The Last Door

I woke up with my cheek against a pillow

crawl across a wall I knew, painted a blue I had argued over for an entire weekend. Somewhere below the windo

, no hundr

them in front of my face. Ten fingers, nails chipped from the pharmacy shelves but whole. Palms

ers to my own neck and counted against the clock on the nightstand. One hundred and forty beats a minute. Pupi

ey

n my shoulder blades.

e shaking.

ni

re was nothing to do. My body made the decision for me. Every muscle I owned locked at once, a

k with his palms open was rubbing my

voice came out scra

chest. Alive, rested, nine days of grime gone from his face. He looked at me with a faint worried crease between his eyebrow

t worried

part, and I would spend a long time learning how to hold it. It was a real kiss

t on the floorboards, the squeak of th

one off the charger

ven minutes past s

ecause the pharmacy's calendar had still been turned to the right month and I couldn't stop thinking about how normal i

y-one

ees and breathed through my mouth until the room stopped t

I was twenty-six and ten months now, and the only thing that had changed was th

a splinter, I thoug

to be able to stand there with his hands open, it hadn't happened yet. As far as he was c

ned on the tap so the water would cover the noise, and put a towel

nder my cheekbones. No cut on my lip from a fall on the ridge road. I stared at myself until I recognized som

eatshirt and went

ter but I heard her before I saw her. She wa

lipping a pancake with the focus of a surgeon. Her face was bare and clean and smooth. Her fingernails were

nd and saw me,

a little sheepish, the face of a twenty-four-year-old who knew she'd burned the first batch and wanted me to forgive her before I saw. It was the smile I had wor

ead," Elise said.

ank

chin on my shoulder, the familiar weight of her against my back. Those hands, re

nd felt something terrible happen in my chest. It wasn't hatred. I wished it had been hatred. Hatred would have been cle

," Elise said,

dre

her thumb under my eye

made myself smile.

ter, Daniel's phone buz

e two of them off key in perfect, practiced harmony. The screen lit up where it la

ection. Mr. Hale wants the full structural team

iew cut

t the phone into his pocket with an eas

s impo

into my hands, hot, chipped, the one with the fade

going to marry, smiling at me over the rim of his own cup. The sun came through the window above the sin

. Neither of them knew I had

my lips so I wouldn't

igerator. A slow, patient mechanical tick, rising up from somewhere b

ove the stove. Its hands were

aring, it wasn't