Nazeera grins. “Anyway, I thought you didn’t want to be here,” she says to Winston. “This is your chance to leave.”
“I didn’t want to be here when it was boring,” Winston points out. He pushes off the counter, then opens thefridge. “Thisisn’t boring.Thisis crazy.Thisis my favorite kind of drama. This is—Wait, why don’t you have any groceries?”
Nazeera sighs, exasperated. “I literally just told you I didn’t have any groceries.”
He cranes his neck to look at her. “I thought you were exaggerating. You seriously went out and bought one orange, a wedge of cheese, and a pack of sponges?” Then, doing a double take, “Why are the sponges in the fridge?”
“Why is everyone giving me such a hard time?” Nazeera says, crossing her arms. “I almost never buy groceries when I’m in town. There’s no point; I’m never home; I don’t like to waste food. I just come here to sleep—”
“On your invisible bed?” Winston emerges from his search with the single orange, then slams the fridge shut.
I grimace.
I’d tell them both to be quiet but I’m afraid to raise my voice this close to Rosabelle’s head. I have no idea when she last slept, and I’m not sure being brain dead for three days counts as quality rest. In fact, I’m sure it didn’t.
I force my eyes shut, trying not to remember the scenes from her hospital room. I’m not ready to think too hard about what I saw. I don’t want to think about the look on her face or the tortured sounds she was making. I’ve never seen her like that. So helpless, so openly afraid.
I still don’t know what happened—I don’t know what she’d experienced or what she was trying to fight off. All I know is that it did something to me, seeing her like that.
Changed my chemistry.
I realized as I watched her that I might be driven to do dark, horrible things to make that look in her eyes go away. I realized maybe I’m not so different from Warner after all. Apparently, my morals are relative. Apparently, I’m still capable of surprising myself.
I realized I’d kill people. Lots of people.
Anything to make it stop.
“I own a proper mattress,” Nazeera says matter-of-factly. “And it’s in my bedroom, where it’s supposed to be.”
“Why do you sound so proud?” Winston rolls the orange around in his hands, warming it. “You think it’s a big deal to have a mattress in your bedroom? I’m embarrassed for you. I hate secondhand embarrassment. I hate you for making me feel secondhand embarrassment.”
“Get out of my house, Winston.”
“You know why we’re giving you so much shit?” he says, and begins to peel his orange.
“Why?”
“Because”—he looks up, looks around—“I don’t think you’ve ever invited us over.”
“That’s not true,” says Nazeera. “You’ve all been here before.”
“That’s not called being invited over.” Winston sets a piece of orange rind on the counter, his eyes searching the room. “Where the hell is your garbage can?”
Nazeera stiffens.
Then, with stilted motions, she opens a cabinet underthe sink and retrieves a paper shopping bag, holding it open by the handles.
“Are you kidding me, Nazeera?” Winston drops the orange rind in the bag. “How can you live like this?”
Rosabelle makes a sound, something like a murmur, and everyone turns sharply to look at her as she shifts in my arms, her lips briefly parting against my chest. She sighs against my shirt.
I hold on, hold still.
Can’t breathe.
When, after a moment, nothing happens, everyone unclenches.
Winston stares at me.
