Archive of Our Own

The bruise is barely visible, only just peeking out from under the collar of the barista's shirt when she moves the right way. The first time Kel sees it, she thinks it's her imagination, but the more she looks, the more sure she is. And the more it looks like fingerprints. Like the only place it could have come from was someone's hand.

"Stop being creepy, my dear," says Neal, his voice mild. "You know it's rude to stare."

Kel flaps her hand in his general direction. "I think someone hurt her. Don't look!" she hisses, but of course, Neal has already twisted around to look at the barista with absolutely no subtlety. Kel might have been staring, but she had plausible deniability. She could have been zoning out.

"I don't see it."

"It's just sometimes. Her name is Lalasa, right? I've seen her before. Someone broke a glass last week and she looked really scared."

"You're not a police officer yet, Kel. This isn't your job."

The thing is, Kel's not sure it would be her job even if she was already a police officer. She's not sure it really is a job, seeing someone in trouble and wanting to help. She doesn't think a uniformed officer asking the barista if anyone is hurting her would actually do any good.

"I've been wondering if that's really what I want to do after college, after all," she admits, looking into her coffee so she won't have to look at him.

Neal perks up. "Since when?"

"It's been a while. But a few weeks ago I really started thinking about doing something else. Trying to make plans."

"And why am I just hearing about this?"

Her mouth pulls up into half a smile. "Because you're in med school now and very, very busy?"

"Never too busy for you, Kel! Except when I'm too busy for you," he adds, before she can say it. "Why the change of heart?"

She puts her focus back on Lalasa the barista, watching the bruise winking out from her shoulder. "I told one of my students I wanted to be one of the good police officers, and she said there weren't any good police officers. Only bad ones, worse ones, and ones who quit."

"And you believed her?" Neal asks. "You?"

Kel bristles. "Why wouldn't I?"

"I wouldn't call you idealistic," he says, sounding thoughtful. "But you are stubborn. I assumed you were going to try to reform the entire institution of policing through sheer force of will."

Kel had assumed the same. She's wanted to be a police officer since before she really knew anything about it. And Neal is right, she is stubborn. Stubborn enough to believe, for a lot longer than she should have, that she could make a difference as one good officer, even if she was the only one.

But Kel is realistic and practical too. And moving out from the shelter of her hometown, meeting people who aren't white and fairly well off, reading the news, following protests, has taught her that she might have been overestimating her own abilities there.

"I want to help people," she says. "I even want police reform. But I'm not sure joining the force is the best way to do either of those things."

"You might have a point there. I'm sorry I wasn't around to talk about it sooner."

"Like I said, I know you're busy. But I have been wanting to tell you. It's been harder than I thought."

"Giving up a dream always is."

Kel kicks him under the table. He is, technically, older than she is. But it's still annoying when he acts like some wise old sage. "It shouldn't be. It was the wrong dream."

"And feelings always respond so well to logic." He sips his tea, regarding her thoughtfully. "What about teaching? You seem to like it."

"I do," Kel admits. "It's difficult, and frustrating sometimes, but I do like it."

"And yet."

Her mouth twists in a smile. "And yet, I don't think I want to stay. I'm happy to do a year teaching as a favor to Professor Olau and Daine, but…"

"But you have bigger dreams."

"That's not fair," she protests. "It's not about being bigger or smaller. It's just not what I want."

"I know." He stretches his legs out so he can tap her ankle with the tip of his sneaker. A year ago, it would have made her heart flip over. It's nice that her crush on him wore off, but sometimes she feels its absence like a hole in her chest. A strange awareness of not having feelings anymore. "Have you been talking to anyone else, or were you waiting for me?"

"I couldn't decide who else to talk to."

"Your parents, presumably. Any of our friends. One of the other teachers at your school. Professor Olau. Any of the other professors."

"Or I could talk to her," says Kel, watching the barista relax for a second between customers.

"Is liking girls another thing you haven't been mentioning to me?" Neal asks. "Obviously, I support you, but…"

"That's not why. But maybe I can help."

"While I applaud your good intentions, I'm not sure the best way to help a victim of abuse, if that even is what she is, is to approach her in her place of work to tell her you've been staring intently at her possibly imaginary bruises. And approaching her under false pretenses might be even worse."

Kel sighs. Neal is so rarely the voice of reason to her recklessness that it makes it even worse when he is. "Do you remember when Representative Goldenlake came to talk to us?" she asks, to avoid telling him that he's right.

"I do."

"He said, everyone wants to save the world, no one wants to help with the dishes," says Kel. "Something like that. He said that was why he got into politics."

"Which didn't make sense to me, to be honest."

She frowns. "It didn't?"

"On the scale of wanting to save the world to helping with the dishes, getting into politics seems to heavily favor wanting to save the world."

"Maybe I understand because I want to do both. It's about doing something, Neal. Not just sitting around wishing things were different, but trying to make life better for people. Whether it's dishes or policy reform. Or talking to a barista who looks like she's having a hard time."

"Better yet, you could talk to him."

"Who?"

"Goldenlake. He came to talk to our class because he knows Professor Olau and he's an alum. Maybe he'd take a meeting with you."

"He's in Congress, Neal."

"And as an elected official, one of his duties is to talk to his constituents. Of whom you are one."

"Talking about political issues and policies," Kel protests. "Not career advice."

"He could talk about both. Why don't you ask Professor Olau if he could get you a meeting? Say you're thinking about going into politics. It's not even a lie. Anything to keep you from stalking a barista because you think you're not doing enough dishes."

Kel scowls. "I wasn't going to stalk her."

"Good. Don't talk to her either."

"But--"

"Kel," he says gently. "You have many talents. Subterfuge is not one of them. If you go and talk to that girl, she's going to know something is wrong. And you might do more harm than good. I think it's admirable you want to help," he adds, before she can protest. "But wanting to help and actually helping are two different things. One of them makes you feel better, one of them makes her feel better. You know this."

"I do know," Kel admits. "I'll talk to Professor Olau."

"Good. And next time, if you're going through a life crisis, at least text me that it's important. I could have made time."

"You're busy," she protests.

"Never too busy for my dearest friend. I would FaceTime you between classes if you needed me."

"How generous of you," she says, her tone dry, but she's touched anyway. She and Neal made fast friends when they started college together, but even though they've remained in the same city, their paths have wildly diverged since graduation. There's still a part of her that expects Neal to make med school friends who will take over her place in his life. That their whole friendship came from proximity and chance.

But he deserves more credit than that. Neal's never given her a reason to doubt him.

"So, if I have to go, you won't talk to that girl?" he says.

"I won't."

"Good, because I do have to go. Study group. But expect several follow-up texts in the next few days to make sure you've actually started talking to people about your future."

"I'll hold you to that."

He gives her a hug around the shoulders before he leaves, and Kel stays, lingering over her drink as she works on lesson plans. She does like teaching, even if she'd only jumped in to cover Daine's maternity leave because she and Professor Olau had begged her. But it doesn't feel like the answer for her, doesn't feel like her future.

