Lorelie vs the Life of Summer Rose

Chapter 5

 Of course, Mrs Inoue is overjoyed. She's exactly like her daughter in the sense that it doesn't really show on her face, rather you feel it in the abrupt shift of energy and atmosphere. That suffocating pressure dissipates and suddenly it's like all the flowers are blooming and the plants are thriving, and maybe even like Jesus has paid a visit for the day. I don't really understand why she likes me so much.

Then again, you won't catch me complaining either.

"Mum says we can go shopping on the weekend," Summer says, gulping like the words have dried her mouth out. "If you want."

"Do you want to?"

"Don't you need to?"
"I do," I say, "but you don't have to come if you don't want to. Your mum told me that you prefer to study in your spare time."

Summer cringes. "What else did she tell you?"

"Don't worry about it."

They've put me in the guest room, but from what I understand they don't really have guests, so it's more of a storage room than anything. There are boxes pushed to one side and stacked up against the wall that Mr Inoue has just installed a curtain in front of so I don't see it, and a slither of space by the door cleared out for me to sleep. As for the actual sleeping arrangements, they've forfeited the couch just for me. So now there's no couch in the living room, just floor.

It's not that I'm ungrateful. I'm overwhelmingly grateful, if anything. But the lengths they're going to make me feel awkward, and that's also partly because they all prefer to stare at me rather than talk. Apart from Summer. Summer does try to talk, but it's iffy. I don't know if that's on me for not trying more or her for trying too hard, or worse— we just don't click.

"So are we going shopping?" she asked, as though she's dreading every word. "Mum told me you might like to go shopping."

"I do like shopping," I say, manoeuvring my way on to the middle of the couch. Summer chooses to hover in the doorway. "Why don't you like shopping?"

"I've just never gone."

"Is that why you look so anxious?"

"I'm not anxious."

"Uh-huh." I stifle a laugh. The poor thing looks like she's about to pull a muscle from how stiffly she's standing. She followed me all the way from one end of the house to the other, trailing behind me during the house tour, standing outside the laundry as I picked some spare clothes to wear, shifting from foot to foot as I helped lift the couch into the room and dress it up with blankets. I've tried not to comment on it, but it's getting progressively hard. With each passing second she starts to look more and more like a lost puppy hopefully eating at the footsteps of a potential owner. It's not how I imagined her when I was reading about her at all. "You know, it could be fun. We can go buy books and stuff. Don't you like to read?"

"A little."

"You have to give me a little more than that."

"A lot."

I stare at her. "We're going to work on that. Do you wanna sit? You don't have to just stand there."

"Don't you want to be alone?" She tilts her head. "You've just woken up in a field in a country you've never been to before."

"Did you sit there the entire time I was being interviewed by the officer?"

Her cheeks flush red, and she grips her arms. "Sorry."

I sigh. "Do you want to sit or not?"

Carefully, she crawls onto the couch beside me. Then she crosses her legs and faces the same way: at the curtain, staring blankly into the outline of the boxes shining through the sheer fabric. It's a lot more cramped than I thought.