Chris, by contrast, looked a little worse for wear, with circles under his eyes. Under his jacket, he wore a horizontally-striped shirt of black and green. He wore torn jeans and a leather fanny pack. It was the kind of nice fanny pack that suggested maybe a nod toward fashion or a kind of effort, but it was a fanny pack. They were never going to be cool.

Where Kenzie had adjusted her hair, Chris was in usual form—the external rigging for his braces, and the headphones with the bar of the headphones pushing the hair at the top of his head flat against his scalp, so the curls only really went wild at the back. Pockets were full, the fanny pack was full, and he carried a bag heavy enough that his usual slouch was worse.

Natalie, meanwhile, wore the jacket I’d seen her in before, as well as a black button-up under a gray business jacket, with black slacks. If the belt hadn’t also been black, it would’ve worked nicely. Her forehead creased in worry.

I beckoned for her to come in. She had to edge past the two younger members of the group.

“You can do the costume thing!” Kenzie was saying. “Not just stealing my camo. I have to recharge that stuff.”

“The costume thing you’re talking about would be exactly the same.”

“But it would be your costume, not my camo.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Chris said. To us, he said. “She doesn’t make sense.”

“I don’t make sense? Do you want to share with the class what you told me when I had to go looking for you at the train station?”

“We were late,” Chris said. “I had a health issue. I don’t know what her excuse is.”

“The people who are looking after me hogged the bathroom! I didn’t even get to do my hair!”

“I can talk to them,” Natalie said.

“It’s fine, mostly. I could deal if I could just adjust, but it’s different people or mixes of people with different ways of doing stuff,” Kenzie said. “You can’t talk to them about that. It’s just the way it is.”

“I’ll talk to them about mixing schedules,” Natalie said. “This is solvable.”

Kenzie nodded.

“Your hair looks nice,” I said.

“Thank you. It makes me feel anxious. Anyway! I got to the station late and he was off in my direction, so we were going to catch the train together, but he wasn’t there. And he comes out of the bathroom and—”

“You asked if I wanted to share with the class, and I can’t get five words out before the digressions and you start telling the story for me.”

“You weren’t telling! And, um, if you’re not comfortable telling, that’s okay. But if you are and you’re slinging mud at me instead, I’m just going to tell it.”