Page 48 of Wild

"You didn't give me time to think," the doctor protests.

"You shouldn't need time to think for a question like that, Dooley. It's simple—you just have to say whether it's the first one or the second."

"Why don't you just pick one name and stick with it?" Erin asks, amused. "I don't care which one—just stop cycling through all of them."

"The advantage of being sixty is that you start doing whatever you want without caring what anyone else thinks. So I'll call you whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like it—and don't change the subject on me."

Erin lets out a quiet laugh through her nose and grabs her right ankle as she thinks.

"I don't know, Nell. Lately I'm not very sure what I want. I'm pretty confused."

The woman nods, as if that's exactly the answer she was waiting for.

"And does a certain singer with lavender hair have anything to do with that confusion?"

Erin's heart leaps into her throat.

"Why are you asking that?" she demands, her voice a little sharper than she intended.

Nell raises her hands in a gesture of peace.

"Just a question, Doctor."

Erin stares at her, unconvinced.

"Questions usually get asked for a reason—especially yours."

"Then you're already answering it yourself."

Erin's eyes narrow as she thinks it over, until she decides she's done with this conversation.

"Are you seeing anyone?" she asks, and Nell stares at her like she's just suggested something horrifying.

"I spent decades married and I was very happy, but my quota for putting up with another person is full. Now I want to live lifeon my own terms—so men only interest me for a little company, and preferably just long enough to, you know."

Erin laughs and drops her leg to the floor, slouching in her seat to stretch out.

"I'm going to rest my eyes for a bit, if you don't mind." She stands to go find an empty row.

"Nice way to avoid answering me."

The doctor is still laughing as she walks away. She sits down a couple rows behind Nell, leans her back against the window, and stretches her legs across the seat next to her. She tucks the small travel pillow between her head and the headrest, and just as she's about to close her eyes, her phone buzzes. She digs it out of the side pocket of her pants—light gray today—and unlocks the screen to find a text from Mia.

Mia Wilder

Can you come up for a sec?

Erin is surprised, because Mia almost never texts her—she's never once asked her to come by her room, except the day she left the note asking to be woken up. She pockets her phone without replying and gets up to head upstairs. Noah is slouched against the window with his over-ear headphones on and his eyes closed, same as on every trip. The doctor walks past him to the back of the upper level, where the only private room on the bus sits—always reserved for the singer. She doesn't bother knocking; she simply opens the door and closes it behind her, finding Mia sitting on the bed with bare feet on the floor and both hands pressed flat on the mattress.

"Everything okay?" Erin asks, studying her.

The singer doesn't look pale, but she does look like she's not quite right.

"You said to let you know if I felt anything weird," Mia says, looking almost embarrassed to have bothered her.

Erin pulls the chair from the desk and drags it right in front of the singer, sitting down and leaning her elbows on her knees.

"Of course. What's going on? Are you dizzy?"