After nearly an hour of working on my whales, which mostly consisted of staring at flukes and their unique patterns until they all blurred together in my mind, Logan Two finally spoke.
"So, Reagan, it's terribly quiet in here."
No wonder Carter liked it in that room so much. A muted version of the foghorn still went off, but that was the only place in the house that didn't suffer from all the other noises and natural light from the outside world. While life on Paradise City felt separate from the rest of the earth, life in that room felt like a microecosystem, one that only Carter could fully appreciate. But I had my own way of enjoying the silence.
"Yes, and I feel like we should really preserve that, don't you think?" I said.
He shook his head and smiled. "I don't know about you, but I can't focus unless there's some background noise."
"You don't have to focus on anything right now. I'm the one that's trying to piece these flukes together, and—" I trailed off before I could say anything mean.
And you're wasting all of my oxygen. And you're accomplishing nothing with your free trial. And you're breathing too loudly. The list went on and on, and yet, I didn't want to hurt his feelings with careless words.
"And what?" he asked.
"And you're distracting me," I said, figuring that was the nicest way to put my list into one sentence.
He smiled. "Am I?"
"I, uh—" I stammered, then went back to my keyboard. "I'm just trying to finish this up. I have plans for later, and the sooner I get this done, the sooner I can—"
"I don't want to be rude, but you can get that done anytime. I'm only here until tomorrow morning, and I'd like to talk to you."
"How will I live with myself if I don't finish this immediately? That's like putting off homework until the last minute, or finishing a paper at eleven fifty-three the night it's due, or saving ice cream until after you eat real food. It just doesn't make logical sense," I said.
"I'm totally on board with the last thing you said, but the rest just makes you seem like you're," Logan Two thought for a moment, "too driven. You care too much."
"Well, that's true, but I like what I do, and I enjoy doing everything well. To perfection, even."
"And you'd enjoy it a lot more if you'd just slow down. Enjoy yourself. Get caught up in the moment for once."
That was my plan for later. I shook my head. Some people had no discipline whatsoever.
"Must be nice to be able to afford that." I looked up from the screen and to him.
"Talk to me about it."
"What's there to say?" I let out a forced laugh. "I don't know, I just feel—left behind. The world keeps turning and turning and turning, and then there's me. All I want is to live, but who has the time for that? No one."
"Mhm," he said, and he sat down on the table in front of me.
"Being here is the culmination of every feel-good choice I've ever made, and I can't waste that, you know?"
"Oh yeah, absolutely," he replied.
My eyes widened. "You do?" I let a smile come across my face. "No one else here does. They've all practically been raised in the ocean except for Brett, and I'm the only one who had to catch up."
"Well, I mean, I was too, but I totally get how you feel."
"Oh." I sighed, then turned it into a smile. "Wanna look at more whales?"
"Sure," he replied, and I scooted the laptop over, so he could look at it too.
When I looked at the screen, a notification popped up. Your battery is running low. You might want to plug in your PC.
"Okay, no need to be rude," I muttered to myself.
I looked at him, and he smiled back at me. It was like a glimpse into the future, even though he wasn't much younger than me, since maybe he'd even consider taking over my job the next year.
Just like life, Paradise City was a vicious cycle. Niches needed filled, and I couldn't hold mine forever; someone would fill it once I was gone.
That certainly wasn't depressing, Rea.
And for the first time, it crossed my mind that there was a world away from the island in the middle of the ocean, and I couldn't keep myself away from it forever, which was one of the worst things I could imagine.
Maybe Logan Two would handle the whale identification with as much passion as I did. All I had to do was convince him that it was as exciting as I made it out to be. The ultimate desire for every creature was to leave their mark on the world, either through offspring and genes, or in the case of many humans, with accomplishments and name recognition.
Logan Two, unbeknownst to him, had just become my vessel for whale enthusiasm.
"So," I said, "in the hypothetical situation that you got accepted and decided to spend your next summer here, what are the odds that you'd end up doing something with whales, like, I don't know, this?"
"I don't know. I don't even know what day it is," he replied, and I smiled.
"Time isn't real here. I usually just pretend it's Saturday."
Unfortunately, time was very real and very limited, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Instead, I just wanted to make sure that my interests were carried through it even when I was gone.
