Chapter 11: Three Feet

I did not speak to Erin for two weeks.

She texted me a dozen times, and I read each message in the stairwell and never answered.

Gabe asked me twice if he should call someone.

I told him I was tired, and he said tired people don't read the same textbook page for an hour.

When the semester ended, I took the six a.m. bus home to Garrity Falls and let my mother hug me on the porch for a long time.

She smelled of coffee and lavender hand cream.

"You've gotten so thin, baby," she said.

"I'm fine, Mom."

"You're not, but I'll let it go until after dinner."

After dinner she did what she had done every night of my life.

She heated a saucepan, poured the milk into my old blue mug, and set it on my desk.

Then she kissed the top of my head and went to bed.

I sat on the edge of the mattress and looked at it.

The steam rose, and the whole room smelled of home.

It was only milk.

It had been only milk for eighteen years.

I picked it up, and my hand shook so hard that it spilled onto the desk.

I put it down again.

There was a knock at the window.

I did not need to look to know who it was.

I went down through the kitchen and out the back, in my socks, into the cold.

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