Page 118 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

He is, though. He’s sick.

Sick because he can smell woman on Troy.

He can smell her spit and other things because Troy has come back from wherever he went looking better than usual. Riley feels like the worst person on earth for knowing these things, for tasting sickly sweet suffocation on Troy and knowing it’s a woman’s perfume. He smells frustrated anger in oil slick refusing to join with dirty water as it emanates from Troy.

‘Tell me what’s going on.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Tell me what you do know, Riley.’

‘Head hurts.’

‘Are you taking painkillers?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re not helping?’

‘They… a little… I’m just… s-sick.’

‘Sick how? Talk to me.’ Troy sits beside him, two steps higher. Up close, the scent of woman-sweat-spit makes Riley want to gag. ‘You can talk to me.’

‘I’m…’ Riley tries not to cry. ‘Smelling things.’

‘Smelling what?’

‘All the time. All the things, everything.’ He squeezes his eyes tight shut, lashes wet, terrified to say it. ‘I can smell the…’

‘Go on.’

‘The… woman you were w-with… tonight.’

‘What?’

Riley waits for violence, for slaps and smacks or maybe a punch.

When it doesn’t come, he opens his eyes.

Troy is staring at the space in front of Riley. He smells of rainwater on grey stone, and Riley doesn’t know what to say next, but Troy makes the decision for him anyway.

‘Tell me,’ he says slowly, ‘what you can smell.’

Riley doesn’t want to.

He shakes his head.

Troy lowers his voice.

‘Don’t be scared. Just tell me. You’re not in trouble.’

‘I c-can smell everything. Her clothes—’

‘What were they?’

‘Um.’ Riley tries to put his brain information into words, but it’s never easy. ‘Something soft and… um, slippery? Shiny? It’s…’ Riley closes his eyes, sinks into the scent where it whispers the source to him. ‘Thin strings from tiny woven eggs… soaked… it’s…’

‘Silk?’