It’s not that she’s cruel.
It’s not that she’s weak.
It’s pressure. Grief. Shame. Exhaustion.
It’s too much for one person to handle, and she’s bottling it all up inside.
And the part she hasn’t said out loud yet—the part she’s circling because she’s not ready to admit the truth yet.
She’s not ready for that conversation.
But she’s going to have to be. Soon.
Maybe as soon as tonight.
Because if she keeps swallowing it like this, it’s going to rot inside her and spew out the way it just did.
She whispers, “I’m sorry,” and fresh tears track down her cheeks.
Then, quieter, wrecked, like the words weigh too much. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
I step closer. Not too fast. Not abruptly. I keep my movements steady because she’s already spiraling, and if I come at her too quickly, she’ll flinch and fight and make it worse.
I reach for her wrist and wrap my fingers around it, firm enough to get her attention, gentle enough not to feel like I’m forcing her.
Her hand comes away from her head. Her fingers tremble in the air for a second, like they don’t know what to do without the pressure.
She looks up at me and sniffles, eyes red—yet impossibly blue—lashes clumped, face blotchy from too much crying.
“Remember during my interview when you asked me if I could handle pressure?” she murmurs.
“Erica,” I murmur, because she’s teetering and she needs an anchor more than she needs another apology.
Her throat works. She swipes at her face with the back of her hand, uselessly.
“I think we have our answer,” she says mournfully.
I tilt her chin up with my fingers. “We’ll call this a special circumstance,” I say. “Come on.”
I direct her out of the kitchen and into the living room before she can find another corner to fall apart in.
She moves like she’s underwater.
I sit her down on the couch and pull the throw blanket from the back, shaking it once before I drape it over her lap.
Her hands go to it automatically, fingers curling into the fabric.
“Stay,” I tell her, and then I turn back toward the kitchen.
I can feel her eyes on my back for a second.
I open her freezer.
It’s half full. A bag of frozen peas. Ice trays. A box of waffles nearly frozen to the side. The brown bag I put in there earlier.
I pop the ice tray, dump the cubes into a plastic bag, and then I wrap a dish towel around the whole thing.
I knot it so it stays together.
