Anya is nervous.
She hides it well, but not well enough for me.
She sits beside me in the back of the car, one gloved hand resting over the other in her lap, her posture perfect, her chin lifted, her eyes fixed on the dark window. The city moves past us in streaks of gold and black. Wet streets. Headlights. Men under awnings smoking into the cold.
She hasn’t spoken since we left the house. That’s how I know she’s fighting herself.
Anya talks when she’s angry. She argues when she’s afraid.
I look at her hands. Her fingers are too still.
“You’re thinking too much,” I say.
She doesn’t turn. “I’m about to walk into a room full of people who either pity me, hate me, or want to see if my life is ruined. Thinking seems reasonable.”
“You don’t look ruined.”
That makes her glance at me.
Her mouth tightens. “No?”
“No.”
“What do I look like?”
Mine.
The word comes fast enough that I have to stop it before it reaches my mouth.
Instead, I say, “Fucking beautiful.”
She stares at me. Then, despite herself, she laughs once. “You really are terrible at this.”
“At what?”
“Comfort.”
“I wasn’t comforting you.”
“No, clearly.”
“You asked what you look like. I answered.”
She turns toward the window again, but her mouth has softened.
I shift closer, not much. Enough that her body notices before she decides whether to.
“You also look angry,” I say.
“I am angry.”
“Good.”
Her gaze comes back to me. “You keep saying that.”
“Because anger is useful.”
“Is that what you tell yourself?”
