"I don't know."
"You'll think of something."
We walked back to the car, and I held the bear the whole way, and Matt didn't say anything about the tears that were streaming down my face.
The back room looked different when we returned.
The couch was still there. The blanket was still there. The mug from this morning was still on the table, empty now, a ring of tea staining the bottom.
Matt set the bags on the floor.
"You should try on the dresses. Make sure they fit."
"They'll fit."
"How do you know?"
"I just know."
I didn't know how to explain it. But the dresses looked like they'd been made for me—the same way the pink room had felt like it had been made for me, the same way Gabriel's hands had felt like they'd been made for me, the same way every cage I'd ever been in had felt like it had been made to hold exactly me.
Matt left me alone to change.
I pulled off my bloodstained clothes—the jeans, the sweater, the boots—and let them fall to the floor. The pink dressslid over my head like water, settling against my skin, soft and cool and clean.
I looked at my reflection in the window.
The glass was dark, but I could see her—the woman I was becoming. Pale. Hollow-eyed. Her hair tangled around her shoulders, her lips cracked from dehydration, her hands still stained red-brown in the creases.
But the dress was pretty.
And the bear was soft.
And Matt was in the other room, reading his newspaper, not asking questions, not calling the police, not looking at me like I was a monster.
"Bunny."
Matt's voice, from the other side of the door.
"You okay in there?"
"I'm okay."
"The dresses fit?"
"They fit."
"Good."
A pause.
"There's soup when you're ready. And coffee. And a clean towel if you want to wash your face."
"Thank you, Matt."
"Don't thank me yet. You haven't seen the basement."
I smiled.
