f i v e

Colin wakes up to the smell of French toast.

That alone wouldn't be alarming for other people, but for Colin, who is living with not one, but two full grown fuckers who are both absolute shit at cooking, the thought is quite jolting.

There's laughter, too, he realizes. He rubs his eyes and stretches, hearing the muffled voices from beyond his room. He's thoroughly confused at first, but then his eyes catch the neat pile of folded sheets at the foot of his bed and he remembers.

Sadie.

The details come to him in sharp focus; how he brought her home and snuck her in (it didn't really involve a lot of sneaking; Perry and Drew are both heavy sleepers) and let her sleep on the floor next to his bed (well, not really the floor itself—he lent her some thick sheets and a spare pillow).

She fell asleep almost immediately. Despite Colin clearly having better, more comfortable sleeping conditions, he was the one who spent nearly half the night tossing and turning before finally falling asleep. Her presence always unsettled him, even when she was unconscious.

Now he's almost afraid to see what she's up to. He forces himself out the room and, sure enough, she sees her sitting on the floor with his two friends, all of them holding plates of their own, huddled over Drew's laptop.

They have their backs turned to him and don't notice him until he clears his throat.

"Hey, Colin," Drew says before lazily looking back at the screen.

Sadie looks over her shoulder. Their eyes meet and Colin feels his face grow hot. She stands up, and Colin's first instinct is to take a few steps back.

"Hey," she says. "I saved these for you."

She holds out a plate to him, but Colin just looks at the plate and its contents before lifting his wary eyes back to Sadie's.

"What's this?" he asks her.

"Breakfast. She made us breakfast," Perry replies from where he's sitting. "We're keeping her."

"Mm-hmm," Drew seconds.

Colin blinks, still confused about the whole thing.

"Come on," Sadie coaxes. "I spent all morning keeping Drew from eating these. Do you have any idea how difficult that is?"

"Mm-hmm."

He ignores this and instead repeats his question. "What the fuck is this?"

"I made breakfast," she replies. "And I know you're not the sharpest tool in the shed so it might not be obvious to you, but right now, I'm giving you your share, and you're supposed to take this plate from me. Can you manage that, sweetie?"

Colin's ears prickle at her tone. "I'm not eating those."

"I'll take them," Drew pipes up, turning back to them. Colin can almost see the guy's figurative tail wagging excitedly as he looks up at Sadie with hopeful eyes.

"No," Sadie says firmly, talking to Drew the way a person would normally talk to a dog. Jesus Christ. "These are for Colin." She turns to him. "Come on. It's the least I can do. Thanks for helping me out last night. And for letting me stay here until I find a new place."

"What?" Colin says just as Perry goes, "It's really no problem, Sade."

"Mm-hmm."

"What's really no problem?" Colin asks.

Sadie looks at him and this time, she's not just smiling; she's full on grinning. "I told Perry and Drew about how you let me stay the night, and when they found out I'm looking for a new place, they told me I can stay here until I find one."

It takes a while for the words to make sense to Colin, but when they do, the gut reaction is immediate. "No." He shakes his head. "Nope. Absolutely not."

"We have enough space." Perry narrows his eyes at Colin, looking, weirdly enough, offended in behalf of Sadie. "You know how hard it is to find a place around here. And she said she'll feed us."

"She also smells nice," Drew offers.

"And she's your friend." Perry shakes his head, looking at Colin like he can't believe this whole thing needed to be discussed. "I say we keep her."

"Mm-hmm."

Perry crosses his arms over his chest. "It's two votes against one."

"No."

"A verdict has been made," his friend continues with an unnecessarily dramatic flair, "and we, my friends, are keeping her."

Drew whistles, while Sadie beams at the three of them. Colin's still shaking his head, feeling his chest constrict as the three people in front of him celebrate the said verdict.

"There's no space for you."

Sadie gives him a slight shrug. "I slept pretty well last night."

"You can't sleep in my room."

"She can sleep next to me," Perry suggests.

Colin glares at him. "You are not sleeping with her."

"Don't listen to him," Perry tells Sadie. "You can totally sleep with me."

"Or me," the other idiot adds.

"No one is sleeping with anyone." Colin gives each of them a warning look, casting it mostly on Perry.

The guy merely rolls his eyes. "Don't you have an eleven a.m. lecture or something?"

"Shit." Colin looks at the cheap wall clock hanging by the door (a cheap-looking, turtle-shaped plastic clock Drew won as a consolation prize for some Christmas raffle or something). His panic only intensifies when he realizes he barely has fifteen minutes left to get to class.

He glares at his friends, silently blaming them for his awful morning.

Sadie cannot possibly move in with them, even if just temporarily. He wants to argue more, but time's running out and so he settles with giving the three of them a warning look instead.

"We're not done here," he tells them.

  ◇ 

Apparently, though, they were.

Sadie moves in almost immediately that night. Colin isn't there when it happens. He had three lectures and a midterm exam that day, which thankfully took his mind off the whole thing with Sadie.

When he got home, the first thing he saw was a large duffel bag on the floor next to their fridge, looking out of place among the meager things they kept in their apartment.

He hears her talking from his room. Her voice is soft and quiet. Colin can barely hear what she's saying.

"I'm fine. Everything's fine."

The door to his room is open. He sees her sitting by the window, a phone pressed against her ear.

"Mm-hmm. I'm eating right now."

It's a lie. Colin watches her, and he can't keep his eyes from falling on the bone protruding on her wrist. She still hasn't noticed him, and he slowly backs off, out of earshot.

He looks around the apartment. He knows his friends aren't home yet, but they must be on their way. Perry's tutoring session ended around thirty minutes ago and Drew's probably done with his classes. He isn't sure if they were around to help her move in, though she doesn't seem to have a lot of things anyway, as far as he can tell.

