The Hard Version of Staying novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Only My Vitamin

"Get out of my kitchen," I said.

I held the poker in both hands, and my voice was lower than I expected.

"I'm not going to hurt anyone," Declan said. "I came to look after you. You're carrying my child, and you're alone in a big house at three in the morning."

"You climbed through a window."

"It was the only way you'd listen."

He nudged the saucer an inch toward me.

The capsule sat on it, white and small, exactly where he had put one every morning for four years.

I looked at it.

The thing I had been about to say died in my mouth, and what came out instead was calm.

"Fine," I said. "Leave it. Leave the water. I'll take it when I'm awake."

His shoulders came down.

"Good girl," he said. "That's all I wanted."

"Go out the way you came."

He climbed back out through the pantry window with the care of a man who had done it before, and I heard his shoes on the gravel.

Then I shut the window and wedged a spoon in the latch.

I stood very still in the kitchen with my heart going hard.

I did not know why I had said I would take it.

I knew only that he had looked so relieved.

I picked up the capsule between two fingers.

It was lighter than I remembered, and it had no letters on it.

I had never looked at one closely before.

I took an envelope from the drawer where we keep the guest receipts, dropped the capsule inside, and licked it shut.

Then I poured the water down the sink.

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