I heard bare feet coming down the stairs.
By then, I knew the sound.
Kayla appeared in the doorway.
Same towel.
Same cheerful refusal to care.
I put the knife down.
“Kayla—”
Andrew gently touched my wrist.
“Wait.”
I looked at him.
“Let me handle this one.”
That was new.
For an entire week, he had simply left whenever Kayla entered.
This time, he stood up.
He carried his coffee to the counter, leaned against it, folded his arms, and faced her.
Kayla practically lit up.
She had clearly been waiting for this.
“Finally,” she said.
Andrew’s voice remained calm.
“You’ve been calling this a test, right?”
“Exactly.”
She looked almost pleased.
“Good.”
Andrew pulled out his phone.
“Then congratulations.”
Kayla frowned.
“For what?”
“You passed.”
Her smile faltered.
“Passed what?”
“My test.”
She stared at him.
“What are you talking about?”
Andrew unlocked his phone, tapped the screen, then placed it on the counter in front of her.
“The test of whether you’re ready to live with roommates.”
Kayla looked down.
Then she grabbed the phone.
Within seconds, her entire face turned red.
“What is this?”
“Three rooms for rent,” Andrew said. “All within about twenty minutes of here.”
She scrolled furiously.
“You’ve been looking for apartments for me?”
“Rooms,” he corrected. “Not apartments.”
“You’re trying to throw me out?”
“No.”
She spun toward me.
“Amanda, are you seriously going to let your husband kick me out while I’m broke and unemployed?”
I calmly moved the toast away from the heat before it burned.
“Andrew isn’t throwing you out.”
“Then what is this?”
“Temporary living arrangements need an end eventually, Kayla. That’s what makes them temporary.”
Her mouth fell open.
“You’re making me leave because I wore a towel?”
“No.”
I looked directly at her.
“I asked you to stop doing something in my home. More than once. Instead of respecting that request, you decided I had to convince you that my boundary was reasonable enough before you would honor it.”
She folded her arms.
“This is punishment.”
“No.”
I paused.
“If I wanted to punish you, I’d make you keep eating Andrew’s cereal. It tastes like sweetened cardboard.”
Andrew pointed at me.
“That was unnecessary.”
Kayla didn’t laugh.
Her eyes were starting to shine.
“I’m heartbroken, Amanda. I have no job. I barely have any money. And you’re standing in your perfect kitchen telling me to get out.”
“I know you’re heartbroken.”
“Then how can you do this?”
“I’m not giving you twenty-four hours to disappear.”
I softened my voice.
“I’m saying we need a plan.”
“That sounds exactly like a deadline.”
“It isn’t.”
Kayla turned toward Andrew.
“And you’ve treated me like I’m dangerous all week. You literally run away every time I walk into a room.”
Andrew picked up his coffee.
“No.”
“You do.”
“The first morning, yes, I left because the situation felt awkward. You walked into the kitchen in a towel and I didn’t know where to look, so I gave you some space.”
He set his mug down again.
“But after Amanda asked you to stop and you kept doing it, I started leaving for another reason.”
“What reason?”
“Because I wasn’t participating in your experiment.”
Kayla said nothing.
“You kept trying to turn me into evidence in an argument with my wife. You wanted my reaction to prove something.”
His voice stayed level.
“So I stopped giving you reactions.”
He pointed toward the hallway.
“Every time you created the situation, I removed myself from it. That wasn’t temptation. That was me refusing to be used as a prop.”
For once, Kayla had nothing ready to say.
Then she turned toward me.
“You told him to say all this.”
“No.”
“You rehearsed this.”
“I didn’t even know about the room listings until thirty seconds ago.”
Andrew glanced at me.
“She didn’t.”
Then he looked slightly guilty.
“And I probably should have told her.”
“Yes,” I said. “You should have.”
He nodded.
“I told myself staying out of it meant letting you handle your sister.”
His expression turned serious.
“But really, I was leaving you to defend a boundary that affected both of us.”
I looked at him.
“It was our kitchen. Our marriage she kept trying to poke at. And every morning, I walked away while you had to deal with it.”
He shook his head.
“That wasn’t staying out of it. That was leaving you alone with the hard part.”
Something in my chest loosened.
Kayla threw one hand into the air.
“Wonderful. Now you two are having a marriage breakthrough.”
Then she turned toward the stairs.
“Can I please go put on actual clothes?”
“Please,” I said.
She started walking away.
“Kayla.”
She stopped.
“One of those rooms is available immediately.”
She turned.
“And the woman renting it can show it this afternoon.”
Kayla stared at us.
“You already made me an appointment?”
“Andrew found the listing,” I said. “I just messaged her.”
“I am not moving there.”
“Then don’t.”
I shrugged.
“We’ll keep looking. But we’re going to see it.”
“You can’t force me.”
“You’re right.”
I looked at her.
“I can’t force you to do anything.”
Then I said the thing I should probably have said earlier.
“But if you’re staying here while you recover, I need to see that you’re moving toward something.”
Her expression hardened.
“I’m not asking you to have your life fixed tomorrow. I’m asking you to take steps.”
She stared at me for several seconds.
Then she went upstairs.
The door closed hard enough to make the hallway shake, but not quite hard enough to count as a slam.
Andrew took a drink of coffee.
“I think that went pretty well.”
I looked at him.
“Not a word.”
“Understood.”
Twenty minutes later, Kayla came downstairs wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.
She had also found the ugliest robe we owned.
It was ancient, faded blue, decorated with cartoon ducks, and one sleeve had shrunk in the wash years earlier.
She dropped it dramatically onto a chair.
“There. Happy?”
I looked at the ridiculous ducks.
“Delighted.”
That afternoon, we went to see the room.
The owner was a woman named Renee, probably around Kayla’s age.
She worked from home several days a week as a graphic designer.
The house was small but clean.
Not showroom clean.
Actually-lived-in clean.
Kayla inspected the bedroom twice.
The first time, quickly, with her arms crossed and an expression that said she had already decided she hated it.
The second time, more slowly.
She opened the closet.
Looked at the empty rail.
The shelf.
The space where her belongings could go.
Renee showed us the kitchen.
“I don’t care if you cook late,” she explained. “Just clean your own stuff afterward. I try to keep things quiet after eleven on weeknights because I have early meetings.”
Kayla nodded.
“That’s reasonable.”
“And we split things like toilet paper and paper towels.”
“Fine.”
Renee closed the cabinet.
“Anything you need from someone you live with? Anything that really bothers you?”
Kayla looked surprised.
“Me?”
“Yeah. Better to talk about it now.”
Kayla thought for a moment.
“Don’t borrow my clothes without asking.”
Renee nodded.
“Okay.”
Then she started walking toward the laundry room.
Kayla remained standing there.
“That’s it?”
Renee turned.
“What?”
“You don’t want to know why?”
Renee shrugged.
“They’re your clothes. Why would I need a reason?”