Page 16 of So Thirsty

I yank the blanket down, freeing my head. “I can’t breathe under there.”

“Come back,” Naomi says. “Trade secrets with me in the safety of the blanket fort.”

She’s doing her best to get me to confess. She knows something’s wrong, and she’s working me. She’ll get it out of me eventually, so I might as well tell her now. I give a quick eulogy for my pride—You had a rough go of it. Goodbye—and then tell her the truth.

“I think he’s doing it again,” I say. “And I don’t know what bothers me more, the fact that he could be cheating or how little I actually care.”

After a beat, she says, “You know, I’ve tried to be there for you in the way that you need, I’ve tried to give you space, and I—”

“Naomi, it’s fine. Can we just—”

“No, let me finish,” she says. “I don’t know what it’s been like for you. And I don’t pass judgment. I trust you, and I’ve trusted that you’re dealing with it in the way that’s best for you. But maybe I fucked up. Maybe I should have stepped in sooner.”

“I don’t need your help. I’m a grown-up.”

“You’ve been a grown-up since we were teenagers. Have you ever thought about, like, trying to be happy?”

“Don’t be cute,” I say, standing.

“I’m serious!” she says, grabbing my hand before I can walk away.

“What does happiness even look like, Nay? Is it even real? Is anyone happy? Are you? I’m sorry. I’m…I’m not trying to chase some unicorn just to find out it’s a horse with a cone glued to its head. I just want to be in my house with my things and watch a movie on a Friday night and garden on the weekends and…I don’t know. Buy groceries. And it’s not lost on me how that must sound to you, but what am I supposed to do? Get a divorce? End up alone, stressed about bills? Let me just…” I take a breath. “Everyone has their problems. This is mine. I’m not going to upend my life over it only to wind up miserable in a different way. It’s not worth the risk.”

Silence squirms around the cottage. The walls seem to inch in. That woody smell grows rapidly in strength, becomes cloying. The air is too warm and too dry; it scrapes against my skin, claws at my throat and eyes. Through the windows, the walls of glass, I can see flurries scurry across the dark.

The quiet becomes unendurable. Naomi squeezes my hand.

“What?” I ask.

“You’ve always settled for less because—” She stops, shakes her head. “I wish you saw yourself the way I see you.”

I give a hollow laugh. “Yeah. I guess me, too. I think I’m going to turn in. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay. Good night, Sloane. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Up in the loft, I sit on the bed and stare at my phone.

I should have some water. I should take off my makeup. I should apply my nightly retinol, my moisturizer. I should change into my pajamas. I should forget what just happened, everything I said, everything she said.

I shouldn’t have had so much to drink. I shouldn’t have eaten so much goddamn cheese. I shouldn’t have come here. I really shouldn’t have come here.

I should go to bed. I should just go to sleep.

I shouldn’t do what I’m about to do.

Maybe Naomi’s right. Maybe I love a disaster.

Because I open up the doorbell-camera app I installed on my phone that I pretended to be too tech inept to use so Joel wouldn’t worry about it—if he even would have thought to worry about it. And it takes me a minute, because I actually am tech inept, but I do figure it out. I do find her. Three and a half hours ago, right around the time I texted him, I see a car that I don’t recognize pull up in front of the house. I see a woman walk up to the front door, think better of it, and promptly change direction. Probably heading in through the garage.

It’s hard to tell, because the camera isn’t particularly good and she doesn’t get close enough to it, and it’s nighttime, so the footage is blurry, that unnerving black-and-white, but she looks pretty. She looks young. Younger than me.

My shoes feel too heavy, too difficult to remove. I leave them on, fall sideways down to the mattress. I let my phone slip from my hand, disappear somewhere. I pull up the blankets, hoping I disappear somewhere. Underneath them, into sleep. The wind whirs outside, rattling the windows.

“Go away,” I tell it. “You can’t come in. You can’t come in.”

I close my eyes as the room starts to spin.