Something else I always knew for certain: I didn’t want to be like her.
I walk away from the music, toward the driveway, and into the woods. Tonight, I don’t flash a light at Edward’s terrace, don’t wait for him to join me. He didn’t like me leafing through all those strangers’ files last night. His reluctance would only slow me down, and tonight I have even farther to go. I keep my gaze focused on my feet, on the dim light coming from my cellphone, trying to ignore the incredible dark of the woods closing around me. Living in New York City, I was never scared walking down the street no matter the time of day or night. In Manhattan, the streets are never entirely cased in shadow, never truly empty.
But out here, the woods are deep enough to disappear inside. The quiet is disorienting.
And then I’m on the ground, the wind knocked out of me.
I can smell perfume, or maybe it’s shampoo, or maybe it’s just this person—a woman, I think—musky and hot, sweat mixed with vanilla. And something else, something earthy and moldy. As the person shifts on top ofme, I realize that I’m smelling a fur coat, something dead. I tighten my grip on my phone, the flashlight now aimed at her face.
She presses her hand against my shoulder to push her body back to standing. She doesn’t offer to help me up, and she doesn’t apologize. Her hair is the sort of platinum blond you’d know is fake even if you couldn’t see her dark roots, cut into a layered bob that frames her face.
“You the one throwing rocks at my window?” she asks, out of breath. Before I can answer, she adds, “Sick of waiting for me to come out and play, huh? Did it ever occur to you I’mbusyup there?” She gestures to her cottage as if I’d dragged her out into the woods tonight.
Before I can point out thatshe’sthe one who crashed intome, she raises her eyebrows, lips circling into anO. “Holy shit. Amelia Blue Harris.” She whispers my name like it’s a secret I might not know.
I shouldn’t be surprised she’s recognized me, given the music blasting from her cottage. She looks me up and down like she’s taking stock. I fold my arms across my chest.
“Talk about trippy,” she says.
I can’t remember which website was the first to report on my eating disorder, but the whole world knew the first time I was in residential treatment. (Or rather, the portion of the world who cared to know that sort of thing.) Rumors flew, suggesting anorexia was a cover story, really I was just as strung out and fucked-up as my parents, rumors Georgia did nothing to dispel.
“Don’t worry,” the woman says. “I won’t tell anyone I saw you here. Long as you promise not to say you saw me? I want to manage how the story comes out.” She speaks so fast that I wonder if maybe she’s on something.
Despite her heavy coat, she looks naked somehow, exposed. Her body, when she fell against me, was hot, like she’s some kind of otherworldly creature, impervious to the cold, able to survive when the rest of us would freeze to death.
I shake my head. Another thing I know: Every human body is as weak and vulnerable as the next, as likely to fail when it’s deprived of what it needs (warmth, water, nutrition). A body can lose its extremities to frostbite, slurring words as the cold sets in, unable to think clearly or move well.
I know, too, that a starving body is more vulnerable to the elements, its immune system already compromised. Skin may be thinner, vulnerable to peeling, wrinkles, tears. The brain quite literally shrinks, the heartbeat loses its rhythm. Muscles will atrophy, and bones break more easily; even bone marrow may stop working. Fertility is affected.
All of that to say: I know better.
“No!” She almost shouts, as though I’ve said something she disagrees with. She stomps a foot hard against the ground. “It won’t be another story. It’ll be thetruththis time, I promise.”
She grabs my hands and looks into my eyes, holding my gaze like she wants me to take her promise to heart. Through my fingerless gloves, I can feel her nails, jagged and sharp, like she’s been gnawing them.
“Just you wait, Amelia Blue.” She says my name slowly, as though it’s heavy on her tongue.
“I won’t tell anyone I saw you here,” I promise. I don’t say that I haven’t actually recognized her, that I have no idea what she’s talking about. She seems so certain I know who she is, that this is all so terribly important.
Could she be the patient I (thought I) saw being restrained in the dark last night? The person looking for her—is that the person I (thought I) saw in the distance?
No; the person I saw was shorter, her hair longer, the Cape Cod–style house on the other side of the property.
And yet, this woman seems addled, maybe even desperate. Her eyes scan the woods around us like a feral cat’s.
“I gotta go,” she says breathlessly. “Got someone looking for me, if you know what I mean.”
I wonder if her stay here, unlike mine, isn’tvoluntary. If she tried to check out, could they stop her? Before I can say another word, she winks, then rushes headlong into the darkness, leaving the scent of sweat and dead animal behind her.
I turn off my phone’s flashlight. There are at least two people out there: The patient I didn’t recognize, and whoever it is that’s looking for her.
What would they do if they found me instead?
35Lord Edward
Harper’s laughing, her head thrown back, her mouth open wide. No; she’s not laughing, she’s screaming.
She’s crying.