Then again, nothing really feels like her future. That's part of the problem.

"If you want anything else, you should get it now," says a soft voice, and Kel looks up to see the barista, Lalasa, cleaning the next table.

"Sorry?" says Kel.

"We're closing up in forty minutes, so they're going to start cleaning the machines soon. If you need a refill, it's easier for us if you get it now."

"Oh," she says, looking down into her empty mug. "No, that's all right. I can just leave."

Lalasa's eyes widen. "You don't have to do that! You can stay until closing. I just thought…"

"Thank you for telling me," Kel says, pouring warmth into the words. She's not always good at showing how she's feeling; she has to work at it. "I sometimes order right before you close. I hadn't thought about how hard that would be for the staff."

She shakes her head. "And you're allowed to! If we're open, you can order."

"But maybe something simple. Tea or black coffee. Nothing with foam."

"We'd all be grateful."

"Then I will. I'd rather have a reputation as a good customer."

"Oh, you do!" Lalasa hastens to tell her. "If you didn't, I wouldn't have mentioned it at all. You're polite and you always put something into the tip jar."

Kel flushes with pleasure. It's always strange to realize that someone has been paying attention to you while you've been paying attention to them.

"Well, I'm done with my lesson plans for tonight, so I can just go."

"Are you a teacher?" she asks, sounding genuinely interested.

"Just a substitute. A friend of mine is on maternity leave and I graduated right before she was leaving, so I took over for her."

"What do you teach?"

"Middle-school science." It seems like a natural ending to the conversation, but she doesn't want to let it go yet. Neal is right, she can't just approach this woman out of nowhere and ask if someone is hurting her. But Lalasa was the one who approached her, and Kel can try to build on that. "I'm Keladry, by the way. Kel."

"Lalasa," she says. "It's nice to meet you, Keladry."

Kel buys a large tea on her way out and puts ten dollars into the tip jar. It's a start.

*

Representative Raoul Goldenlake has an office only three stops down from Kel on the subway, and it takes her exactly one email to Professor Olau--and then three slightly more complicated emails with Representative Goldenlake's very brusque assistant--to get an appointment there. It's almost staggeringly easy, given how Kel's schedule is and how Goldenlake's is. She gives him a few times, his assistant tells her two of them would also work for the representative, and that's it. Kel is meeting with a person who has been on CNN.

Goldenlake isn't the most famous member of the House of Representatives, but he's pretty well known. Like many politicians, he comes from a prominent family with money and influence, but he refused both family money and corporate donations in his campaign. Neal had called it superficial and self-serving at the time, and Kel had understood where he was coming from, but Goldenlake was in a delicate position. It wasn't as if he could stop being Raoul Goldenlake. It would be impossible for a man like him to separate himself from his name, and refusing his family's money could have been a lie or a ploy.

So Kel kept an eye on him. Goldenlake was considerably farther left than his fairly moderate father, and even before he was elected, Raoul had publicly disagreed with him. By sacrificing family support up front, he'd made sure he could distance himself from his father's values and positions and show, to the extent that he was able, that he wanted to be his own politician.

And, of course, Raoul Goldenlake was friends with the Lioness of Congress, which was particularly exciting for Kel. Alanna Trebond was a strange mirror image of Goldenlake, another political legacy who had thrown aside her own family connections when she decided to get into politics herself. Unlike Goldenlake, however, the Lioness hadn't ever had the option of paternal support; her father was a republican who just kept going farther and farther right, and he'd disowned his wayward children long before Alanna had started her congressional campaign.

Kel figures Raoul Goldenlake has to be pretty great, if Alanna Trebond wants to work with him.

"Keladry Mindelan," she tells the receptionist when she arrives. "I have an appointment with the representative at one."

The receptionist checks something on his computer and then nods. "Perfect. Have a seat and I'll let him know you're here."

Kel waits, her hands in her lap, trying to make herself blank and calm. She's not making any decisions today. All she's doing is speaking with a local politician. One with a higher profile than many local politicians, one whom she thinks well of, but no one with any real power over Kel or her future.

Just a man who might be able to help her.

"Keladry Mindelan!" says Goldenlake, with what sounds like alarmingly genuine pleasure. "It's so good to see you."

"Is it?" Kel asks, trying not to sound too suspicious.

"It is. I'd been wanting Myles to put me in touch with you. Come in."

Kel follows him into the office. "Should I close the door?" she asks.

"It's up to you. If you'd rather not have a closed-door meeting with a man whom you've just met who says he'd been hoping to hear from you, I'll certainly understand."

Kel weighs her options and leaves it ajar, then takes the seat Goldenlake indicates in front of his desk. The office, like the waiting area, is fairly unremarkable. It has enough decoration that it doesn't look empty, but it seems almost strategic, as if Goldenlake had someone come in and tell him an exact number of things he needed to make the place seem welcoming. It doesn't feel like he spends time here if he can help it, but Kel might be reading into that.

"I read your thesis."

Kel blinks. In an abstract sense, she knew that her thesis was publicly available and could be read. But that's true of everyone's theses, and very few of them actually are read. It's just for archival purposes.

"May I ask why?" Kel asks delicately.

"Two reasons. One, Myles thought I'd enjoy it. Two, I remembered you from when I spoke to your class. You asked a few smart questions and actually seemed interested. Which you would think would be fairly unremarkable for college students, but unfortunately it doesn't happen very often."

"I didn't know I made an impression," Kel says. She's not uncomfortable, exactly, not threatened, but there's something eerie about realizing that someone you thought hadn't paid any attention to you had been taking notes. It had happened with Lalasa too, but at least Kel had known then that it was a possibility. She was a regular at the coffee shop. Of course some of the baristas might have an opinion of her.

"I hope that's not a problem."

"Just surprising."

He nods. "Well, since you didn't know, you couldn't have come here to talk about your thesis. What actually brings you here?"

"Now I am curious to hear what you thought about my thesis," Kel admits. "But…I'm having some trouble with what my next steps are. I was talking to a friend, and I told him how much something you said stuck with me. The thing about saving the world and doing the dishes."

His smile is soft. "Yes, it's something I try to always keep in mind."

"Neal--that's my friend--said he thought it didn't make much sense, coming from you. That being a politician sounds a lot more like wanting to save the world than it does like doing the dishes."

"Your friend and I might agree on that. But I think I agree with him because of how our political system is now, not because of how it has to be. And, honestly, we'd probably be better off with a few dozen more representatives who were interested in doing either. Which brings me back to my interest in you, actually. Myles told me you wanted to go into law enforcement."

Kel doesn't fidget, but it takes work. "I did. That was always what I thought I'd like. But I don't think there's a version of being a police officer that would work for me. I don't think I want to be the one good cop trying to reform the system from within."

"No?"

"That's a story," she says with a shrug. " A story people tell themselves. But I've done the research. It doesn't work like that. I'd be trying to change the world and dishes would be piling up."

