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Lila: You are both useless in a crisis.

Lila: Also I don’t think he has actually ever hated me.

Calla: YA THINK?

Serena: Also, friendly reminder. You once said you’d rather lick a public bathroom floor than fall for a man like Theo.

Lila: I WAS YOUNG AND ARROGANT.

Calla: This was literally a week ago.

Lila: Time is a construct.

Serena: You’re delusional.

Calla: And smitten.

Lila: I hate you both.

Calla: No you don’t.

Serena: Get back to your boyfriend.

I aggressively turn off my phone and crawl back into bed. Theo shifts slightly, mumbling something unintelligible in his sleep, and—without thinking too hard about it—I tuck myself back into his warmth.

I’ll unpack this in the morning.

Or maybe never.

12

CHEMICAL IMBALANCE

LILA

Ifiddle with the ribbon on the basket I awkwardly hauled over here, trying not to drop it.

It’s small but absurdly heavy, Evelyn’s idea of a “relaxation kit.”

She’d heaved it into my waiting arms as we were leaving, insisting it would “lift Katherine’s spirits.” Inside: a lavender-scented candle the size of a toddler’s head, a sachet of bath salts labeled Serenity Now, and a tin of “Sleepytime Elixir” tea that she insisted could knock out a horse.

I’d looked up the brand out of curiosity and found out the set retailed for two hundred and twenty dollars.

For calm.

Theo had insisted that he carry it. I’d refused on principle. Now my arm’s numb and he’s glaring at me with an I-told-you-so look on his face.

Springtime near Bellwood is unreliable at best, freezing one day and mild the next. The cold from yesterday has broken, leaving the air unexpectedly pleasant.

I shift the basket to my other hip as Emily rings the doorbell for the second time.

I think it will be good for Emily and Katherine to spend some time together. Emily still does her weekly rounds with the family. Her aunts, her grandmother, even Baryn—though I’m convinced that’s more out of familial obligation than any actual desire to hear him monologue about the benefits of cold plunging or how he dry-scoops beetroot powder now instead of going to therapy.

Regardless, her mom dying didn’t hit pause on any of it. If anything, it probably made the routines feel more vital—something to cling to when everything else went to hell. Their family’s always been strangely close, given the circumstances. But maybe that’s what surviving a shared nightmare does.

I guess when you’ve weathered as much collective trauma as they have, it either pulls you apart or stitches you together tighter.

Maybe a little of both.