The Blackout ⤖ George Russell

T W E N T Y N I N E

Aubrey shook her head. "Sorry, maths is not really my thing, Fia. Nora knows how it works," she said to Sofia and gave back her book.

"No, that's okay. Thanks anyway," Sofia said and smiled. "Can I disturb her? Do you think she's okay with that?"

"Yeah, why not?" Aubrey looked confused at her half-sister.

Sofia shrugged. "I don't know, she's not herself since she got here four days ago. All Nora does is sleeping or being alone in her room. And I know she's going through a lot, but I feel like she is hurt. Nora isn't that happy like she used to be."

"I get what you mean." Aubrey looked away. "Things were going fine until last week, she somehow got hurt for a reason. And she told me she remembers the crash, but I feel like she is hiding her emotions. I'm worried something is wrong." Her eyes met Sofia's. "This is not what I should be saying to you... I'm sorry. You can disturb her, Fia, don't worry about that." She gave Sofia a warm smile.

Sofia nodded and walked away from Aubrey. She walked to Nora's room. For a minute, she hesitated to disturb Nora with her maths homework, but it also gave her time to spend with Nora. Her hand hovered over the door, knock or leave? Sofia bit her lip and knocked on the door before realising it. She closed her eyes and pressed air through her nose.

"Yes?"

She opened the door and looked apologising at Nora. "Can you help me with my homework? Only if you want to, and if you have the time," she said in one breath.

A smile grew on Nora's face. "Of course, you don't have to ask me that," she said. "Here or somewhere else?"

"My books are in the living room..."

"Sure," Nora said and got up from her bed. She tossed her notebook on her bed and walked together with Sofia to the living room. "What subject?"

"Maths."

Nora smirked and nodded. "Alrighty, the maths master will help you," she said sassily.

"You're the only one who is good in maths, so yeah," Sofia answered and sat down at her spot at the table again.

"True," Aubrey said.

A half-smile appeared on Nora's lips, and she sat down next to Sofia. She grabbed the book and let her eyes glide over the letters. Her cheeks blew up, and the air slowly escaped her mouth. "If you also can translate this for me to English, everything will be perfect. According to the graphics, it is the Pythagorean theorem, right?" Sofia nodded. "Nice, that one is fun. Do you understand how it works?"

German was never an issue for Nora; she could understand the language and speak the basics, but when it came to specific subjects like maths, it became a lot harder. It was the terms what made it difficult.

"Nope. It is like Chinese to me, don't understand it at all," Sofia sighed and looked confused at Nora.

"That's fine, we will start from the beginning," Nora nodded and grabbed a few coloured pencils from the pencil case and the copybook. "So with the Pythagorean theorem you can calculate the sides of a right triangle. A² + B² = C²; those are the letters, the sides, of the right triangle we are using," she explained and drew a right triangle on the paper. "Short side A, short side B and long side C. Side C is always mirroring the 90 degrees corner, remember that..."

It was silence. The voice of Nora filled the house while she was explaining the Pythagorean theorem to Sofia. Aubrey couldn't let it, but she looked at them. For the first time in a while, Nora seemed to be comfortable. A small smile covered her lips, it was the first time Nora seemed like to forget what happened and her temporary disability. Maude and Linus both came home after a long day and were surprised to see how Nora was helping Sofia, how much patience she had.