Chapter 29: Cora Alone

Cora woke up on my dorm floor at ten in the morning and did not know what to do with her hands.

She lay on the camping mat my roommate had lent her, with her blond hair flat on one side.

For nine years she had woken at six to a glass of honey-colored tonic and a ring light.

"What time is it?" she said.

"Ten."

"Why didn't anyone tell me what to do?"

"Because nobody's in charge of you today."

She sat up slowly and stared at the wall.

My roommate, tall and shaved-headed and cheerful, leaned in the doorway with a mug.

"There's oatmeal in the kitchenette," she said. "Or there's a pancake mix that's older than both of you."

"I'll do the pancakes," Cora said.

"Can you cook?"

"I have never in my life cooked anything."

"Great," my roommate said. "Pancakes."

I will say for my sister that she tried.

She dumped half the mix on the counter, poured in too much water, and stood over the hot plate with the spatula raised.

The first pancake stuck.

The second burned black on one side.

The third came out almost round, and she held it up on the spatula and looked at me with blazing blue eyes.

"Get the camera," she said, and then stopped.

Her face went blank.

"I don't have a camera," she said.

"You have a phone."

"It's in the drawer."

"I know."

"It's been buzzing in there for two days."

"It'll keep."

She lowered the pancake onto a paper plate and put the plate in front of me.

Keep reading free with an account. Start They Let Me Bleed Out for My Sister's Show from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.