Goldenlake is nodding. "Alanna went through something similar."

"The Lioness?" Kel asks, unable to hide her excitement. "She wanted to go into law enforcement?"

"Alanna's main motivation for a long time was anger. Mostly at her father. From about age twelve to twenty five, pissing him off was her primary goal. She thought about enlisting in the army or becoming a police officer or some other unwomanly work, but Jon and I pointed out that she'd be working for the systems her father supported if she did that."

"So she decided to go into politics to try to beat him at his own game?"

"And she realized that she'd rather try to make him angry by making the rest of the world better than by making his world worse. Especially because making the world better would piss him off too."

Kel nods. "Neal thinks politics might be a good place for me, but I don't even know where to start. What I'd want to do."

"Well, I think the first thing to decide on is scale."

"Scale?"

"Jon, my best friend, was elected mayor of Philadelphia a few years back. Alanna and I wanted him to try for the House with us, but he decided he wanted to focus on the city. Often, the smaller your focus is, the more you can do. But you'll only do it there. You don't have to decide any of this right away," he adds.

"I'm still not sure what I want to be doing."

"What did you like about the idea of being a police officer?"

"Protecting people," says Kel. "Helping them. I knew it was on a smaller scale, but we need people who work on a smaller scale, too. It's part of why I wanted to try teaching, because I wanted to see if that impact was a good fit for me."

"And it's not?"

"It's not bad, but it's not what I want." She looks down at her hands. "I still want to change the world, I think."

"You can do that kind of work no matter what your job is," Goldenlake says. "I don't want you to think that getting involved in government is the only way to drive change, even if I want you to get involved in government."

She jerks her head up. "You do?"

"We need more young people getting involved," he says, with a shrug. "It's another reason Alanna and I decided to run for office. We need bright, enthusiastic people like you who want to make a difference but know that the road isn't easy. I would love it if I could snap my fingers and change every law I don't like, but it just doesn't work like that. But you can be a teacher and campaign for causes you believe in, or get involved in a non-profit as a volunteer, or even canvas for candidates you like."

"I'm not sure I could," Kel admits, her tone wry. "Teaching is exhausting. I get home every night and all I want to do is crawl into bed. I have to go to a coffee shop after work just to force myself to get things done."

He laughs. "I've heard other teachers say similar things. So maybe education reform is your passion."

"I don't know what kind of elected official I'd want to be."

"You're a year out of college, you don't need to have your whole life planned out. You don't even need to be elected. Have you looked into job postings from the city?"

"I've barely even started thinking about this."

He grins. "Sorry to get ahead of you. But you should think about it."

"All I've been doing is thinking about it," she grumbles.

"Well, I'm happy to talk to you any time about your options."

"Because you want people like me involved."

"Yes."

Kel chews over the words for a moment. "What was your first job?"

"Working for my father's campaign. I made it two months."

"And then?"

"I remembered that just because I don't hate my father like Alanna does, it didn't mean I wanted to follow in his footsteps. I worked in non-profits for a while, and then Alanna told me we should run for office together. She thought we were in a unique position to encourage young, progressive voices who didn't have the background with government that we did. But everyone's path is different. Alanna worked at a bar for six months, until her boyfriend fired her."

"Fired her?"

"She wasn't good at it."

Kel opens her mouth to respond and then changes her mind; Goldenlake smiles anyway.

"You were going to say you didn't think there was much skill involved."

"And I changed my mind," says Kel. "I'm not much of a drinker, but I know that it's a service job, and service jobs are hard. And you said the Lioness was motivated by anger, and that doesn't seem like a good fit for that kind of job."

"You aren't wrong. It was eye-opening for her, though."

"I'm sure."

"My point is, you don't have to rush. There's nothing that you want to do that can't wait."

Of course, Kel knows he's right. Neal has his life figured out, but none of her other friends really have. And there's no guarantee Neal will even like being a doctor; he could decide medical school isn't for him after all.

But Kel was supposed to have her life figured out too. She was the one who always had a plan, who was so sure of her path. She'd never given anyone any reason to doubt her resolve. Even when she was flagging, she'd doubled down, too stubborn to let anyone see that she might have changed her path.

It would be nice, if she had just as decisive a new path to walk.

"Are you usually free this time?" Goldenlake asks, before she's come up with a response. "Saturdays at one?"

"I could be free," Kel says. "Most weeks."

"Good. Then I'd love to see you again next week. You can tell me what you've thought about."

"Was my thesis really that good?" Kel blurts out. She'd gotten a good grade on it, but she always got good grades. She hadn't thought it was anything special.

"I have a good feeling about you. And even if I didn't, you're one of my constituents, aren't you? In need of my assistance. Why wouldn't I help however I can?"

"You couldn't do this for everyone."

"Not everyone asks me. But you did. So, same time next week?"

His smile is bright and it isn't as if Kel doesn't want to come back and talk to him more. Even if it doesn't make much sense.

"Same time next week."

*

Kel goes to the coffee shop after, mostly because going home to work feels anticlimactic. She wasn't even in Goldenlake's office for very long; she can have a late lunch and hope that, by the time she's done, the world will feel less surreal.

Lalasa is behind the counter. "Good afternoon, Kel."

"Hi, Lalasa. How's your day?"

"It's been busy, but I think we're finally calming down. What can I get you?"

Kel gets a sandwich and an iced coffee and finds a free table with a little effort. As Lalasa said, the line has died down, but it's still crowded with people who are finishing their meals and chatting.

She's listening with half an ear for her name when her order appears in front of her, with Lalasa behind it.

"You didn't have to bring me this," she says, with a smile.

"I know. But I'm on my break, and I was hoping you'd let me sit with you. There isn't a lot of room, I don't want to take a table to myself."

"Of course!" says Kel, probably a little too eager. They aren't friends, really, but they've been chatting a little more over the last week and change. They're acquaintances now, definitely. And even aside from worrying about her, Kel likes Lalasa. She's shy and a little quiet, but for some reason, she's decided she can open up to Kel, and Kel likes what's underneath the nerves.

"Lesson plans?" Lalasa asks, nodding at Kel's laptop.

"No. I'm thinking about my future."

"Your future?"

She drums her fingers on the table. "What do you think about the police?"

Lalasa's hand goes to her shoulder, and Kel knows, with a flash of certainty, that there's another bruise there. "Why do you ask?"

"Two of my brothers are officers, and I thought I wanted to be one too. That's what I always wanted to be when I was growing up. But the more I learn about the force, the less I want that."

"I don't think it would be a good fit for you," says Lalasa. "My brother is an officer too, and…"

"And he's the reason you have bruises?" Kel asks, soft. Lalasa's eyes widen, and Kel shakes her head. "Don't worry, I can't see them now. I've just caught glimpses."

"He's a bully," Lalasa says.

Kel nods. "I was thinking about that, too. One of my police-officer brothers, he's a nice man. A good man, I thought. But he doesn't like to make waves. And the other one is a bully. I thought most of the officers were like my nice brother, but if they are, and they won't stand up to the bullies because they don't want to cause trouble, then it doesn't matter, does it?"

