Two responses. Fast. Simultaneous.
Cole: I'll be there. Whatever you need.
Dante: Name the time.
I put the phone down and lie on my couch, the same couch where five women sat two hours ago drinking wine, eating cheese, telling stories about spite-stitched bodices and broken fingers.
The locks are engaged. The letter is in my bag. Ashford is in Briarcliff.
Tomorrow, Cole will be there. Dante will wait for the time.
Four in. Four hold. Four out.
The second cycle catches in my throat.
Chapter 21
Cole
The eggs are burning.
Smoke crawls out of the pan and climbs into the overhead light while I stand there with the spatula locked in my hand, watching breakfast turn from golden to brown to charcoal. The handle bites into my palm. The smoke stings my eyes. I still don't move.
Maya is perched on the counter in her spot, bare feet tucked beneath my sweatshirt, a mug of tea cooling beside her and her laptop open to something I can't see from here. She hasn't looked up since she came downstairs. Her fingers keep moving, fast and sure, while the tea goes untouched beside her knee.
Last night, she told us about the calls. The 413 number, the envelope with the dead name in block letters, the letter, Ashford in Briarcliff, the request to meet. She sat at this counter andgave it to us flat and clear while I sat at the table with my palms pressed to the wood, my voice steady, my breathing so measured it scraped the inside of my ribs.
Because I already knew.
I'd known for weeks. After I went to Richard, I sat in his office with Dante while Richard filed the parole violation. Then I sat at that table listening to Maya tell me things I already knew, keeping my hands flat, my voice even, my face arranged around concern. Dante did the same beside me, his jaw locked, the muscle jumping at the hinge. Except this time Dante was performing too, and watching him copy the thing I hate most in myself made me want to scrub my own face off.
I scrape the eggs into the trash and start over, cracking three more into the pan before I set the heat lower.
Dante left for a run twenty minutes ago. He runs every morning now, early, before either of us makes it downstairs. He didn't run before. Before, he came to my room. Now the pavement gets what I used to get. My grip tightens on the spatula. He hasn't touched me since the withdrawal started. He hasn't touched her either. The mugs came back midweek, but the touching didn't. He gives us the objects and keeps his body out of reach.
The eggs sizzle while I stand over them. Around the edges, the whites firm. The yolks hold their shape.
"Are you making breakfast?" Maya says without looking up.
"Yeah."
"I'm not hungry."
"You haven't eaten since yesterday."
"I had coffee."
"Coffee isn't food, Maya."
"Coffee is a food group. It's the first food group. It precedes all other food groups."
The exchange runs the way it always runs, automatic after nine years of the same warmth, the same rhythm, the same back and forth I installed when I was thirteen and have maintained every day since.
I plate the eggs and set them on the counter beside her laptop. She glances at them, then at me, and takes a bite without stopping her typing.
"Thank you," she says around the fork.
"You're welcome."
