I sat up slowly, slower than I'd intended, and the headache punished me for the movement.
"I'm sorry." I went for a smile. "I think I just needed a place to sleep last night."
She considered this. The cat at her feet blinked once.
She tipped her chin toward the doorway behind her. "My name is Bonnie. Coffee's in the kitchen. My mom's in the shower."
She walked off without waiting for an answer, the cat going with her.
I looked up, then around.
The apartment was small and lived-in, with a yellow lamp in the corner. A wall above the TV was taped over with kid art—marker drawings, the upgrade visible. A pink sneaker lay by the door. Through a doorway, I could see the kitchen, with a counter, two stools, and a row of orange pill bottles whose labels I didn't let myself read. A calendar on the fridge had a date circled in red. A drawing on the fridge read MY FAMILY across the top in green marker.
I hadn't woken up in a stranger's apartment in this state in my adult life.
Bonnie came back, bare feet on the hardwood now, and she set a glass of water and two pills on the coffee table in front of me.
"You look like my mom when her head hurts. This is what she takes all the time."
I trusted her dead serious expression and took the pills. She probably knew what she was feeding me. The water tasted chlorinated and faintly metallic, the best thing I'd ever drunk. I emptied the glass.
She climbed back into the armchair across from me with a bowl of cereal. The cereal was bright pink. The cat climbed into the chair with her, tucked along her thigh, watching me.
She lifted a spoonful. "Were you drunk last night?"
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. "Yes."
She nodded, put the spoonful in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed before she went on. "My mother says drunk people make decisions they wouldn't make sober."
I had no argument. "Your mother is correct."
She nodded again and went back to the cereal.
I watched her eat.
A part of me wanted to ask whose apartment this was, whose mother she was quoting, whose couch had broken my back overnight, but I didn't. I had a working theory. The hair gave her away—same dark curls, same set of the chin.
She finished the cereal and took the bowl to the kitchen. When she came back, she picked up one of the orange bottles and shook two pills into her palm. Then she washed them down with juice from a purple glass and set the bottle back exactly where it had been.
She came back to the armchair, and the cat reclaimed her lap. She lifted him under his front legs. "This is Pickles."
I tipped my chin at him. "Hi, Pickles."
The cat looked at me with the level, open contempt of a creature who wasn't buying any of this.
She kissed the top of his head. "He's the best cat in the world."
I had no quarrel with that. "I bet he is."
She watched the cat watch me. "He doesn't usually like people."
I held the cat's eye. "I can see that."
The cat blinked at me, slow, like he was practicing something.
She stood up, took her purple glass to the kitchen, and disappeared down the hall. The cat went with her, tail high.
I let my head go back against the couch.
