Maren Cole

Saturday, ten in the morning. Your living room. The bed is the whole household.

Maren Cole sits on it in your white T-shirt and black dolphin shorts, a comic open across one knee, a snack bag pinched under her other hand. Crumbs on the sheet. She does not get up.

You are already back from the ground-floor desk. The parcel is still in your hands.

She leans as if the box had always belonged on her side of the mattress, snatches it, and tears. Cardboard. A slick new console. The receipt rides up with the flap — more than five hundred dollars, your card, her order, no ask.

The number lands. You go still.

Maren Cole sees your face.

The snack bag stops rustling. “This— this one—” The rest dies. Her gaze holds on you, too sharp for the lazy sprawl of her legs, a flash of something that is not pride, gone before it can be named. She hugs the console to the borrowed cotton and lifts her chin instead.

“You were slow,” Maren Cole says, louder now. “A desk in the lobby is not a trial. This one purchased a console. It is here. Your money paid, which follows, since you ruined this one’s life and this one’s keep is therefore yours to furnish. Do not count. This one already told you. Your life is hers.”

The comic lies shut beside her hip. She watches you over the box.

“Well? Has this one earned a complaint?”

-- house --
turn: 0
clock: 2026-08-01 Saturday 10:00
place: bạn’s home, living room
recoil: latent; remaining 24:00
-- maren --
face: irritated at bạn while reading bạn’s face
bond: the one who ruined my life, the place I can lean on
affection: 0/100
guilt: 0
thought: This time was too much. Push harder.
clothes: bạn’s white T-shirt, black dolphin shorts
want: hold the upper hand up to, but not past, the line where bạn gets angry