I’m in the bathroom, scrubbing a sink that doesn’t need scrubbing, on my third pass over the porcelain, when I hear the knock at the door.
Soft. Tentative.
Ash.
I dry my hands on a towel that’s already damp from overuse and head for the door. Check the peephole out of habit, yeah, it’s him, looking tired and concerned in the hallway’s sickly fluorescent light, and open up.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
We stand there for a moment, neither of us sure what to say. It’s been forty-eight hours since he left, but it feels longer. Feels like everything’s changed in the space between his leaving and now.
“Can I come in?” he asks finally.
I should say no, should tell him I’m fine, I’m busy, I need to be alone. But I step aside anyway and let him in because some part of me, the part that’s terrified and lonely and wishing I didn’t have to do this alone, wants him here.
Even if I won’t admit it out loud.
He enters, shoves his hands in his jacket pockets, and looks around the apartment like he’s cataloging it. “You’ve been cleaning.”
“How can you tell?”
“It smells like bleach. And you only clean like this when you’re stressed.” He turns to look at me, dark eyes serious. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Raven.”
“I’m fine, Ash.” I hear the edge in my voice, sharp enough to cut. Take a breath. Try again. “I’m handling it.”
“By cleaning your apartment at nine o’clock at night?”
“It needed cleaning.”
“It’s the cleanest place I’ve ever seen. You could eat off the floor.”
“Then I guess I did a good job.” I move past him, back to the kitchen. Put distance between us because proximity makes this harder. Makes the walls I need to keep up harder to maintain. “Did you need something? Or did you just come to critique my coping mechanisms?”
He follows me, of course, then leans against the counter, arms crossed. “I came to check on you. The letters, the houses—that’s a lot to process in a day and a half.”
“I’m processing fine.”
“Are you?”
I spin to face him, and the frustration bubbles up hot and biting. “What do you want me to say, Ash? That I’m terrified? That I spent the afternoon with another sin eater who basically told me I’m walking into something that changes people, breaks them, and I might not come back the same person? That I have a day left before I disappear into a supernatural prison for a year, and I don’t know if I’ll survive it?” My voice cracks on the last word, and I hate it. Hate the vulnerability, the weakness. “Is that what you want to hear?”
His expression softens. “I want to help.”
“You can’t.”
“Let me try.”
“There’s nothing to try!” I’m not yelling, but I’m close. “This isn’t something you can fix with a conversation or a pep talk or”--I gesture vaguely between us–“whatever this is. I have to do this. I don’t have a choice. And you being here, looking at me like that, like you actually care, it makes it harder.”
“I do care.”
“Don’t.” The word comes out sharp. “Please don’t. I need you to be what you’ve always been —a friend, an emergency contact, someone who helps me through the worst of the purges and doesn’t ask for more than I can give. I can’t; I don’t have room for anything else right now.”
