Chapter 10: Finish Your Milk

I stood by the bed long after the nurse had gone, with my wrist still aching where she had held it.

Don't ever drink it.

Nobody alive could have known about the milk.

In the first life, the only two people in that bedroom were me and the woman who gave it to me.

"Alec?" Gabe stood in the door with Dani behind him. "Are you okay? You look terrible."

"Go home," I said. "Both of you. Take the car, Gabe. I'll find a ride."

"I'm not leaving."

"Gabe."

He studied my face, and whatever he found there made him swallow whatever joke he had ready.

"I'll wait in the lobby," he said quietly. "Text me."

They left.

I pulled the chair to the window and sat with my back to the bed.

Outside, snow was falling across the parking lot, thick and slow, onto Gabe's bumper sticker.

Mrs. Hartigan came back at midnight, saw me, and slept sitting up beside her daughter.

At five in the morning she went to find tea.

At ten past, I heard the sheets move.

"Alec."

I did not turn around.

"Alec, please look at me."

I turned.

Erin was propped on her pillows with her hair tangled and a pale, steady face.

She did not look confused.

She looked the way she had looked at the bedroom door, ten years from now, with her arms folded.

"Say it," I said. "Whatever you're going to say. Just say it."

"I remember."

"Remember what?"

"All of it." She swallowed. "The reunion. Rhett and that woman in the doorway. The car ride home. I was so angry I couldn't see."

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