Chapter 16: Basement One

By Wednesday morning the headline had been shared two million times.

Piper had been on three morning shows in two days, in a soft sweater, with her mother's hand in hers.

She said "unwell" so gently that it sounded like love.

Margo's pantry was empty, and I'd been told to eat protein.

So I went to the grocery store on Gallatin with a list and a baseball cap.

Gideon came with me and pushed the cart.

He had also put on a cap, which only made him look like a taller man in a cap.

We got as far as the produce aisle.

"It's her," said a woman by the peaches.

She said it quietly, and then not quietly.

Phones came up around us, one, then six, then more than I wanted to count.

"Are you the one who's sick?" a man asked.

"Did you really steal it?" said a teenager, filming.

"Poor thing," said an older woman, patting my sleeve. "My niece has the same trouble. You should rest."

I stood in front of the peaches with my hands on the cart and my face burning.

I had stood in front of five thousand people three days earlier and not been afraid.

This was worse, because nobody here was clapping and nobody was shouting, and every one of them was being kind.

A girl at the end of the aisle, maybe twenty, pushed through to me.

"My mom is a ghostwriter," she said. "She says people like Brandon don't write their own stuff. She said you looked like the real one."

"Thank you," I said.

"I'm just saying. She'd believe you."

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