abigail for making his sister doubt herself. “We all have thoughts like that, Eris. But you were just sitting there, not even doing anything to her. She shouldn’t have read you like that. Your emotions are your own, she didn’t even give you a chance to do or say anything to her. She’s the real bigot.” 

Eris frowned, turning to look at Charlie and even if the words were reasonable, she was more surprised that they were coming from Charlie. “That’s very wise of you, dweeb.” 

“Pfft,” Charlie commented and took another swing at the punching bag, like he’d rather be known for his strength than his wisdom. “I just know you. No matter what you think initially, you would have been kind to her.” 

Smiling over at him, she couldn’t believe that it was her little brother making her feel better about the whole situation. “Thanks, Charlie,” she told him, impressed with the man her brother was growing up to be.