I want to explain what those three days looked like from the inside, because the repetition itself started doing something to me that I hadn’t fully accounted for. Every morning, I braced for the sound of Kayla’s footsteps on the stairs, my whole body tensing before I even knew whether that particular morning would bring the towel or, mercifully, clothes. Andrew started taking his coffee into the living room some mornings, a small, quiet accommodation that I noticed and appreciated even as it also quietly confirmed that this had become a genuine problem rather than a passing awkwardness. I found myself resenting the tension in my own kitchen, a room that had always felt like the easiest, most unguarded part of our house, now turned into something I approached carefully, the way you approach a floor you suspect might creak.
I also started noticing things about Kayla I hadn’t paid close attention to before. The way she’d check her phone obsessively and then set it face-down with a small, controlled flinch. The way she’d go quiet mid-sentence sometimes, staring at nothing, before catching herself and picking the conversation back up. I understood, on some level, that whatever was happening with the towel wasn’t really about the towel, but I didn’t yet have the full shape of what it was actually about.
Sunday morning, I was buttering toast when I heard Kayla coming downstairs. Andrew sat at the table with his coffee. She appeared in the doorway. Same towel. Same bare feet. Same complete refusal to care that I’d asked her to stop.
I put down the knife. “Kayla—”
Andrew touched my wrist. “Hang on.”
I looked at him. He stood and carried his mug to the counter.
“Let me answer this one.”
Kayla smiled. “Finally!”
Andrew leaned against the counter. “You’ve been calling this a test all week, right?”
“Exactly.”
“Good.” He took out his phone. “Congratulations, Kayla. You passed.”
Kayla looked from him to the phone. “Passed what?”
“My test.”
“What test?”
Andrew unlocked his phone and placed it on the counter between them.
“Whether you’re ready to live with roommates.”
Kayla looked down. Then she snatched up the phone. I couldn’t see the screen from where I stood. Her face turned bright red from her neck upward.
