The Unseen

Chapter 9

The girls showed Cody around their room. Nolman watched from the doorway, smiling.

"So..." Cody began, overwhelmed by the three girls' kindness, "You all live here? Together?"

"Yup!" Sarah nodded, "Pretty nice, huh?" He spun about, questions reeling through his head.

What's a television? What's a closet? Why on earth do they have so many clothes in it?

"You alright, Cody?" Dylan asked.

"Um, yeah," he replied, "Just a little overwhelmed, that's all." Ema sat quietly on her bed. She knew he was lying.

"That's alright," Nolman began, "You'll have plenty of time to get used to it. Dylan, Sarah, you two get him some clothes and things. I need to talk to Ema for a little bit." The two nodded, and dragged Cody out the door with them. Charlie sat next to Ema, who was obviously upset.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

"I'm worried for Cody," she replied, "I'm not sure how well he'll acclimate with his friend still missing."

"That's not all, is it?" he asked, laying a hand on her shoulder. She began to sniffle, a lone tear falling down her cheek.

"I just feel so inadequate," she choked, "After all that's happened these last few days, I feel horrible. I let my friends down. I let you down. I even let myself down!"

"Ema..." he sighed, "You've got to give yourself some grace."

"I can't!" she cried, "That was so stupid, what I did last week! The costume, the fighting, the chase... just everything! I didn't tell Indy about the costume, I didn't use my teleportation until I was too tired to do any fighting, and I didn't keep fighting when I should have! I failed, Mr. Nolman! I failed!"

"I hardly call a few mistakes failing. I make mistakes, Ema."

"I let my team down!"

"I have, too."

"I let you down!"

"So have I."

"I... I-"

"Ema!" he interrupted, gripping her shoulder tightly, "We all make mistakes! You're human! You're going to make mistakes! You're going to fail, you're going to screw up, and there's not a thing you can do about it!" he sighed, "All you can control is how you react to your failures. Are you going to let this eat you up? Will you let your mistakes consume you?" He stood up, and started to leave.

"Get washed up and join your friends," he told her from the doorframe, "You've got a new kid to take care of, Ema."