Lalasa is looking down at her own sandwich on the table, but her voice is calm and steady when she says, "My brother tells me, sometimes, about the ones who stand up to him. Who tell him he's doing something wrong. He says they never last long. Maybe it's different in other precincts, but…"

Kel nods. "The more I learn, the less I think it's a good fit for me."

"I don't think it would be."

"So now I'm trying to decide what to do with my life instead."

"Not teaching?"

"I don't think so. Are you in school?"

Lalasa shakes her head. "No. I finished high school, but that's all."

"So you just work here?"

"Yes. And…"

Kel waits for as long as she can, but finally she prompts, "And?"

"I do some sewing."

"For work?" She'd never thought about it, but if someone had asked, she would have said that wasn't a job people did anymore.

"I take commissions online. Not as many as I'd like, but I have to be quiet about it. If my father and brother knew I was bringing in extra money, they would expect me to use it for bills and expenses. To give it to them."

"But you're saving up to move out."

"I'd like to. I don't know if I'll be able to."

Neal would tell her to shut up and mind her own business, to not pressure Lalasa or move too quickly. But Neal is lacking the critical context that Kel and Lalasa have been talking, and that Kel does like her. They're not friends, but how much would she know about someone who she found online to live with? Plenty of people have roommates they don't know very well, and Kel has read horror stories, but she's also read about what kinds of things to do to prevent horror stories.

Mostly, there's a person in front of her whom she could help in an obvious, material way, and Kel doesn't know how to ignore that.

"I have a room I'm not using," she says.

"That's lucky. It's nice to have some space."

Kel shakes her head. "I mean, you could have it."

Lalasa stares, her pretty face blank in confusion, and Kel does understand. It's quite an offer to make out of nowhere.

"I'm the youngest of six," Kel explains, when Lalasa continues to not say anything. "My parents bought a condo here, years and years ago, for my oldest brother. And all of us had our turn using it as our first place to live. Now it's mine, and none of my other siblings need it, so there's a second bedroom that just isn't being used, unless my parents come to visit. And they can just get a hotel."

"Why would you give it to me?" Lalasa asks, her voice very soft.

"It sounds like you need it."

"That's not a reason to give it to me."

"It is for me." Kel runs her finger up her iced coffee, collecting condensation. "The whole reason I wanted to become a police officer was to help people who needed help. I don't think that's the way to do it anymore. But you need to get out of your father's house, and I have a place you could live. You can pay my parents some rent, if it will make you feel better. They won't say no. But it doesn't have to be very much."

"I couldn't," Lalasa says, her voice faint.

"You could." She roots around in her bag and finds her notebook and a pen. Ripping out a page, she writes down her name, address, phone number, and email, and slides it across the table. "Keep it somewhere safe, where your father and brother won't be able to find it. You can look and see where it is. Google me, if you're worried about what I'll do to you. But think about it, please."

"I doubt I'll be able to stop thinking about it," Lalasa mutters, looking at the piece of paper like it might rise up and strike her.

"At some point, you should stop thinking and make up your mind," Kel says. "Imagine how much more you could do with your sewing if you didn't have to hide it."

That seems to be what finally pulls her out of her daze. "I could. I have more orders than I can take, and they make good money. I did some tricky work for a cosplayer," she explains, with a shy smile. "She mentioned me on her TikTok."

Kel is only distantly familiar with the concepts of both cosplay and TikTok, but she knows enough to know that it's a good thing.

"There you go," she says, nodding at Lalasa. "I won't try to take the money you get from that, I don't need it."

"I'd have to pay you something."

"If you want to move in, I'll talk with my parents about it, and we'll figure something out. I know how lucky I am," she adds. "I didn't do anything, it's just an accident of circumstance. I tried to share my luck with friends after graduation, but Neal had a place already and my other friends were moving to other places. I might as well share it with you."

"I'll think about it," Lalasa says, her fingers dancing over Kel's contact information on the paper. "Thank you."

It's too important a moment to be flippant or dismissive, to play it off as if it's no big deal, like she usually would. So she smiles. "You're welcome."

*

She calls Neal the next day and he doesn't pick up, but he calls her back an hour later.

"Kel! Sorry I missed your call. What can I do for you?"

"I have a weekly meeting with Representative Goldenlake to talk about my future," she says. "He read my senior thesis."

"Why?" Neal asks. "I didn't even read your thesis."

"Of course you didn't, you suffered through every sociology class you ever took. But I impressed him when he came and spoke to our class."

Neal whistles. "Good for him."

"Good for him, not good for me?"

"You are remarkable and amazing," Neal says, as if this is an objective fact. "Representative Goldenlake recognized this very quickly, which not everyone would or could."

"He thinks I should get into politics."

"It's not a bad option."

"I don't know," she admits. "It's so…" She sighs. "There's so much to do that isn't what I'm interested in. Fundraising and networking and running for the next election."

"Once you're elected once, the work you do can speak for itself."

"Not if I can't do the work because I can't work well enough with other people."

"You're good at working with other people."

"Sometimes. Plenty of people don't like me."

"If that's what you want to do, you can make it work. Look at the Lioness! She manages to get things done, and she's nearly gotten in fistfights on CSPAN."

It's hard to argue with that. "He said I don't have to know yet," Kel says.

"And he is certainly right. You could even change your mind again. As many times as you'd like. And as many times as someone will hire you, obviously."

"That's not comforting. Especially from someone on his way to a career."

"Which I can leave, if I need to. Maybe I'll be a terrible doctor."

"You might be. You're not impressing me with your bedside manner right now."

"You're not dying, Kel."

"No, I'm not." She lets out a breath. "I asked the barista to move in with me."

There's a long silence. "That's funny, I could have sworn you said you asked the barista to move in with you. And there aren't a lot of things that sound like that."

"We've been talking. She sat with me for lunch."

"And you asked her to move in with you? Kel! She could be a serial killer."

"You don't really think that."

"No, but she could be."

"I was telling her that I wanted to be a police officer. She told me her brother is one too. He's the one hurting her, Neal, and she lives with him, and she can't call the police because she knows they'll protect him. She's trying to save enough money to move out. You know how long that would take. How hard it would be."

Neal lets out a long breath, the kind that comes with cigarette smoke in film noir. "That doesn't make it your problem."

"No, but does it have to be my problem?" she snaps, shorter than she means to be. "If I can fix her problem, why shouldn't I? I can't give housing to everyone who needs it, but I can do it for her."

"When's she moving in?" he asks, after another long pause. "Do you need help?"

"She hasn't said yes yet."

"You should have led with that! A serial killer would say yes right away."

"Or she's lulling me into a false sense of security."

"Thank you so much for reminding me of that possibility."

"If her home situation is as bad as it sounded, I'm not sure she'll be leaving openly. If I need backup, I'll call you. Never hurts to have a man along, unfortunately."

