Page 34 of The Love Simulation

I shake my head, touched that Roman managed to turn around what was an otherwise awkward situation that had me feeling like the odd man out.

I offer him one more small smile, then go back to cleaning. I grab the cordless vacuum to tackle the couchesagain, since wiping them did nothing. But barely one minute into using it, the vacuum stops working.

I frown and turn the switch on and off a couple of times. I know the battery should be charged since we haven’t used it much.

I hear a cabinet close behind me, and immediately my suspicions are back in full force. Roman did say he was out here last night while everyone was sleeping. There’s no telling what he could have done to the vacuum or anything else. And here I am, getting all weak in the knees over some dumb pizza jokes, unknowingly walking into a false sense of security.

“Do you need some help with that?” Roman asks.

“It just stopped working. I don’t know what’s wrong with it since it was doing just fine yesterday.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Did you happen to tinker with anything while you were out here last night? When everyone was sleeping?”

Roman tightens his jaw and approaches me. “The only thing I touched last night was my pizza. How about I help you with that?”

I hug the vacuum close to my chest and shake my head.

“Bri, I promise you I did not touch that thing. But Icanhelp you fix it.”

I’m slow to release it, but finally let go when Roman grabs the top and tugs. He flips it around, checking the on-off switch, checking the battery I already inspected and the suction port. After a few more moments, he opens the small flap to the motor and holds the vacuum back out to me.

“Try it now,” he says.

I turn it on and am pleased when it whirs to life in my arms. After shutting it back off, I offer Roman a smile that feels more like a grimace. “Thank you for fixing it.”

“No problem. Let me show you what I did so you’ll know what to do if it goes out again.”

Roman pinpoints exactly what he did to make it work, but I can’t focus on his words. Not when he’s standing this close. He smells so good, which doesn’t make sense since we’re only allotted two-minute showers, and the image of him stalking toward me in the greenhouse won’t leave my mind.

“Don’t forget,” Roman says beside me. “They warned us that things would break down and that we might run into technical difficulties. It’s the nature of this simulation, and I think a lot of this is engineered by design to give us issues. It’s one giant puzzle that we have to problem-solve.”

Roman’s shift in personality—smiling, laughing, joking, staring—nowthat’sa puzzle that still doesn’t make sense. But this is the first thing he’s said that actually does. If the creators of the simulation are going to be giving away big money to teachers, it makes sense they’d throw every obstacle in our path, even those as menial as malfunctioning vacuums. If I hadn’t been so wary and suspicious of Roman, I might have figured that part out sooner.

But I didn’t, and Roman did. “You really have been reading the manuals to learn,” I say, and this time I fully believe it.

He nods. “I told you, I want this mission to be successful just as much as you do.”

“But why? Do you need the money? I thought you would have wanted us to fail so you can get a shot at the vice principal job.”

He studies my face, lingering on my lips for a few heartbeats before meeting my eyes like he’s searching for something. Understanding, maybe? “I’m not out to get your job. I believe the kids deserve a library just as much as you do. And maybe I have other things I’m trying to prove.” Hedrops his gaze before I can ask any more questions. Like what is he trying to prove, and to who? “Now that I’ve shown you I just want to help everyone, can you please stop looking at me like I’m going to be the one throwing you out the hatch every time something goes wrong?”

I consider the request. So far, all I’ve had are suspicions and no proof of wrongdoing on his part. He’s been more than helpful, actually. He lifts those pleading brown eyes to mine, and I clutch the vacuum closer. What if I agree to a truce, accepting that he’s here for benevolent reasons, and it all blows up in my face? I don’t want to feel how I did when I found out he’d gone around telling the teachers I was leaving. But I’m tired of second-guessing everything he does.

Holding his gaze, knowing that either I’m about to make the biggest mistake or life in the Hab is about to get a lot less stressful, I nod.

It turns out to bea pizza kind of day after all. Once Jordan, Simone, and Angie come back inside, Roman gives them the same spiel about the pizza slices being better than delivery after they’re pumped with water and heated up.

I’m not bitter that the suggestion of pizza is received better coming from Roman than from me, but I also don’t hold back my laughter when Angie takes one bite and looks like she’s ready to hurl before rushing off to get one of her protein bars. She’s going to run out way before the six weeks is up and be forced to eat the food she hates.

After eating, I vacuum again. They brought so much dust inside when they came in, it looks like we’ll have to clean the Hab hourly.

With our daily tasks complete, we get the all clear totake showers. I stay in our room to get some time alone, sitting on my bed, while the others go first. I pick up my journal and flip to the first blank page. I easily fill in the section about the food I’ve been eating and my overall general mood of feeling satisfied, but after staring at the lines intended for me to fill with my thoughts and blanking on what to write, I put it back on my headboard.

I lie down. I don’t want to write out how being here is fine, but thinking about everything I need to do once this is over and I’m back home fills me with an unshakable dread in the pit of my stomach. I can’t tell what’s causing it. Is it that I don’t want to work with Principal Major even if I do win the library? What else would I do? I know for sure I don’t want to apply for the school of arts.

Maybe I should have become an astronaut like my brother. Maybe I could be among the first to actually go to Mars. Rather than six weeks, a mission like that would take up years of my life; then I’d have no choice but to stick with it.

With everyone only allotted a few minutes in the shower, my turn comes soon enough, and I put a pause to my existential crisis. I get cleaned up, put on leggings and a crewneck shirt, then join everyone in the common room. They’re all fresh and dustless in their similar black loungewear, save for Angie, who is in a hot pink shirt and her robe from Pajama Day. I cannot believe she brought it here. On second thought, yes. Yes, I can believe it.

I keep studying her as I walk closer, trying to figure out what she’s doing. Her palm is cupped in front of her face like she’s holding something while she moves a finger of the opposite hand in an upward motion, all while laughing. No one else is paying her any attention, even though she’s clearly on the verge of losing it.

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