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We could hear the low murmur of voices through the walls. Indistinct. No words coming through. Cole sat with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped between them. I sat with my hands folded in my lap.
After a minute, he said, "She's good."
"You think?"
"She didn't write anything down. That's a person who's been doing this long enough to know what she's looking at."
"That makes me more nervous."
"It shouldn't."
He looked at me. I looked at the wall.
After a few more minutes, I stood up.
"I need the bathroom."
He looked up. Nodded. He didn't ask if I was okay. He had stopped asking that this morning, after the second time, when he had seen on my face that the question was making it harder.
I went out into the hall and closed the bedroom door behind me.
The bathroom was three steps down the hall on the left. I went in. I closed the door. I ran the water for a few seconds without doing anything else. I looked at my face in the mirror. I looked away.
I opened the door and stepped back into the hall.
Noah's door was four feet to my right, cracked the way Suzanne had left it. I had been planning to walk past it.
I stopped.
The voices were clearer here. Two feet from the door, I could make out the words.
I should have walked back to the bedroom.
I stood in the hall instead.
"...do you feel safe here, Noah?"
"Yeah."
"What does safe feel like for you?"
A pause. He was thinking about it.
"Quiet. Nobody yells."
I closed my eyes for a beat. I made myself open them again.
"Tell me about Cole. What does he do with you?"
"He picks me up from school. We work on the model planes after I finish my homework. He's teaching me how to use his tools."
"What tools?"
"Drill. Saw. He let me use the level. He says I have a steady hand."
"That's wonderful."
A small pause.