"You say, as if you couldn't bench press me," says Neal, dry as sand. "I'm happy to join, but if a fight starts, I'll hide behind you."

"You should."

"Cleon is still local, isn't he? Get him to come too."

"You want me to ask my ex-boyfriend to help?"

"You two ended on good terms, didn't you? And if you want intimidation, he's much better at it than I am."

Kel knows he's right. She and Cleon ended amicably, and for all he's one of the nicest people she's ever met, he does look like he could do some real damage.

Not that Kel couldn't. But more is more, when it comes to emergency muscle.

"If Lalasa thinks we need help, I'll reach out to him."

"That's all I ask. I can't be your backup. I'm not built for it."

"She might still say no."

"She'd be stupid to."

"Maybe she thinks I'm a serial killer."

Neal considers this. "You could come across as a serial killer in this scenario."

"I know."

"So, do you feel better?" he asks. "I'm having trouble getting a feel for where you are."

"I don't," Kel admits. "Maybe if Lalasa moved in and I'd decided what I want to do once I'm done with teaching. Right now, I'm still treading water."

"Whatever you do, you're going to be helping people, Kel. Even if it's not your job, it's who you are. You don't know how to stop."

That, at least, makes her feel a little better. "Even when you think I should?"

Neal sighs like he's carrying the weight of the world. "Oh, especially then."

*

After school on Monday, Kel thinks about not going to the coffee shop. The last thing she wants to do is make Lalasa feel uncomfortable or pressured. At the same time, though, she's not going to stop spending time there in general, and she doesn't want Lalasa to think she's holding a grudge, either.

The safest thing, she decides, is to act like nothing happened. If she hadn't asked Lalasa to move in with her, she would go to the coffee shop to work on her grading, so she does it today too.

"Good afternoon," says Lalasa, like always. "Iced coffee?"

"Iced matcha latte, please. Large."

"Anything to eat?"

"No, just the drink."

Lalasa passes the order back. "I've never gotten the taste for matcha."

"I lived in Japan when I was little. It's not always what I want, but I still love it."

Her eyes widen almost comically. "Really?"

"My dad works for a Japanese company. He was in the American branch, but then they wanted him in headquarters, so he took us to Tokyo."

"For how long?"

"Five years."

"I've never even been out of the state. My whole family is here, so my father always said we never needed to go anywhere else."

For a wild second, Kel wishes that she could offer Lalasa something better. A place farther away from here, somewhere they'd never find her.

But like Neal said, this isn't her problem. She's done what she can, and it's already enough to make Lalasa uncomfortable. It would be completely absurd if she started making plans to get Lalasa out of the state.

"My parents are back in Japan for a year or two, but some of my siblings are still in the city. But we're all over now, so holidays are always complicated."

"Your brothers?" Lalasa asks, presumably wondering if the police in Kel's family know the police in hers.

"No, they got married and moved closer to their wives' families."

Lalasa nods, then goes to collect Kel's drink from her coworker. "I am thinking about your offer," she says. "I haven't forgotten. And I appreciate it. But…"

"But it's a big move and you barely know me and I'm sure you're worried about what would happen if your brother found you again after you left. I understand."

"I think I'd have to stop working here," she admits. "It would be too easy for them to come looking for me here. And I don't think they would, but…"

"You don't think they would?" Kel asks, surprised.

Lalasa shrugs. "I'm an easy target. If I leave, they'll find a new target."

"Have you ever thought about talking to someone?" Kel asks. "There must be groups that help women in your position. They might have some suggestions."

"Oh, no, I couldn't. If anyone who works with law enforcement is there, someone who knows me as my brother's sister…" She shakes her head. "I think they might let me go, but not if I told anyone. If he thought I might ruin his reputation."

"Could I ask around on your behalf? I wouldn't name you. I'd just say I have a friend and I'm thinking of having her move in with me to get out of her situation. Maybe they'd have some ideas about how we could do it safely."

"As long as no one knew it was me."

"I'll be careful."

"You don't have to do this for me."

"Neal told me the same thing."

"Is that your boyfriend? The one you come in with sometimes?"

"The one I come in with," says Kel. "But not my boyfriend. Just my best friend. He didn't think I should be asking a stranger to move in with me." Among other things, but Kel doesn't need to give Lalasa an exhaustive list of Neal's objections.

"He might be right."

"He might. But it seems like you could use someone on your side. It might as well be me."

"I wouldn't mind if you talked to someone. Just to get some more information." She bites her lip. "I'd like to move out. And I think I could probably live with you."

Kel nods. "Then we'll figure it out."

*

Kel wants Lalasa to be her top priority, but of course, she has other things going on in her life. She has a week of classes and other things to do, and even using her free time to do some research online, she doesn't feel prepared. Kel never feels like online research is enough; she needs to read some books or talk to an expert.

But first, she has her second meeting with Raoul Goldenlake, and almost nothing to show for it.

"I don't have any ideas," she tells him, as soon as she sits down across from him in his office.

"Honestly not what I was expecting."

"A friend of mine is in a difficult situation," Kel says carefully. "I'm trying to help get her out. I've been focusing on that, when I'm not doing work."

"Well, not to be too single-minded, but that's not a bad thing to think about, when you're thinking about your future. You said you wanted to help people. There are organizations that do that. They need employees and advocates."

"Do you know any in the area you'd recommend?" Kel asks, trying to sound casual.

"A friend of mine, Buri, works at Open Arms. It's a womens' and LGBT shelter. She mostly works in housing assistance, but I know the shelter also does outreach work with victims of abuse and domestic violence. I can give you her number, if that's the kind of help your friend needs."

"I did see that name when I was looking for places that might have some information for me."

Goldenlake regards her with a serious expression. "I promise this is the only time I'll raise this possibility. But if your friend is actually you, you can tell me. Nothing we say leaves this office regardless, but if it's you who needs help…"

Kel shakes her head. "It really is a friend. I want her to move in with me, but I want to be prepared if her abuser isn't willing to let her go easily. If he comes trying to take her back."

"More than understandable." He opens up a drawer and looks through it until he finds a card. "Here's the address and Buri's contact information. I don't know if she's the best person to talk you through your options, but she'll be able to point you in the right direction."

Kel turns the card over in her hands. "Have you been advocating for her?"

"However I can. I won't pretend that the wheels of government aren't slow and difficult to follow. I'll secure funding that I think should be going to one place, and the city sends it somewhere else. I propose bills, and they end up getting watered down and losing the things I cared about most. It's slow work. Would you like to hear another of my guiding principles?"

"Another?"

"Like doing the dishes."

"Oh. Yes, please."

"When someone comes to me with a problem, I try to think of it in three stages: today, tomorrow, and next year."

"All right," says Kel. "And those are…"

Goldenlake counts off on his fingers. "Today is the thing I can do immediately. I never want anyone to leave a meeting with me without some actionable plan, even if it's nothing more than we'll talk again next week," he adds, with a nod to her. "I hate having to say there's nothing I can do or no suggestion I can offer. Today is what can be done right now, immediately."