Colin would be lying if he said he wasn't getting more curious about what's up with her. He wouldn't go as far as saying he cares. It's just—unnerving.

He pours himself a glass of water and tries his best to ignore his curiosity, but soon, she slips out of the room.

"Hey," she says, walking towards the duffel bag. She lifts it with a slight huff and looks at Colin when she straightens. "I wasn't sure where to put my stuff. Should I put this in your room?"

Colin can almost feel his right eye twitch.

"Two weeks," he says. "You can stay here for two weeks, max. I don't think we need to duplicate a spare key for you, so until then, we just have to work around who gets home first and figure out who gets the keys."

Sadie gives him an earnest look. "Can I stay for at least a month?"

As much as Colin wants to refuse, he can't. He knows how difficult it is to find a place around here. The ones close to the campus are mostly occupied, and the only available apartments around the vicinity are too expensive, even for him.

She could probably find a place a little farther away, which would be difficult if she had morning classes, but that's not really his problem.

"Fine," he relents. "A month."

"You're a savior." She gives him a thankful smile, but Colin can't see anything past the tired lines around her eyes. "I'll go get my stuff sorted," she says, lifting her duffel bag as if to test its weight.

Colin huffs in reply.

She slips into the room, and Colin finds himself letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding. She doesn't make a lot of sound, and soon the apartment is plunged in silence.

Old Sadie would never have been silent. She would have sat next to Colin doing god knows what just to distract him from studying. But this Sadie keeps her distance, retreating into the safety of their room for the next hour.

Calling it their room feels so inappropriate, and widely misleading, but it is though.

Colin stays in the common area with his laptop in front of him. He tries to get through one of his reading assignments in his microeconomics class, but eventually gives up. Sometimes he wishes he'd taken a different major. Business never really appealed to him. He wasn't particularly bad at it, but he's not exactly that passionate about his classes either.

It took him two years to realize he could have taken a different major instead because in the end, he would still end up managing their grocery store. He could have taken something like computer science, which would open up a lot of freelance work he can do in the future while simultaneously managing the business.

It's too late now, though. He didn't think of it back then. Before college, things seemed pretty clear cut in Colin's mind. It was only after his first two semesters in uni that the realization sank into his mind: things aren't always so clear cut. Now he's stuck in this course, and he'd rather see it through than waste the two years he'd spent taking the required classes for his program.

Sadie, on the other hand, has always been enthusiastic about their course. Back in high school, she always talked about wanting to start her own business, not the least bit interested in becoming some employee in a big, hotshot company.

Colin can't even imagine her working as an employee. She wouldn't like being pushed around by anyone, much less by some male white businessmen. He could see her starting a small business and steadily letting it grow into a massive corporation or some shit.

But not this Sadie. The former Sadie would have had no problem achieving such a feat, but this Sadie looks like she's always two seconds away from falling apart, and it's driving him crazy.

His eyes flicker to their room's door. He can see her shadow moving on the wall. Would Aanya and Hadley know about the way she's been acting? Should he tell them?

Suppressing a groan, he goes back to reading, but then the door opens. Perry and Drew enter the room, breaking the silence that's been bugging Colin for a while now.

"I swear to god, Drew, you're such a fucking waste," Perry is saying, a deep scowl etched onto his face. "How could you just ignore those girls when they've—"

Drew ignores Perry and instead flashes Colin a smile. "Hey, man."

He nods. "Hey."

"Where's Sadie?" Drew asks, and Perry visibly perks.

"Is she home?" Perry's eyes scan the apartment, and Colin rolls his.

"I am." Sadie emerges from the room, giving Drew and Perry a small smile. "Thanks again for letting me stay."

Perry gives her his most charming smile. Colin knows this because he'd seen girls fall for it way too many times, and it's sickeningly disgusting to see.

"How could we turn away someone as beautiful as you?"

Sadie laughs, shaking her head.

Colin watches her from the corner of his vision, trying to gauge how authentic the smile on her face is. She looks like she'd brightened up a bit, but there's still a dullness to her that Colin can easily see.

"I'm tired of instant noodles," Drew says. "Let's eat out. There's this cheap diner a few minutes away from here."

"Oh, no, I'm not hungry," Sadie says. "You guys go on ahead. I'll finish unpacking my stuff."

Colin can't help but snap his gaze to hers. He remembers the phone call he'd overheard, the way she lied about eating.

"Are you sure?" Drew asks Sadie. "Do you want us to get you something to-go?"

"Don't worry about me," she says.

Drew and Perry go into their room to put their bags away, leaving Colin and Sadie in the common area. When she makes a move to retreat back into their room, Colin panics.

"You should come with," he suddenly blurts out, surprising himself more than he'd surprised her. "Did you have dinner yet?"

Sadie blinks. "I'm not hungry."

"I didn't ask if you were hungry."

Sadie narrows her eyes. "Are you worried about me?"

"No." He says it too quickly, and he immediately reddens afterwards.

"You're worried about me."

"I'm not."

Sadie's brows shoot up. Slowly, a smile makes it way to her face. Colin does his best to ignore this, mentally kicking himself for being so fucking stupid.

"Let's go," Perry says as he slips out of their room, Drew following closely behind him. "I'm starving."

Colin stands up just as Sadie says, "Hold on." She flashes Colin a sickly sweet smile. "I changed my mind. Let me just go get my wallet."

Perry's spirit visibly lifts. He shoots her a grin, cheeky and charming as always. "Can't resist me, can you?"

Sadie mirrors the grin, but slides her eyes to Colin's. He averts his eyes but he can feel the weight of her stare. "Yeah," she says, looking right at him. "Something like that."