Chapter 17: No Tea

Sloane's room at the clinic had a narrow bed, a chair, and a window that did not open.

She was sitting on the floor with her back against the bed frame and her knees pulled up.

Her hands shook so hard that she had tucked them under her arms.

Everett's mother stood in the doorway in her good wool coat.

"I'll stay in the hall," she told me, and touched my shoulder once, and went.

I sat down on the floor next to Sloane, close enough to touch and not touching.

"It started at nine," she said. "I thought it was the radio."

"What does it feel like?"

"Like I'm cold inside." Her teeth chattered. "And my skin hurts. Like all of it is a bruise."

"The nurse says this is what it feels like when the tablets leave."

"I know what she says." She laughed once, shakily. "She said it twice. I think she's afraid of me."

"She isn't afraid of you."

"You are."

I thought about lying.

"I was," I said. "I'm not tonight."

Sloane turned her head and looked at me.

Her red lipstick was gone.

Without it her mouth looked young and pale, like the eleven-year-old who came to our house with one bag.

"I keep waiting for it to turn," she said. "The way it always does when you walk in. I wait for the radio. And it's only me and the cold."

"It's only you."

"So it was never me."

"No."

She put her forehead down on her knees, and her shoulders heaved.

I did not hold her.

I put my hand flat on the floor next to hers, an inch away.

After a while her little finger moved the inch and lay against mine.

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