Millie’s front door sat slightly skew in its frame. The wood was worn pale around the lock, and the brass handle had dulled with age.
An old woman in the neighbouring building watched me from her window, lips pursed in suspicion. I could hardly blame her—I had been hovering outside the door for almost ten minutes already. Despite walking halfway across Ceyrun to reach Millie’s flat, I could not seem to bring myself to knock.
She might not even be home. Maybe I was standing outside an empty apartment, skin scorching under the sun, for nothing. I studied her door like the battered wood might provide answers.
Foolish, I thought. Enough of this.
I knocked. For a moment, I heard nothing from inside, and a guilty relief surged through me. This was a sign, she was not here, I should leave—
The door swung open.
“El? What are you doing here?” Millie squinted against the sunlight.
I wanted to say something, just something funny or light-hearted, but the words evaporated from my mind. I gestured clumsily, a kind of helpless shrug. Millie’s eyes widened.
“Come in.” She reached out and took me by the arm, ushering me into the cool darkness of her living room. The abrupt change of temperature made me feel lightheaded. “Tell me what happened.”
Her place was a mess, as usual. A stack of books lay beside her couch, and there were plates and glasses piled high in her kitchen sink. A dusty red dress draped carelessly over the pedestal table, as if she had thrown it off once and then never picked it up again. All the curtains were drawn over the windows to keep out the heat.
“El, you’re scaring me,” she said. “Please say something.”
“I’m fine,” I muttered.
She sat me down on the couch, shoving aside scatter cushions to make room.
“I’ll get you some water,” she said, and hurried to the kitchen. She found a glass and thrust it under the tap. “Did you walk here?”
“Yes.”
“You can afford to pay for a cab sometimes, you know. It’s baking out there.” She returned with the glass and pushed it into my hand. “Talk to me.”
I looked down at the water. “I was planning to work my way up to the topic.”
She sat down. “That bad?”
“Depends.” I ran my finger over the rim of the glass. “Millie?”
“Yes?”
“How do you…” I stopped. “How do…”
I could not do it. How do you feel about me? I drank from the glass, unable to look at her. If Millie turned me away, I would have no one left. The idea was intolerable.
“Hey now,” she murmured. “Calm down, it’s just us here. Everything is okay.”
I shook my head.
“Has something happened? Or is this about Finn?”
“It’s not Finn,” I said.
She rubbed my back with her fingertips. Her touch drew goose bumps over my arms, and I drank again. This was so much worse than I had anticipated. How could I possibly risk losing her friendship? Fear made it difficult to even speak.
She brushed my chin, turning my face toward her.
“Listen, I can tell you’re frightened,” she said. “And that you want to say something to me.”
“Sorry.”
“Just take your time. I’m not going anywhere, all right? I promise.”
I breathed out. Then, with care, I set the glass on the floor and folded my hands in my lap.
“How do you feel about me?” I asked.
A pause.
“I love you,” said Millie, with almost unbearable gentleness. “I should think that’s obvious.”
“As a—as a friend? Or—”
“If you’re asking whether I’m romantically attracted to you?” She sighed. “It’s more complicated. Which I think you already know.”
“Does it have to be? Complicated?” I tried to smile. “I mean, Hanna and I could probably find a way to share you. And Daje thinks I’m okay.”
“It’s not them.” She leaned back on the couch. Her expression was pained.
“Then it’s me?”
“Here’s the thing.” She picked at the loose stitching on the armrest. “I know you’re in love with Finn.”
I shook my head.
“I’m not saying that’s wrong,” she said. “Or that you ever meant for it to happen. Given the opportunity, I’m sure you would change your feelings, but you don’t get to make that choice. No one does.”
She pulled a thread and the hole in the upholstery grew wider. The stuffing peeked through. I wanted to tell her to leave it alone, but I stayed silent.
“So that’s why it’s complicated,” she said. “Because if we started something, I would always know I’m the person you settled for, instead of the one you truly wanted.” Her voice dropped. “I’m not strong enough for that, El. Please don’t ask it of me.”
