Long range influence

“What’s going on?” Emma asked, your silence during Mom and Sarah’s conversation meaning she was unaware of what took place.

You filled Emma in again while Mom and Sarah sat at the table in relative silence, Mom asking Sarah a few questions but only getting short or one word answers in return.

“What’s happening now then?” Emma asked after she was mostly caught up.

“They just seem to be avoiding the topic now, or at least Mom is. Sarah seems like she wants to talk about it but can’t bring it up…” you explained, trying to balance your vision between what Mom could see and actually looking at Emma to respond.

“How about texting Sarah? It worked with Rebecca last time.” Emma suggested, looking down at your phone.

“I don’t even know what I’d bring up without looking suspicious” you replied, not against the suggestion entirely.

“How about this?” Emma said, picking up your phone and typing out a message, letting you read the message before she did anything further.

Max: Hey, just woke up and wanted to check in with you. Hope you didn’t have too much fun without me :) We should all be back late afternoon or evening if you want to tell Mom.

You didn’t see any issue with the message so Emma went ahead and hit send, hearing Sarah’s phone ping only moments later.

“It’s Max!” Sarah exclaimed, her happy expression making you smile along with her.

“What’s he said?” Mom replied, trying to peek at Sarah’s phone screen without her noticing.

Sarah repeated your message to Mom before looking away from the phone and back towards her.

“You know you have to make a decision before he gets back right?” Sarah said, your plan to bring the topic back up, already succeeding.

“I know, I know. Just don’t mention it to him. He’s already got a big enough head recently and we don’t need him acting even more…” Mom replied, struggling to find the right word.

“Dominant?” Sarah suggested with a grin.

“For lack of a better word. Yes” Mom replied with Sarah looking amused that she had admitted it.

“He is more fun like that though.” Sarah said, staring expectantly at Mom to see what she would say.

“I’m not commenting on that” Mom replied, trying to side-step the conversation.

“That wasn’t what you said last night” Sarah teased, taking a sip of her drink but you could tell she was trying to hide a grin.

“I’d had some wine, okay? And you and Lucy were the ones convincing me to have a drink” Mom shot back, giving off excuses as quickly as she could.

“Well if you could admit it last night then what’s the difference now? What was it you said? You want him to ‘put you in your place’ …” Sarah continued teasing, putting more pressure on Mom.

“Okay! Okay! You can stop now, you’ve made your point. Anyway, respond to Max. It’s rude to ignore him. Just don’t mention…” Mom said.

“Yeah yeah, I won’t talk about what we discussed” Sarah replied, waving Mom’s concerns away.

Sarah started to type and if you could have seen Mom’s face you were sure it would have been as red as it could have been. Still she didn’t appear nervous from what you could tell, her hands not fidgeting when she was usually agitated. Only seeming to be embarrassed about the conversation and not seeing it as something negative.

Sarah: Morning, it’s been an interesting weekend but I’ll fill you in when you get back. Hope you’re having fun :) Think you’ll be back before dinner or should I tell Mom not to make you anything?

Emma relayed the text to you and you both quickly went through your plans today and realised the only thing you had left to do was go see Izzy and even that was something that might not happen.

Max: Oh I definitely want to know what you’ve been up to ;) We should be back before dinner but I’ll let you know when we are setting off back home.

You considered asking Emma to type about what you had found out so far or at least mentioning that you had something to tell Sarah and Lucy when you were back but you didn’t want to leave them worrying for the rest of the day, deciding to just keep the text light for the moment.

The conversation with Mom and Sarah continued but they stayed on less controversial topics which you told Emma about but weren’t as interesting to spy on. Eventually the topic of Prom came up with Sarah starting to discuss what she was planning to wear.

“Wait, stop listening!” Emma blurted out after you mentioned what they were saying.

“Like entirely or…” you asked back.

“Just cut the vision off or whatever” Emma said, the 10 minutes almost up anyway so you didn’t see why you couldn’t even if you were a bit confused.

That same feeling washed over you as you cut contact and your focus went back to the room you were in, giving Emma a confused look.

“You can’t know what she’s wearing ahead of time. It’s a surprise. Same with whatever I end up wearing” Emma explained like it was obvious.

“Is it that much of a secret? I mean we just listened in to their conversation about me without any issue” you questioned, unsure what the difference was.

“It will make the moment better if you see it for the first time without knowing about it previously. The stuff we heard about you is more interesting to know beforehand. It’s not taking away from the experience right?” Emma replied.

You still didn’t fully understand the importance of the outfit staying a secret but you weren’t about to argue about clothing or anything related to fashion when you clearly had no idea what you were talking about.

With the effect now disabled however, that left you now needing to complete another 30 minutes of studying before using it again, if you were sticking with the same rules as before.

“Back to studying?” Emma asked, thinking along the same lines as you.

“If it makes you feel any better, Lucy is likely still asleep knowing here and if we selected Sarah we would still be getting more of the same conversation but from her perspective. A bit of time between using it doesn’t sound as bad of an idea to be honest” you replied, trying to spin your self-imposed restriction in a positive direction.

That seemed to perk Emma up enough for you to start again and it seemed the idea of studying was more off-putting than the studying itself, finding yourself getting through the work a lot quicker than you had expected.

You and Emma even managed to finish an exam paper that should have taken you double the time which you knew was clearly thanks to the KDK’s influence. Just as you were about to go over the answer was when the timer buzzed and the next viewing was ready to try.