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home now
and…” She carried on speaking, something about the other
housemates, but Katie was stuck on those words your home
now . However manic the last month or two had been she had never
imagined that home would or could be any place other than the house
she grew up in with Mom and Dad and Dan.
    “How long was I
asleep? It felt like forever.”
    “Not long.”
    “I felt like I
was in another world. Not another planet but not quite this one
either. It was… I don’t remember really, but it was beautiful. The
details are faded, as if some-one tried to rub out my dream, but I
couldn’t see anything anyway. I dreamed that… I sound like the
resident crazy don’t i?”
    “Kinda.”
    “Glad to’ve
filled that gap.”
    “That job
already went,” Adam added. “But if there’s a house lacking a
certified basket-case…”
    “Adam!”
    Katie laughed
at the couple unsure which one she liked best –Adam for teasing her
and making her forget her sadness or Lainy for taking care of her
and trying to defend her honour. “You two are definitely marriage
material.”
    “Hey, Lainy, do
they make bridesmaids strait jackets?” That comment earned him
cushions thrown at him from two directions.
    “Your
dream?”
    “Oh, I’ve
already forgotten him.” Katie stood up and stretched her long legs
out. There was a bookcase by the large window. The bottom shelf
held a few board games and quiz books. Obviously, the people in
this house liked old-fashioned entertainments. There was a TV in
the corner with a games console and some video games. Maybe there
was more to college life than studying, partying and casual sex the
way they portrayed it on TV.
    “Why don’t you
go have a hot bath and an early night?”
    Katie rubbed
her hand over her eyes and sat back down, rummaging in her backpack
for a pack of cards to add to the game pile. Then she worked an old
Monopoly box from the stack and pushed it across the floor to Adam.
“One hour to tire me out. Otherwise I’ll be up at three tomorrow
morning which generally means anyone within yelling distance is up
at three. I’m the car.”
     
    The long, hot
bath had been a nice idea although it only lasted about half an
hour in total. About fifteen minutes into it, a loud and urgent
bang had come at the door.
    “It’s
occupied!” Lainy had shouted up the stairs. Whoever it was walked
down the stairs again, maybe got a drink or something, and then
Katie heard them come back up. The handle rattled but then they got
bored and footsteps clipped down to another room. It was the
footsteps that alerted her to the person coming back to try the
handle again a few minutes later, just as she was letting her eyes
slip shut and allowing all her tense and scrunched up muscles relax
in the warmth. The door remained tight shut. She gave herself
another ten minutes to get clean and relaxed enough to sleep when
she finally gave up, dried and dressed herself in the PJs she’d
found and padded down to her room. The person rattling the door
would have the bathroom to him- or herself now. Just in case Adam’s
lunatic was just randomly invading rooms, she closed the door fully
and flicked the lock.
    There were
stacks of boxes piled around the room but they seemed less than
they had in her old room. Funny considering it was a smaller room.
All of them needed sorting out and emptying but her brain was so
tired there was a very real possibility of putting her toothbrush
in her pencil case or her trainers in the bedside cabinet. To put
her lazily but persistently nagging mind at rest, Katie found
herself a scrap of paper and a pencil and wrote herself a to do
list, making sure to put empty boxes at the top, above even go for a run. She always tried to run in the morning but she
hadn’t really done it in a while. The academy needed to be checked
out and she guessed she could run there.
    Lainy had been
kind enough, or maybe it was Adam; guys could be domestic too, to
dress the bed with a clean sheet over