I’m back in the kitchen. My body feels like an empty husk, like he scraped everything out of it but the stubbornly beating heart. And because I’m still alive, I feel something. Past the horror of what I let him do to me. Past the horror of what I let him steal from Linnea. Something else. Something physical: a numbness at the base of my skull, tiny tremors in my fingers, a feverish flush. Nothing like the weakness and shortness of breath from being without those meds Alma and Julie warned me I needed.
She didn’t lie.
“Thank you,” I breathe.
Fall semester of tenth grade, I was on the debate team. I soon realized that being in antagonistic roles with people I wanted to hang out with wasn’t for me. One of our debates was about capital punishment.
Of course I argued against it. I used to believe—really believe—that every life was worth saving, no matter what. I know better now.
Before he climbed off me, he whispered that just the two of us should eat “dinner” (as if anything we do here can be given sane-world labels) in the cafeteria. “Make it special,” he said, planting one last kiss on my neck.
“Let me borrow your knife,” I said, “so I can make a proper meal. So I can mince and dice and chop.”
“Never mind,” he said with an infuriating chuckle. “It doesn’t have to be that special.” And then, his tone stripped of everything but warning: “You’d best not mistake me for stupid, girl.”
And with that, he left me to clean up the blood between my legs.
I don’t care where we eat, as long as he eats. And eats enough.
For once I’m glad Max is confined. That will keep her safe. She doesn’t have the heart for a game. I’ll be able to unlock her soon enough. Once the poison’s humming through him, I’ll snag his keys, free her, and we’ll use his truck to reenter the world of the living.
Judging by the sad kind of light leaking into the windows of the caf, it’s late afternoon. Even on the best of days, this is my least favorite time of day. Always has been. Of course as a kid I didn’t have the word for nostalgia, but I had the feeling. Daylight’s low simmer, before it burned out completely, made me feel like I was missing something I couldn’t quite remember, and wasting something I’d carelessly forgotten. I never grew out of that.
On this particular afternoon, as far away from the best of days as I can imagine, the wistful tone of dying sunlight triggers a whole new kind of sadness.
The world has shrunk down to something too small and at the same time too big to manage. As if Max and I are puppets in a theater, Tyler has become our world. And the world is monstrous.
Watching my hands that aren’t my hands, I use a wooden spoon with gnaw marks on the handle to coax the mushrooms around the hot pan until they hiss and shrink, curling into themselves like comfort. This is my portion. In the smaller cast iron pan.
I back the pan off the flame, shroud it with a dishcloth, and set it aside.
I took my power
I add different mushrooms to the larger pan. This is his portion.
in my hand
I sauté them with sprigs of fresh dill I tore from the overgrown herb garden out back.
and went against the world.
I breathe in. The food smells good.