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Then I hear her voice.
“Clam down, calm down,” she shouts over them. Tears fill my eyes before she opens the door, my body coiling with every step I know she’s taking closer to me. “Who is it?”
I try to speak, try to tell her it’s me, it’s Eve, it’s her best friend. But my voice fails. Nothing comes out. Why won’t anything come out?
The door swings open, Oli’s natural, thin blonde hair picked up in a loose bun at the top of her head. Her eyes widen as she takes me in, her pink lips parting.
“Eve,” she breathes.
And that’s what does it.
I break.
I crumple in front of her, falling heavily on the doorframe. But she’s there. She’s there. She’s there.
Her arms wrap around me as she drags me inside, shooing her babies away as she leads me to the goat-eaten couch. I sink on to it, for once not caring about the chaos of her house.
“Eve,” she says again, cautiously. “What happened?” She crouches in front of me, her hands braced on my knees.
“I can’t—I can’t be there anymore,” I cry, shaking my head. I wrap my arms around myself, forcing myself smaller. “I can’t be around them.”
“Okay.” She doesn’t probe further. She doesn’t tell me I’m being dramatic or that they’re my family. She doesn’t try to convince me to calm down or to go back.
Just, okay.
Okay.
Because it is okay. Or it will be, one day.
“They just—they used me and—” I cut myself off.
“Roman?” she murmurs, and I nod, wiping my eyes with the side of my hand. But it wasn’t Roman that hurt me so badly. His betrayal, his lack of caring about me, hurt. It stung.
But it was Isaac.
It was his words, the truth in them, the brutality of his touch.
“I can’t be there,” I say again.
“Then you won’t be there.” She says it with so much finality that I believe it. I look up at her, my vision blurry from my tears.
“I don’t know where to go, Oli,” I sob. “I don’t know what to do.” She grips my hand tightly, a small smile curling her lips.
“I do.” Her smile widens, turning feline. “We go to Mammoth.”
Sanctification
You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And by the spirit of our God - Corinthians 6:11
“Are you sure about this?” I murmur, my voice raspy. I can’t remember the last time I spoke. Oli didn’t make me talk the entire drive here, she just let me stare out the window silently. But now that we’re here, I need to pull myself together.
Her eyes narrow as she shoots me a look. One I know means she thinks that was a stupid question. Her mouth opens, but before she can speak, a loud quack fills the air, followed by a sharp tug on the bag strapped over my shoulder.
“Um,” I croak, pulling the fabric from the goat’s teeth. “I think Potato’s hungry.”
The duck quacks again.
The chicken clucks.
