and Calypso had been living with Mark for a month, meaning that both parties had started to pick up on each other's quirks.

Calypso, for instance, had a thing for jellybeans. She always had to pull on a pair of fuzzy socks in the morning, and she hated making her bed when she woke up. Most of the time she just left it a mess.

Daisy was a bit more complicated. Mark noticed that she was a neat freak, her room organized in the most orderly fashion.

But it ran even deeper than that. She genuinely had a system for everything, a system for keeping order within the tiny ecosystem that she called her bedroom.

Daisy was obsessed with order. And...fifteen. Mark couldn't figure out why, but she loved the number.

"What is she doing?" Mark had asked Calypso a few days ago. Daisy had flipped out, and Mark hadn't understood why. Her breakdown had come out of nowhere, and she had been mumbling to herself as she shut her eyes tightly.

"Counting to fifteen." Calypso had explained as if it were the most elementary concept ever. She had offered Mark a small smile. "It calms her down."

It did calm her down, sure enough. Daisy opened her eyes and stopped mumbling, focusing her eyes on her little sister. Calypso spoke something softly to Daisy that Mark couldn't quite make out, but Daisy's shoulders dropped a bit as she noticeably relaxed. Mark found it intriguing that the roles had reversed, and Calypso had been the one calming Daisy down as opposed to the other way around.

Presently, Mark was setting the table for dinner, and he wanted to test something out.

Another quirk of Daisy's was that she was very particular about which plate she ate off of. It had to be the red one, though Mark wasn't sure why.

He placed the red plate in Calypso's spot as opposed to Daisy's, just to see what would happen. To see if it would become a big deal.

Mark didn't even have to call for the girls, because Calypso was there almost immediately. The kid loved eating, and she could always smell the food that was being made.

"What are you making?" Calypso asked curiously as she wandered into the kitchen, peeking over at the stove where Mark was stood.

Mark hadn't even spoken when Calypso began to talk again. "I want to help. Can I help?"

"It's still cooking in the oven." Mark chuckled as he tapped the oven door, a pasta dish cooking inside. "We have to wait."

Calypso frowned. Waiting was not her thing; patience was not a virtue that she had been given. All she wanted to do was help, and it made her annoyed that she couldn't do that.

"I'll wait, then." Calypso nodded to herself, taking a seat at the dinner table. She was silent for a moment as she frowned down at the placement. "My plate is red."

"Is that a problem?"

Calypso frowned, looking over at Mark as she skipped over his question. "Do you have any more red plates?"

He had a set of them, actually. But Daisy had gone through his red plate supply like candy. It was odd.

"Why?" Mark asked, though he very well knew the answer.

Calypso hesitated, looking a bit confused. "Daisy likes red."

Mark eyed the oven once more, making sure the food was still cooking before he made his way over to Calypso. He spared a glance down the hallway at Daisy's closed bedroom door before speaking. "Does your sister have any... weird behaviors?"

"Huh?"

Mark supposed it was a bit of a confusing question, especially for a six-year-old. "Is there anything strange that she does? Does she ever flip light switches a certain amount of times, or...or feel the need to tap the doorknob a couple times before she leaves a room?"

If Mark had to bet, he would guess that the girl was obsessive compulsive. Of course he was a doctor, but he didn't want to diagnose her himself. It wasn't his place. That job was reserved for a psychologist, and she needed an actual counselor and tests for that.

Calypso only shrugged. "I don't know. She likes counting to fifteen. That's kind of weird, I guess."

Mark frowned, but before he could comment any further, the oven timer went off.

"DAISY!" Calypso called loudly to the girl in her bedroom. She was obviously ready to eat.

By the time Mark had gotten the dish out of the oven and over to the table, Daisy had appeared.

Mark set the dish down, noticing that Daisy frowned immediately as she sat down. She gave Calypso a nervous look, and there was clearly some sort of silent communication, because Calypso offered Daisy her red dinner plate in exchange of the blue one sitting in front of her.

Daisy relaxed a bit as she grasped the red dinner plate, and Mark seriously wondered if Daisy would be up for seeing a psychologist. He wanted to see what all these little quirks were about.

"Is that your favorite color?" Mark questioned as he sat down, Daisy immediately frowning.

"What?"

"You seem to like red. Is that your favorite color?"

Daisy's favorite color was yellow, most definitely not red. But red was a dinner time color. She couldn't explain it, but she had to have red in front of her when she ate, whether it be a plate or a cup or whatever. Eating without red would throw off her entire week and make her jittery.

