Chapter 5: House Rules

"Thank you," I said. "That's all I needed."

Haley's smile slipped half an inch.

I turned to the room and spoke up so the back tables heard.

"Everyone just heard Haley say Dean asked her to get my private words out of me."

"Please go back to your lunches. I know it's hard, with all of us eating."

Nobody went back to their lunch.

At the soup station, my head nurse unfolded her arms.

"I heard it," she said. "Word for word."

A transport worker nodded, and so did the cashier, and so did a doctor in the corner who had never spoken to me in two years.

Haley's face went through three expressions and picked none of them.

"That's not what I meant," she said.

"It's what you said," the cashier said.

Haley left the bakery box on my tray and went out with her heels very loud.

I carried the box up to the fourth floor and put it on the nurses' station with a note: "From the maid of honor."

The whole floor ate them.

That night, Cal's fridge had a new sheet of paper on it, held up by a magnet shaped like a trout.

It was titled HOUSE RULES, in his square handwriting.

"One. Whoever cooks doesn't wash."

"Two. Boots off at the door, including the cat's."

"Three. Nobody knocks on the bathroom door unless the house is on fire."

"Four. Dean Aldrich is not discussed after nine p.m."

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