Kel nods. "Seems like a good policy."

"Tomorrow is about what I can do to find long-term solutions. The next day--metaphorically, that is, I can't always follow this exact timeline--is when I sit down and try to find the root cause of the problem and what I can change to fix it. Tomorrow is about my actions, and how I can help. And then, next year, I need to check back and see how it went. Have things changed? Is the problem fixed? If not, is progress at least being made? It's not enough to put things in motion, I have to follow up. Funding for Buri's shelter is in the next year phase. I've done things, and I'm in the process of seeing if they'll work. But in the meantime, I can tell her what she can do, and I can look for more opportunities."

"That's a useful framework," says Kel.

"It helps me manage my expectations. Change comes slowly, Kel, especially if you play by the rules. Alanna and I bend them as much as we can, but there's only so much we can do. Some days, it feels impossible."

"And then you focus on what you can do today?"

He smiles. "Exactly. Today, it sounds like what you need to be doing is helping your friend."

"And tomorrow, I can think about what I can do to make changes so it's easier for people like her to get out of situations like this."

"Exactly."

"It was a little easier when I thought there was just one path. Or that I only needed one."

Goldenlake nods. "Having a dream is easy. But I think even if you hadn't changed your mind about law enforcement, it might not have been as easy as you thought."

"I feel like there's no job for what I want to do." She bites her lip, but Goldenlake is nice. He probably won't laugh at her. "Before I wanted to be a police officer, I actually wanted to be a magical girl."

He mulls this over. "I'm not familiar with the term."

"Have you heard of Sailor Moon?"

"I have."

"That's the genre it belongs to. I lived in Japan when I was little, so I watched a lot of shows like that. Girls who have special powers and fight evil. Like superheroes, kind of, but with different genre conventions."

He nods. "But those aren't jobs either, are they? I'm clearly not an expert, but I'm broadly familiar with the idea. Batman doesn't get paid to be Batman." He frowns. "Independently wealthy, bad example. Superman doesn't get paid to be Superman. He has a day job."

"But if my job isn't what I want to be doing, how do I pick?" she asks, her frustration getting the better of her.

Goldenlake chuckles. "I don't miss being in my twenties."

"I thought I had it all figured out."

"Do you think I have it all figured out?"

"I assume you're going to tell me you don't."

"Of course I don't." He regards her thoughtfully. "I'm not out, for one thing. Privately, of course, to my friends, to my staff, now to you. But I've been keeping it quiet for so long that I don't know how to come out. Qasim and I talk about it sometimes, but, to be honest, I think I've grown too comfortable being thought of as a bachelor."

An odd little twinge of regret threads its way through Kel's heart. Ever since she and Cleon broke up and her crush on Neal faded, she's been wondering, just a little bit, if things like crushes and relationships are over for her. Which, admittedly, feels a little ridiculous and overdramatic, but sometimes even she's ridiculous and overdramatic. And she'd thought, well, maybe here was Raoul Goldenlake, older and more successful, and he didn't need a relationship, did he?

But apparently he did.

"So it gets better after your twenties, but you never feel like you have it all figured out?"

"You'll always only have one life, Kel. And there will always be more things than you can do with it. I could have come out years ago, and made my support of queer rights personal. But I also could have agreed with Jon and decided that I wanted to try to work on the city level instead of the state, or a thousand other things. You will never have enough time, and you will always have regrets."

Kel has to swallow before she can speak. "Inspirational, sir."

He laughs. "I have a job for you, you know, any time you want one."

"You do?"

"Not a specific one, but I'll find one for you. I want you to find your place in the world, Keladry Mindelan, whether it's in government or in advocacy or somewhere else entirely. But I'd like it if it was with me, at least for a year or two."

"I might take you up on that."

"And you might not."

"I might not."

"Talk to Buri. Let her try to sway you to non-profits. Although," he says, with a teasing glint in his eye. "If you work with me, I can guarantee you'll meet Alanna sooner or later."

Kel flushes. "I'll keep that in mind, sir."

"Just Raoul is fine."

"I'll keep that in mind too, sir."

He laughs again. "I'm in DC next weekend. But feel free to email or text me with any pressing thoughts you might have on your future."

"I probably won't, to be honest."

"Fair enough."

She's on her way out when she pauses, "Oh, and, um, Raoul?"

"Yes?"

"You seemed really happy when you were talking about your boyfriend. I think maybe you'd like to do it more."

He smiles. "Thank you, Kel. I'll keep that in mind."

*

Kel doesn't know if Raoul's friend works on Saturdays, but she heads to Open Arms shelter anyway, mostly because she doesn't have any other plans for the day. It's downtown, in an area Kel rarely frequents, the kind of place her parents and brothers warned her not to go. But no one pays any attention to her at all. They seem to have their own things going on.

"We're full for the day," the woman at the reception desk says, when Kel comes in. "If you're looking for accommodation, we recommend--"

"I have a friend who's thinking about moving in with me to get out of a bad situation," Kel says quickly. "I was hoping I might be able to talk to someone about how I could best support her. I don't have an appointment, but…Representative Goldenlake recommended you as a resource."

"Oh!" Her face clears. "I don't know if anyone's available right now, but let me give Thayet a call. And here's something you can read in the meantime."

The receptionist hands over a brochure about leaving abusive situations, and Kel takes it to a chair to read. Overall, it's the same kind of stuff she found online--have money as much money as you can, have a plan of where to go, try to assemble a support network, never tell them you're leaving--but that's reassuring too. Maybe it would be better if Lalasa could get farther away than Kel's apartment, but that can be the next step.

Today, Lalasa can leave her family. Tomorrow, they can work on finding her a more permanent place to live, and maybe next year, she'll be somewhere far away, free and happy.

"Hello," says a lilting voice. Kel looks up from the brochure to see the most beautiful woman she's ever seen in her life smiling at her. It's honestly a little jarring, like seeing a celebrity on the street might be. "You're a friend of Raoul's?"

Kel scrambles to her feet. "We know each other. Are you Buri?"

"No, I'm Thayet. Buri isn't working today. But I'd be happy to talk to you. This is more my area of expertise."

"If it's not any trouble," Kel says. "I know I came by unannounced, but I was in the area."

"It's fine. Please, this way."

She follows Thayet down the hall to an office. The plate next to the door reads Thayet Wilima, Director, so clearly, she's a big deal. Then again, Kel did namedrop Raoul. She was hoping it would work, and it did.

"Have a seat. I didn't get your name."

"Keladry Mindelan. Raoul and I are both Corus alumni, so he's been kind enough to talk me through a career crisis."

Thayet nods. "I'm not surprised. He likes to be a mentor. Now, you said your friend was having trouble?"

From the way she says friend, Kel's sure that she, like Raoul, thinks that Kel is asking on her own behalf. "Her boyfriend is a police officer," Kel says, coming up with the lie quickly. Thayet doesn't seem like the kind of person who will go and try to track Lalasa down, but it's not Kel who will be in a tough spot if she does. Lalasa doesn't want anyone to find her, and Kel can help with that. "So she was afraid to come herself. She didn't know the ins and outs of mandated reporting or what kind of relationship the organization might have with law enforcement."

