I sit up,and she looks at me again, and—
Fuck it, I have to get out of here. Cool my head. Tackle a bear. There’s too much adrenaline running through my veins right now, and I’m going to start climbing these walls soon.
“You know what,” I say, getting to my feet. “I think, uh, I’m going to get something to eat. You want anything?”
She unfurls slowly, arms unwrapping from her legs, unclenching from her chest. She turns, sits on the edge of the bed, her socked feet not touching the floor.
I’m staring at this, studying the distance between her feet and the ground when she says, carefully, “What do you mean?”
“I’m going to the dining hall.” I gesture toward the door. “Do you want me to bring you something?”
“Dining hall?” Now she’s standing. “What does that mean?”
“It’s”—I frown—“it’s a dining hall. It’s where you eat. Did no one give you a tour?”
She shakes her head. Her cheeks are suddenly pinker. “Agatha said that my sponsor would show me around today. I don’t have a sponsor yet.”
I laugh out loud, then seriously consider throwing myself off a building. “I’myour sponsor,” I say to her. “Did I not mention that?”
Apparently, this is the worst news she’s received all day.
The color drains from Rosabelle’s face. She becomes a statue before my eyes.When she does this I feel so powerless I want to put my head through a wall. It takes everything I’ve got not to do something as elemental as comfort her.
This is not a level playing field.
It doesn’t come naturally to me to orchestrate the downfall of vulnerable women. I liked it better when she was actively trying to murder me. I liked it better before I made her cry. Hell, I could’ve sworn she used to talk more. And she never used to look at me like this, like a cat when it’s comfortable. Softly blinking, sleepy eyes. I don’t like it. It’s freaking me out. I need her to try to stab me or something, and soon. Really soon.
Wait, whyisn’tshe trying to stab me?
“No,” she says finally. “You didn’t mention that.”
“Well, yeah, I am.” Clearly, I’ve never been a sponsor before. Now I understand why Warner left those binders on my desk last night. I did not, in fact, do more than glance at them this morning.
“Oh,” she says. Then, again, a whisper: “Oh.”
“I guess, uh, I can give you that tour. If you like.”
James
Chapter 29
When we finally sit down to eat, we sit across from each other, and it occurs to me that I’ve only made the situation worse. Suddenly we’re only a couple feet apart. I can see shades of blue in her gray eyes. The gentle slope of her nose, the satin finish of her skin. Suddenly I’m staring at her mouth.
Mentally, I punch myself in the face.
“I can come here whenever I want?” she asks, eyes on her tray. There’s a single plate in front of her, and on it, a single apple.
Practically nothing, but it still feels like a win.
She stood in front of the sandwiches for so long it nearly killed me. She’d reach out, then retract her hand. Reach out, then retract her hand.
Like she was afraid of something.
“Yeah,” I say, trying to remember what she’d asked me. I spear a small tomato in my salad. I don’t even know what’s in this salad. I just grabbed it so I’d have something to do. “Yeah, uh, you can come here whenever you want. Well, I mean, during dining hours, but yeah.” I nod at a sign on a nearby wall with the hours listed. “You can’t take food back to your room, though. That’s the only thing. Sometimes people hoard stuff,and then things go bad, and then”— I shrug, popping the tomato in my mouth—“it gets gross.”
She picks up her apple, and I notice, not for the first time, that her right hand trembles a little. I remember what Warner said about the scar inside her forearm, but she’s wearing long sleeves, so I can’t—
She bites into the apple.