"Red's okay, I guess." Daisy only shrugged, trying not to let onto the extent of how badly she needed something red during dinner.

But Mark knew. He was incredibly observant, he had noticed the girl's need for a red plate for the past few days now.

He pushed it aside though, trying not to put anymore attention on the problem. Daisy hated attention.

She had gotten more comfortable with attention, being there for a month, of course. But any more unwanted attention than the tiny bit that she could handle would push her right over.

"School's tomorrow." Mark reminded the two girls. It was already the beginning of September, they had been looking forward to this for a while.

Or...Calypso had been looking forward to this for a while, Daisy had been dreading it.

Calypso loved school. She was good at the work, and she would get to see her friends all day. And she was starting first grade. She wasn't a baby anymore, there were no more naptimes. She was in first grade, and in her eyes, that immediately classified her as a big kid.

Daisy was starting seventh grade, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. She was awful at making friends. The school day dragged on and on for her, and she hardly had anyone to talk to. She would seriously drop out of school forever if she could.

Daisy's mood changed after Mark had mentioned school, something that didn't go unnoticed. She was jittery, for sure.

And there was that tapping again. Daisy had begun to tap her fingers against the underside of the wooden table.

The taps weren't obnoxiously loud. They were relatively soft, so much so that Mark had to focus to try to listen to them.

Daisy tapped quickly in repetition. Mark counted them as she tapped. They were evenly spaced out in groups of fifteen.

What was it with fifteen? Maybe a lucky number? Or just another random quirk?

Calypso seemed oblivious to her sister's tapping though because she smiled widely. "I'm so excited. I love school."

Daisy grimaced, focusing her attention on the food in front of her. She seriously wished she had her little sister's motivation.

"How about you?" Mark inquired, looking over at Daisy.

Daisy only shrugged. She didn't feel great about starting up school. She hated the idea, and she couldn't wait for tomorrow to be over.

Daisy continued to tap, counting up to fifteen in her head for each group of taps.

Fifteen was a good number. Daisy liked it. She liked that it stayed the same every time. There weren't any surprise diseases that struck, no semi-trucks to come out of nowhere. Just one all the way up to fifteen, it stayed the same each time she counted.

Daisy winced a little as she thought about how painfully uncomfortable her first day tomorrow would be. She wondered if she would make any new friends, or if things would remain as lonely as they were last year.

"Do you tap a lot?" Mark asked the question he had been thinking, drawing Daisy back to reality.

"Do I...tap?" Daisy seemed confused, but Mark didn't think it was a stupid question.

He nodded down to Daisy's left hand, her fingers drumming away on the wooden table.

Daisy felt flustered, immediately putting a stop to her tapping. She hadn't realized it had been so distracting, she hadn't realized that maybe other people would pick up on her habits.

"You don't have to stop." Mark quickly assured, not wanting to upset the girl. "I was just wondering if tapping is something you do a lot."

"Yeah, I...I guess." Daisy shrugged, Mark slowly nodding as he thought to himself.

Mark was convinced that a psychologist wouldn't hurt to visit. How he would convince Daisy to visit the psychologist, he wasn't quite sure yet. But he knew he'd think of something.

He was 90% sure that the girl had OCD. And if not, maybe she's just hyperactive or something, maybe she just likes things a certain way, maybe she just likes patterns.

But if there was an underlying issue, Daisy deserved to be able to get the appropriate help to allow her to cope. Her brain seemed to be against her constantly, and it wasn't fair to her.

Unbeknownst to herself, Daisy slipped back into her routine of tapping nervously against the table as her thoughts began to overwhelm her again. In groups of fifteen, of course, and Mark wondered what all those little quirks were about.

"I think I'll go to bed." Daisy spoke quietly, standing up from where she was sitting.

Calypso immediately frowned. "But it's only 7:00."

Calypso went to bed early, sure, but not Daisy. Daisy's older, Calypso thought that 7:00 was too early to be going to bed for big kids like Daisy.

"I'm tired." Daisy explained shortly to her little sister before turning and retreating, not even leaving any room for anyone to debate. She started down the hallway, abandoning Calypso and Mark as well as abandoning her still full dinner plate.

School tomorrow would be draining, and Daisy had the feeling she wouldn't even be able to stop her tapping all day.

She had to mentally prepare for tomorrow even though all she wanted to do was hide under the blankets and never come out.