“Of course,” I said. “I’m sorry, I should never have—”
My throat hitched. Instantly, Millie leaned over and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. I tried to push her away, to tell her I was fine, just being ridiculous, but she did not let go. She stroked my hair, and I felt like a child, lost and confused and overwhelmed.
“I can’t handle this alone,” I whispered.
“Hush.” She held me tighter. “I’m still here. I told you, I’m not going—”
“Millie, I’m pregnant.”
Her hand stopped moving across my hair. There it was, out in the open, out of my mouth and irrevocable. The words hung between us like they possessed a physical weight. I buried my face in my hands.
“I’m two weeks late,” I said through my fingers.
“It could be stress.”
“I’m never late.” The vision in my mother’s alcove haunted me. “I wanted so badly to be wrong, but I’m not, I know it.”
“Has the Order tested you yet?”
“Maybe it will be a boy.” I pressed my hand to my mouth, fighting a rising tide of nausea. “But the idea of it growing, all those months, only for the Sisterhood to just…”
I could not finish; it was too horrible to say aloud. And it would be no better if I bore a girl, a daughter who would grow up to suffer the same fate as me, as my mother, as all of us. Who would consume me.
Buried away in my memory was a scene from my childhood, which returned to me sometimes in dreams, sharp and clear as glass. In it, my mother stood at her bedroom window in the dark, and outside I could hear music and laughter, see the flicker of festival lights.
Why are you crying? I asked.
She turned away from the window and looked at me, and her eyes were black holes.
I wish you’d never been born, she whispered.
Those words—the way they were spoken—had broken some part of me. I could not blame my mother, I could not hate her, but the words remained, like a small creature had burrowed deep inside of me and then died, its body left to rot.
“El.” Millie’s voice intruded on my memory. Her tone was strange—distant and yet firm. “I asked you if the Order had tested you yet.”
“My appointment is at the end of the week,” I said. “Four days.”
She stood up abruptly, and I flinched. There was a new tension in her shoulders and the set of her jaw, and her skin had paled. In the shadowy room, she had an almost ghost-like appearance. She walked over to the kitchen, then back again, as if she could not bear to be still.
“All right, I’m going to say something,” she said. “And if you don’t like it, I’m going to need you to forget this conversation ever happened. Will you promise me that?”
I nodded.
She bit her lip, unsure, and then spoke in a rush. “If you could end the pregnancy now, without the Order ever discovering it, would you?”
“What?”
“Answer me.”
I gazed at her helplessly. “Of course I would, but it’s not possible. The Sisterhood’s checks are too thorough. They’ll know if I mutilated myself. Enough Sisters have tried it, tried all sorts of—”
“Are you certain you don’t want to have the child?”
“No Sister wants to have a child.” Knowing what it cost to conceive, remembering who the father was, the constant living reminder of what I had done? I clenched my fists. “Even without martyrdom, none of us would choose that.”
Millie crouched before me, taking my hands. Her skin was cool against mine.
“There’s a way,” she said. “But if the Order ever finds out, people are going to be executed. You and I included. I’m willing to take that risk, but you have to be sure about this, El.”
Her grip was uncomfortably tight.
“You could stop it?” My voice came out faint.
She nodded. “If I asked the right people, they would find me a remedy.”
“A … remedy?”
“Yes. It’s vicious, but it’s also very quick and leaves no trace after a day or two. Scarcely any different from a late period.” Millie released my hands. “It’s been around for centuries, but the women who provide the herbs are very, very quiet about the practice. If the Sisterhood were to uncover the truth, the repercussions would be crushing.”
I felt dizzy. “Because the Order would have to make an example.”
“Yes. So you must understand that me telling you this, trusting you with this … No one else can ever know.”
“It’s too much of a risk for you.”
“I said I was willing. I can get the remedy, and I can hide you here for a few days. But if you want this, we need to do it now.” She touched my face.
“Millie…”
“It’s no one’s choice but yours,” she said softly. “What do you want, El?”
I told her. And once she had left, promising to return before nightfall, I sat alone on her couch and cried.