Logan Two laughed. "You're funny."
I was being completely serious, but I smiled anyway. "Thank you. Not too many people seem to think so."
"Well, to put it simply, most people are kind of stupid."
"I couldn't agree more." I looked back to the screen. "Do these flukes look like they match to you?"
He squinted at them for a moment. "I don't know. The one on the left seems a little blurrier. Whoever took that photo sucks."
"Ha, yeah. They really suck." I faked a laugh, then fell silent. That was my photo.
"But now that I look at them closely, the small cluster of dots on the one on the right isn't there on the other one. So that means they're not the same whale?"
I had spotted that difference about two minutes prior, but I nodded. "You're right. Wow, you're good at this."
"You think so?"
Another notification popped up. 4% (14 min) battery remains.
I stared at it in silence for a moment, then spoke. "I know you. You've got at least fifteen minutes left in you, champ."
"What?" Logan asked.
"Oh, I was just talking to my laptop. Sometimes inanimate objects just need a little encouragement to keep them going throughout the day."
"Why don't you just charge it now? I'd love to help you with it later," Logan Two said.
"Oh." I shut my laptop. "Is there anything else you'd like to know or do?"
"Well," he said, but as the door opened, he trailed off.
I looked over my shoulder. "Hi, Carter."
Carter didn't say anything, but he held up his hand, either to greet me or to shut me up. With Carter, it was probably better to assume the latter.
"You know, I think I'm good for now," Logan Two said, and although it seemed he had something in mind just a moment earlier, I nodded.
"That's fine. If there's anything you need, just find me. Not anyone else. Me," I said.
"I'll take you up on that offer, for sure," he said with a smile.
"Jia has a fun activity for you all. Maybe you should do that," Carter suggested. "She's outside."
"That's what I'm here for, isn't it?" Logan Two said. "Didn't think I'd meet such a wonderful person along the way, though." He nodded in my direction, and I smiled.
He was totally into my whale project.
As Logan Two left the room, Carter smiled to himself. "They're going to count barnacles."
I shook my head. "That has to be the biggest waste of time there is around here. There's not much diversity on this rock, and that's fine. But," I smiled, "maybe we'll finally get some undisturbed peace and quiet around here."
Carter looked up at me, and his smile was gone. "Yeah."
"I'm not trying to be mean, but I can only deal with people trying to talk to me while I'm trying to work for so long."
Carter put his hand on his microscope. "I'm the same exact way."
"I'm so glad you get it. Some people just think it's mean. I ended up trying to convince Logan Two to continue this project next year, just so I know it's in good hands."
This time, Carter didn't reply. He just stared at me.
I fell silent, then looked down at the ground for a while when a thought crossed my mind. "You know, I really should plug my laptop in. I'll talk to you later." I picked up my laptop and headed out the door.
With our limited solar electricity, I liked to be careful about how I used it, but when whales needed to be identified, I needed power for that.
As soon as I set foot outside the room, someone called my name. I closed the door behind me before I looked up, but I already knew who it was from the displeased tone.
Darrell always seemed to be upset with someone, didn't he?
"I desperately need to charge my computer, so can you hold on a second?" I asked.
"I don't have all day, and you don't have the audacity to keep me waiting," Darrell replied, and I took in a breath.
He wasn't wrong.
"Okay, but can you just give me my verbal warning quickly?" I asked.
"Reagan, this isn't a brief verbal warning matter. In all honesty, I anticipate that this will take a while since you broke the rule that I specifically made Rule Number One."
But—
"I know about you and Logan."
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Good morning, afternoon, evening, or whatever! Thank you so much for reading! In all honesty, I'm not exactly thrilled with this chapter, but I have so much going on that I just need to roll with it for now. If you want to give your honest feedback, that'd be super duper appreciated! But, story-wise, there is certainly much more in store for Reagan, Logan, and Darrell.
So we have the obvious question of what's going to happen next, so I'll ask a different one. Which one of my characters are you most similar to?
For me, there's a small part of me in every one of them, but I'd probably say that I'm most like Blaine once you get to know me, but until then, I have the social skills of Amanda or Reagan, depending on my mood. Ha. It's really bad. Help me.