“You look cute,” gushes Anna two weeks later, surveying my high-waisted jeans and beige coat. “Is that mine?”
“Everything I wear is yours,” I say, passing her laptop over the bar at Tilly’s.
“Thanks, I want to study during my dinner break.” She tucks the computer away and mindlessly wipes the bar with a cloth. “Hey, are you okay? You were calling out in your sleep again last night.”
I fiddle with the large buttons on my coat. “Yeah. Sorry.” I force a laugh. “I’ve always been a vivid dreamer.”
I rub my eyes. Every night since stopping my medication, I’ve dreamed of my mother on my eighth birthday, and of me kissing Parker. I rouse multiple times a night. Heart racing. Body humming. Volatile electricity emanating shockwaves toward my periphery. Each morning I promise myself I’ll make another appointment with my psychiatrist, Dr Williams, to get more medication. But as the sun sets, I long for those minutes wrapped in my mother’s arms while she’s alive and lucid and healthy. She’ll tell me how much she loves me, and I’m not ready to let go.I can’t.
I need to understand what happened to her, and I knowin my gut I won’t uncover answers while I’m sedated by my medication.
Anna places a cocktail on the bar between us and I peer toward the bouncer at the door. He only let me inside because Anna slept with him last semester.
“Are we allowed to drink in here?” I ask.
“Course not,” she says, lifting it to her lips and taking a healthy swig.
She forces it into my hand and I take a sip. Sweetness and citrus andalcoholsaturate my taste buds.
“Any word from the hospital yet?” Anna asks, stealing another sip.
“Not yet.” I’d filled out the forms and returned them the day we visited the hospital. “They said it might take a while, though.” I slump down onto the bar. “I did hear back from the engineer. Can you believe I paid him six hundred dollars to tell me the bedrooms in my house are not structurally sound and I should not, under any circumstances, enter it?”
“I’m so sorry,” Anna says and I feign a smile.
“Thanks.” With property taxes and utility bills I could barely afford my housebeforethe fire. There’s no way I can pay to fix it.What am I going to do?
“Ella,” Anna whispers, tipping her head toward the door, where Parker and Rose have entered. I sit up and take another sip of my cocktail.
“I still can’t get a grasp on their relationship,” Anna says, watching them find a table. “Maybe they’re hate fucking?”
I choke on my drink. My eyes track Parker as he takes a seat at an empty table in the corner while Rose orders drinks from Christiaan.
“She looks sick,” Anna says, once Rose rejoins Parker.The rings under Rose’s eyes grow darker by the day, and her black jeans are hanging off her. She sits beside Parker, their heads lowered in a seemingly intense conversation, despite the loud, squealing cheerleaders wedged around the table next to them.
“She looks worse every time I see her,” I say in a low voice.
Anna’s eyes flicker toward them. “I think they’re arguing,” she says.
I subtly glance toward their corner of the bar. Rose throws back her drink and storms toward the bathrooms, leaving Parker frowning at the amber liquid inside his tumbler.
“I’m going to go,” I say, sliding off my stool.
“Okay. Thanks again for bringing my laptop. See you at home later?”
I nod and beeline for the exit, but as I pass the women’s bathroom, a strangled cry has the hairs on my arms rising. I immediately turn and follow the noise inside.
Rose is muttering to herself, leaning over the sink as she splashes water onto her face. Her black hoodie lies discarded on the bathroom floor, and her elbows jut out beside her body, nothing more than skin and bones.
“Hey, are you okay?” I ask.
Her head snaps up, wild eyes searching beyond her own reflection. “Is that really you?” she whispers.
“What?”
Rose whips around, the tense lines around her face easing. “I’m so glad you’re here. I can’t keep doing this without you.”
“Rose, it’s Ella. I live in the apartment opposite yours.” I edge toward her.
