Getting ready.

I’d say that was our first real morning in the new house, at least in the sense that we all had to wake up and get ready at the same time to leave for something important. It was the first real test of how things would work from here on out, and I’d say we barely got a passing grade.

We had an hour to shower, get dressed and have breakfast. An hour for all seven of us, and we had neglected to establish a schedule beyond ‘we leave at 7:30 am,’ and I was regretting it already.

Having a vague idea of how my girls are, I decided to use the east bathroom on the second floor. Mila would likely be the last to wake up and Grace also wasn’t a big morning person. but Sarah was. I made sure to take a quick shower and found her waiting outside with her hair all disheveled and tired eyes.

“Did I take too long?” I asked her, holding the towel around my waist.

She shook her head. “I just got here.”

I leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Did you sleep well?”

She sighed. “Did you?”

I groaned.

Sarah chuckled. “Well, at least I don’t feel terrible. I’ll make this quick.”

I nodded. “I’ll get dressed and start on breakfast.”

“Thank you.”

I went back to my bedroom and got dressed in some blue jeans, a black T-shirt and a long sleeve white shirt over it, and I’ve got to say it felt really weird knowing I was going to ‘school’ wearing street clothes instead of my uniform. Weird, but good. Never really liked uniforms.

I could hear some conversation in the west-wing hallway. I think Alice was coming out of the bathroom and Noelle was going in. The time was 6:42. So far so good.

As I finished putting on my shoes, Cake jumped out of the bed, stretched her whole body and followed me downstairs to the kitchen. As I was making a big batch of scrambled eggs while the water was boiling, Sarah and Alice came down.

“We’ve hit our first snag,” Sarah said. “Grace is yelling at Mila to hurry up in the bathroom.”

“And I think Noelle might have fallen asleep in the shower,” Alice said.

I sighed. “Noelle is punctual enough, so I doubt it, but it’s true she might be taking too long. Grace might have to use the shower before Mila from now on.”

“Maybe, but Grace takes about as long in the shower, too,” Sarah said, sighing.

Next one to arrive at the kitchen was Diana, still in her pajamas, meaning some baggy pants and a small tank top with thin straps. Red was following after her, and he immediately went to sniff Cake when they met.

“I knocked on the bathroom door to tell Noelle to hurry up. I think she lost track of time, but she should be out soon. I’ll shower last since I’m not in a hurry.”

The girls began to set the table, and I hate to say it took me longer than I expected to get breakfast ready. Boiling water in the electric kettle for seven people takes a fair bit, and toasting bread two slices at a time, again for seven people, was incredibly inefficient.

By the time we were all eating breakfast, it was 7:20 am, meaning we had 10 minutes to eat if we wanted to keep to our schedule. The good news was that we’d given ourselves time to spare, since the entrance ceremony was at 9:00 am and it would take us a bit under an hour to get to the university. We had some 30 minutes of leeway.

“Mila, you need to take faster showers,” Grace told her.

“We’re not late, though,” Mila argued back, pouting.

“We could be,” Sarah said. “And you too, Noelle. Keep a song playing or your phone or something, but you can’t take 20 minutes to shower.”

Both girls sighed.

“I’ll keep it shorter next time,” Mila said.

“I’m sorry. It takes me a while to fully wake up…” Noelle said.

“And I’ll need to find a way to get breakfast done faster. Or maybe I need to wake up earlier…” I said.

“We still have the showers on the third floor,” Grace said. “And the spa has drawers to keep our shampoos and creams. I might start using that, because, well…” She touched her braid. “This thing also eats time.”

Like I said, I’d give us a passing grade, but just barely. We were all still too used to our regular routines and ways to do things. Getting truly comfortable here would take time.

Diana went to take a shower while we finished having breakfast, and after quickly doing the dishes, we all got ready to leave. We locked the house, the girls got in my van and Diana in her own car with Red.

“I’ll see you at work on Friday, then,” she told me right before that, giving me a quick kiss on the lips. “Good luck.”

“Thanks. Hopefully we won’t need it.”

And so, we left the house. I drove, like usual, and Alice was beside me, looking quietly out the window. In the back, Mila and Grace were getting a bit more sleep leaning against each other. Sarah was scrolling down her phone and Noelle brought out a portable console. The drive was, overall, extremely quiet.

Some thirty minutes later, we were in the city proper. Mila’s modeling school was along the way, so even though her class started in one more hour, we dropped her off somewhere close.

“Good luck, Mila,” Alice told her. “Remember, you’re good but you can always be better.”

“Don’t let ego get in your way,” Sarah told her.

“You’ll do great!” Noelle told her.

“Learn as much as you can,” I told her.

“If someone offers to sell you ****, tell them to give you a receipt," Grace told her.

“I… Sure.” Mila chuckled. “I’ll do my best, so you all do it, too.”

We waved goodbye and went on our way. Twenty minutes after that, we made it to Hyogen University, a huge building located on a small hill in the middle of the city.

The pressure I’d been feeling in my chest only grew… but worse was knowing that it wasn’t just me. I would’ve rather that it was just me.

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