Highstrung Robot

Chapter Four: Dangling by a String

She laid out the fabric on the table, putting her thread in the machine and quickly tying up her hair before pressing the fabric ends together, putting it through the machine.

"Aaadddiiieee!" Jake screamed, spinning around in slow circles in his chair. He carefully took another sip of his coffee, setting it back down on his leg, then spinning a little faster.

"Jjjaaakkkiiieee!" She hollered back, putting a pin through the two pieces of fabric.

"I'm bored. You should entertain me." He stopped his spinning, feeling light headed as he stood up and tried to make his way to the door without falling over.

"If you like sewing I'm sure you'll be very entertained." She replied, pulling the fabric through the machine again.

He walked down the hall and into her room, regaining his balance and standing next to her. "I'm not entertained. You should entertain me." He repeated again.

"Here, I'll give you a job." She looked up at him, turning off the sewing machine and taking the fabric out. "Go get a piece of pink fabric in my closet."

Jake narrowed his eyes at her, but doing as he was told anyways. He went over to her closet peeking in to see where the fabric was, only seeing a box on the floor. Shrugging, he pulled it out and turned to face her with the box in his arms. "It's in here I'm guessing?" He said, started to open the box.

"Probably." She replied, not even looking over at the box he was referring to.

He opened the box fully, staring at it's contents confused. "Are you sure it's in here?" He pushed the red dress aside to reveal some framed and unframed photos, noticing small wet spots on the box and a few of the pictures. "It seems like something minor leaked in here." He observed, scanning over the pictures.

"Huh? It should be, just keep looking." She didn't look up this time either, tilting the fabric across the machine.

"Okay." Jake pushed the pictures out of the way, reaching the bottom of the box. The only thing left was a small teacup that he instantly recognized. "You kept this?" He asked, noticing that the cup was also slightly wet. "I seriously think something leaked in here, did you put something with liquid in this box?" He held the cup in front of his face, looking closely at the design as memories flooded in from their past.

She finally looked up at him, her face going bright red. "O-Oh...that...uh, there shouldn't be any liquid..."

"Then why is there wet spots on the stuff in here? It's pretty recent too." Jake put the box between his hip and his arm, still holding the teacup in his hand.

Addie's eyes widened in realization when she remembered what it was. "Oh don't fuss over it. It's nothing."

"Well, I don't want it to ruin your stuff or have it happen again. If I know the cause I can stop this from possibly happening again." He said, putting the teacup back in the box and started pulling out the pictures that had gotten wet.

"That's--" Her breath hitched, Addie shaking her head to get rid of the feelings that had suddenly come up. "No. You couldn't help it."

He looked up at her with a confused expression, dropping the pictures back into the box. "So, you do know why this stuff is wet?"

"Maybe..." She quietly responded, stopping in the middle of her sewing.

"Well what is it?" Jake set the box down on the ground and looked at her expectantly.

"It's nothing you need to worry about, Jake. It's fine." She continued her work, still not looking directly at him.

He sighed, looking at her with an odd expression. "What do you mean it's nothing I need to worry about? It's just water getting on your stuff that I can probably fix."