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My head is spinning. I want to curl my fingers closed and withdraw my hand from her touch, but that seems the coward’s way out of this conversation. I leave it where it is, forcing myself to hear it. To hear her say the words. To feel it, too.
“I know you probably never wanted this, Zeth. I can understand why. But I do…I do—”
“I know,” I say, cutting her off. I may have heard the words once today already, but she wasn’t actually giving them to me. Handing them over to me like a fragile, delicate gift. A gift so overwhelming, and confusing, and undeserved that I feel like packing up my shit and leaving the fucking state. She was telling someone else, and I’m not prepared for her to be telling me just yet.
“What are you afraid of, Zeth?” she whispers. “Why am I scaring you so badly right now? It’s not like I’m expecting you to say it back.”
I laugh, unable to fight it anymore. I just can’t help it. I close my hand into a fist. “I’m not scared of you, Sloane.”
She gives me a sad look. It’s the kind of look that can make a man feel two inches tall. “Yes, you are,” she says. “Of course you are. You’re terrified.”
I wake up in a bed I recognize all too well—Zeth’s bed, from the night he hosted his party and I came to collect my phone. He carried me into this room, away from hungry, interested eyes, so he could have me all to himself. He’s not here right now, though. I’m alone, I’m cold and I’m seriously freaking sore. I’ve always wondered what it felt like to get shot, mildly curious, but now it’s happened to me my curiosity has evaporated, and I can’t wait for the throbbing, pounding pain to subside. If anything it seems worse today.
A gentle knock at the door pulls me out from under the comforting blanket of sleep I am hiding beneath, then a voice. “Sloane? You awake?”
It’s a soft, female voice. Can only be Lacey. “Uh-huh. You can come in.”
The door cracks open and Lacey shuffles in, dressed in a huge T-shirt that comes down to her knees. I doubt this one is Zeth’s; it would even be too big for him. She closes the door and hurries across the room, hovering at the edge of the bed.
“What time is it, Lace?” I ask, rubbing at my face. There are heavy, dark curtains at the windows—the kind of curtains people like me buy, who work nights and need to sleep during the day—so I can’t tell whether it’s morning or not. Certainly doesn’t feel like morning.
“It’s ten minutes past five,” she whispers. Her bottom lip disappears into her mouth. “Um…” She shifts from one foot to the other, gathering the great swathes of t-shirt into her fist. In the half-light, she looks pale. Dark shadows underneath her eyes make her face look puffy and distorted. I suddenly realize what she wants. What she’s finding hard to say.
“You wanna hop in?” I ask, lifting the covers.
Lacey looks like she’s going to cry. She nods and I shift over so she can climb underneath the covers. I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to say anything or not, but I feel like I have to. She was so anxious at Pippa’s apartment, so absolutely crippled by fear. Her chanting, “Mallory. They’re here because of him. They’re going to take me away. They’ve found out about Mallory,” tells a story all of its own. “Do you want to talk about it?” I whisper.
Lacey stares straight at the ceiling, her eyes open wide, unblinking. She’s still bunching and un-bunching her T-shirt under the covers. I let her lie there for a moment, not willing to push too hard. If she wants to talk, she now knows she can. I’m hardly a good substitute for Pippa when it comes to accurately treating mental healthcare patients, but I can be a good listener. I’m hoping she knows that, too, when she opens her mouth and a strangled sound comes out, like she was about to say something and cut herself off before she could form the first syllable. I root around underneath the cover until my hand meets skin—Lacey’s hand. I take hold of it and squeeze—it’s okay. Take your time.
“I didn’t—” she chokes out. “I didn’t mean to do it.” Her voice sounds thick, as though her throat is closing up. “It was just—it was one of those things. I don’t normally get angry, I’ve never been that angry before, but that day I did, and I—I—I’d just had enough, y’know?”
This is something important, I can tell. I rethink my line of questioning. Perhaps Zeth should be the person Lacey is talking to like this. Perhaps I should go and get him, wherever he is, and let them do this together. I’m on my way to suggesting this when Lacey lets go of my hand and turns onto her side, away from me, curling up into a ball. The sounds of her unmistakable crying are faint but heartbreaking. She’s crying like a child who has found herself lost and alone and in the dark, but too afraid to call out to anyone for help.
I decide then and there I won’t be leaving her to get Zeth. I won’t be leaving her until I know she’s okay. Whatever it is she didn’t mean to do, I can be the person she confides in. “It’s okay, Lace.” I place my palm flat against her back, giving her that small sense of human contact. “Just tell me.”
She sniffles. Carries on crying. “M—Mallory,” she whispers. The skin across her back breaks out into gooseflesh; I can feel it even through the T-shirt, as though the very name of this person is enough to grip her in an unbearable fear. “Mallory used to like…me to give him what he wanted, when he…wanted,” she stutters. “He would come into my room when I was in bed, and I would pretend to be as…asleep, but that never worked. I don’t know why I tried it every time. It used to make him so mad. If I didn’t get up quickly enough when he told me to, he would h—hit me with a leather strap. He carried it—carried it everywhere he went, just in case I misbehaved, he said.”