"That does complicate things. They're not married?"

Kel shakes her head. "No. He doesn't have any legal claim to her. No children either. I have a room she could have, and I'm happy to give it to her, but I don't know what else I should be thinking about. She's worried she'll have to leave her job."

"I certainly understand the concern," says Thayet. "How much do you know about the abuse?"

"She has bruises," says Kel. "It looks like he grabs her. But I don't know what else."

"It's hard to predict how abusers will act when their victims leave. Some will pursue, others won't. Is her job customer-facing?"

"It is."

"I know it can be hard to take time off with positions like that, but if she could, that could be helpful. Assuming he came looking for her, he wouldn't find her. And then her coworkers can let her know if he's coming around."

"We might be able to do that."

"He could wait her out of course, but no plan is perfect. If she has the flexibility and financial ability to take a week or so off, and then change her schedule when she comes back, that could help too. Do you live anywhere near her work?"

"Not too far."

"Meeting up with her before she leaves work could also be an extra level of security for her. Just having another person around can help in situations like this. He'll know she's not alone."

"We could probably work that out. Do you think it's a good idea?" Kel asks. "Her going back to her old job if she leaves him."

"I think people need money, and it's better to wait to quit a job until you have another one if you can. I don't know how pressing it is for her to get out of her current place in terms of physical safety, but I know she'll feel better if she's out."

"And what about the police officer side of it?" Kel asks. "How worried should we be about an abuse of power?"

"I wish I could tell you that it's not a concern, but I can't. It's not the same, but I knew someone who worked at a hospital and used privileged information to stalk a patient. It's a violation, but it's the kind of violation that you usually won't know about until they've already used the information."

"That's what I was afraid of."

"I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. I think you should. But you seem like the kind of person who wants to think about the worse-case scenario. You aren't wrong that the worst case is very bad. But what she's experiencing now is also bad, and could get worse without any warning."

"Part of me thinks I should loan her money so she can buy a car and drive as far away as she can," Kel mutters.

Thayet's eyes flash. "And if she does that, where will she live when she's done driving? How will she make money? Are you going to go with her? If you don't, will she have any support network?"

"Okay, I understand," says Kel, smiling a little. "I just want the world to be simpler, I suppose. For there to be easy, straightforward answers to all the problems I have."

"Wouldn't that be nice," Thayet says, her voice dry.

"I know, I know."

"And I know where you're coming from. But the perfect is the enemy of the good. If you aren't up for the risk of having your friend live with you, send her to me." She scrawls a number down on a post-it note and hands it to Kel. "She can call me directly, so she doesn't have to worry about coming in here and anyone recognizing her as her boyfriend's ex. You don't have to take this on yourself, even if you want to help her. There are other ways."

"Do you think she'd be better off coming to you?"

"No," says Thayet, immediate and decisive. "I think she'd be better off living with a friend. I'm not saying she should stay with you forever, especially if her boyfriend wants to make trouble. But you seem to have a good head on your shoulders. And you know a pretty high up politician. That never hurts. He wouldn't mind going up against a corrupt cop."

That makes her smile. "No, I'm sure he wouldn't."

"And if he was in town some night when your friend's ex was making trouble, he's also rather large and intimidating. You could call him."

"I could," Kel says. "That's strange."

"If he wants to help you figure out your future, he must like you."

"He seems to." She offers Thayet a smile. "Do you like your job?"

"I do. But it's not what I expected."

"No?"

She considers Kel. "This is work that's close to my heart. My father was an upstanding member of the community who was a horror at home. I wanted to help people who were struggling with the things I struggled with."

"And you do," Kel says.

"Not like I used to. I have my masters in social work. I started out as a counselor. I used to work directly with impacted people. Now, I do that much more rarely. I spend a lot of time in meetings and trying to get people to give us money and coming up with budgets. And it's all important work. I know that me doing this helps more than me counseling one person would. But it feels less impactful. More abstract."

"Are you hiring?"

"Do you have any qualifications?" Thayet shoots back.

"I've been teaching middle school all year and I double-majored in sociology and computer science."

"Interesting. We have volunteer positions open, if you have any free time."

"Maybe once the school year ends."

"We'd love to have you, even if we can't pay you. And you have my number. If you or your friend needs help, you can call." She smiles. "Like I said, I miss helping out directly. I never mind getting involved."

*

Lalasa, after three more days of thinking about it, talks to her boss and gets two weeks off of work, unpaid. The manager, Salma, is sympathetic, and she agrees to remind the whole staff that they can't give out any information about other staff members or their schedules, and should anyone come looking for Lalasa, Salma will make sure to pass it along. Lalasa also gets in touch with one of her uncles--"the good one," in her words, which makes Kel's whole chest ache--to let him know that she's moving out and is fine, just in case her father and brother try to report her as missing or something like that.

Once that's done, it's just logistics. Lalasa's brother and father will both be gone Friday afternoon, and she's already not supposed to be working, so it won't be suspicious if she doesn't go in. Kel calls Cleon and apparently they did part on good terms, because he's willing to come and help someone move with almost no questions asked.

He and Neal come to get her after school, and she's glad that the year is almost over, because if any of her students see her getting into a car with two boys, they'll definitely have things to say. It's one of the problems with middle schoolers; most of them still aren't great with the idea of male/female friendship.

"So, how many cops are we fighting?" Cleon asks, by way of greeting. "And is that going to hurt your chances of getting into the academy?"

Kel, in the backseat, catches Neal's eye in the rearview mirror. Neal's the one to say, "Oh, she's not going to the academy."

"You're not?"

"I think I'm going to try out politics," she says, seeing how the words feel. "Working with Representative Goldenlake. He said he'd find me a job."

"Wow!" says Cleon. "That's amazing. I'm really happy for you."

He's such a nice guy, Kel thinks, not for the first time. And she still doesn't want what he was offering.

She texts Lalasa with their ETA, and Lalasa confirms that she's alone and should be for several more hours. Kel still can't relax, though, not until they get to the house. It's farther away than Kel was expecting, and moving will definitely really cut down on Lalasa's commute time. Maybe pay is higher in Kel's zip code, or maybe Lalasa just liked having an excuse to be out of the house for longer every shift.

Either way, it's probably another way living with Kel will be an improvement.

Lalasa comes to the door with a suitcase, which Neal takes from her to put in the back of Cleon's car while Kel and Cleon follow her inside.

"I don't have much," Lalasa says, clearly anxious. "I don't think we needed all these people."

"Security!" says Cleon, with his usual good cheer. "Just in case anyone comes home. And, unlike Kel and Neal, I have a car. I'm happy to help. Kel said she'll buy us pizza."

"Just tell us what else we're taking," Kel says. "And then we can go."

Lalasa nods. "It's this bag and the sewing machine. I didn't want to take anything I hadn't paid for myself, or that they could say belonged to the house, so I'm leaving everything else."

"You're the boss," says Cleon. "Kel, I can get the sewing machine, you take the bag?"

Kel nods, and Lalasa leads them out, locking the door behind her and putting her key into an envelope that she slides into the mail slot. Then she pauses for a moment, almost frozen, until Kel says, "You locked yourself out, so I think we'd better go."

That makes her laugh. "Yes, when you put it like that, yes." She lets out a breath, squares her shoulders, and turns to Kel. "I'm ready."

Neal offers both Kel and Lalasa the front seat, but Lalasa doesn't seem to want to make eye contact with either of the boys, so Kel sits in the back with her while Cleon turns up the radio and doesn't make anyone talk.

"When are they getting home?" Kel asks her, soft, mostly because curiosity is killing her.

"Not until late. My father will be drunk, so I doubt he'll look at the letter until morning, and my brother is coming off a shift. I don't expect to hear from them until tomorrow."

"What did you say, exactly?"

"That I decided to move in with my boyfriend. I don't have one, of course," she adds, quickly. "But I thought that would be easier for them to understand. I said that I didn't want to bother them so he and I just moved my things out. If…" She trails off, swallows hard. "If they find out about you, I can always just admit that I didn't want to come out to them, but the rest was true. If I don't say anything about…well, I think it will go better if they think that the reason I moved out was that there was somewhere I wanted to move to, not just that I wanted to be away from them."

"No, that was a good idea."

She looks down at her hands. "I'm hoping that they'll think that with another man in possession of me, it isn't worth trying to get me back."

"If you need a man to pretend to be a boyfriend, just let one of us know!" Cleon calls over his shoulder. "I did some acting in college."

"You had two lines in A Winter's Tale because someone else was sick," says Neal.

"And I nailed them!"

Lalasa bites her lip. "I'm sure it won't come to that."

"I can pretend to be your girlfriend, too," says Kel. "It might not be as effective as a boyfriend would be, but I'm around more."

"I'm sure it will be fine," Lalasa murmurs, still staring at her hands, and Kel doesn't try any more conversation for the rest of the ride.

It only occurs to her as they're heading up to her condo with Lalasa's things that Lalasa hasn't actually seen her new home. Kel likes her place, but it's nothing special, a cheap starter apartment that's more like a dorm room than an adult home. The furniture has been assembled over years of her siblings living here, a hodgepodge of Ikea furniture and thrift store finds, the kind of place that's lived in, but not by anyone specific. A family home having an identity crisis.

"It's not much," she warns Lalasa as she opens the door. "But at least you have a bed and everything already."

"It's very nice," says Lalasa, looking around with an expression like she really means it. "And it's yours?"

"My parents'. But they own it. Come on, your room is back here."

Neal and Cleon have Lalasa's stuff, so they follow her too, but once they've dropped off the baggage, Neal says, "We will go order the pizza. Lalasa, any topping preferences?"

"Anything vegetarian."

"One cheese, one veggie, Kel?"

"Please."

The boys duck out, leaving Kel and Lalasa alone. Lalasa sits down on the bed heavily, looking shell-shocked.

Kel sits next to her more delicately. "Are you all right?"

"It doesn't feel real. Being here. Being away from them. And no work for two weeks! I don't know what I'll do with myself."

"Get your sewing machine set up and work on commissions. Buy yourself some new things to put in here. Relax. Get the groceries you want. Whatever you'd like. But for now, why don't you wait in here until the pizza shows up? I know the boys can be a lot."

"They seem nice," says Lalasa, as if she's trying to convince herself.

"They are. But they don't see each other much, and now whenever they do, they just want to pull each other's tails. It'll probably be out of their systems by the time the food arrives. But you should take a minute, get settled in."

"Thank you," she says, with feeling. "This is…I don't know that I'll ever be able to repay you."

"You don't need to. There's nothing to repay. You needed a place and I had one. That's all."

"That's not all."

"No," Kel admits. "But you don't need to pay me back. It's not costing me anything, so there's nothing to pay back." She pats Lalasa's legs and stands. "I'll let you know when the pizza gets here."

Neal and Cleon are on the couch, on their respective phones, occasionally knocking their knees together like they can't stop antagonizing each other while they occupy the same space. The three of them haven't been all together since before Kel and Cleon broke up, and it's kind of nice, even if the rest of their friends are missing. It's easy to forget Cleon is in town because she thought he wouldn't want to see her, but maybe spending time with him is another thing that she should be fitting into her new life plan.

Friends take more effort as an adult, she's heard. It's probably an effort worth making.

"Is she okay?" Neal asks. "It seemed like maybe she needed a break."

"I think so. Just overwhelmed."

"Must be a lot. How are you?"

"Me?"

"Still having a crisis?"

Kel mulls over the question. "No, I don't think so. Like I said, Raoul--Representative Goldenlake--says he'll give me a job. I think I want to try that for a while. And if I don't like it, I'll do something else. I want to volunteer at the women's shelter downtown, too, I think. Maybe start going to trivia. Owen's sticking around after graduation, the four of us could be a team."

Neal half-laughs, half-groans. "So, your crisis is over and now you have a bunch of new ambitions. Of course."

"I don't have to pick yet. But I have some ideas. You like trivia."

He sighs. "I do. I'll come when I have time. But you should try to convince your new roommate to be an alternate when you need one."

"Maybe," says Kel. She's not sure about Lalasa around crowds, but maybe that can be a future goal. Tomorrow she can mention it, and maybe by next year, it will have happened.

"I'm in," says Cleon. He clears his throat, awkward. "And I have a girlfriend. She might come sometimes too, if we need another person."

Kel smiles and means it. "Good. You can never have too many alternates."

The pizza shows up and Lalasa emerges from her room. Kel thinks she might have cried a little, and she's still quiet, but she eats three slices and laughs softly when Kel and Neal tease each other.

Cleon leaves first so he can meet his girlfriend for a movie. He hugs Neal and then Kel, a little more awkwardly, but he's all smiles when he waves goodbye. Lalasa hovers by the sink, clearly wanting to clean, but Neal waves her off. "You had a long day," he says. "Go relax, unpack, get settled in. I'll take care of this."

Kel sits at the small breakfast bar, watching him with an absent smile as he wraps the pizza in aluminum foil and loads the dishwasher.

"Thank you," she says.

"Well, you're going to save the world. The least I can do is take care of tonight's dishes."

Kel unlocks her phone and finds Raoul Goldenlake in her contacts. It's still a little surreal to have him there, like a friend. But if he's going to be her boss, she'll need to contact him somehow.

I think I'd like that job, she texts. School is out at the end of May.

I'll see what I can find starting in June, he replies, almost immediately. Excited to have you on the team, Mindelan.

"I'm not sure I'll save the world," she says. "But I'm going to do everything I can."

"I know you will. And I, for one, can't wait to see it."

Kel smiles. "You know what? Neither can I."