Chapter 2

TWO

P reparing dinner felt like a smart thing to do three days ago when Moriah ordered her groceries, adding a couple more things to her usual delivery order, but now, with Cricket sipping tea and tapping away on her laptop in the living room, the idea of standing in the kitchen making food makes her want to rip her hair out, when the alternative is hiding away in her bedroom with her cat and her Kindle.

At least she got something kind of collaborative. Flatbread, with a variety of toppings and a side caesar salad, so Cricket could choose what she wanted. Moriah didn't think the other woman had any food allergies, but she could be wrong, and this way neither of them will touch each other's food.

It helps that Woolf doesn't seem to be afraid or particularly anxious about Cricket's existence, not like she was about Simon at first. It took Woolf nearly a year to stop running to hide underneath the bed whenever her friend came over to hang out. Since Cricket arrived, the cat has done nothing but beg for attention, and that's a load off of Moriah's back.

She preps the salad first in a large glass bowl that she got at a thrift store and sets it to the side. Thankfully Woolf has never been a counter surfer; she only goes after Moriah's food once it's on a plate.

"Need any help?"

Moriah just about drops the bowl.

Cricket reaches around and steadies it, allowing Moriah to adjust her grip, and Moriah can't help but notice how warm Cricket is.

"Sorry, sorry," Cricket says lightly and oh, fuck, she rests her palm on Moriah's hip as she leans into Moriah's space. "Didn't mean to startle."

"Oh, uh," Moriah stammers. "It's okay. If you want to get some glasses from the cabinet by the fridge." Cricket nods and moves away, and Moriah can't help but grieve her absence. There's something about having another person in her apartment that makes the whole thing feel smaller, but not cramped. Cozier, warmer. Less isolated, when isolation has been all Moriah Becker has known for years.

It's almost suffocating, anxiety-inducing in the same way most change is, but Moriah swallows it down for now and focuses on setting down the bowl and getting out the dough.

"I got stuff for flatbreads— or, pizza, if you prefer. I figured we could each do our own," Moriah explains and sets the plastic-wrapped dough on the counter. She turns to the sink and pumps one, two, three dollops of soap onto her hand before turning on the sink with the back of her right hand. It doesn't feel right, it doesn't start the water in the stream as it should, and some little voice in the back of Moriah's mind starts to murmur.

She bats it away with one, two, three more attempts, and on the third, the water pours smooth. Moriah lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding and begins scrubbing her hands.

"That sounds great. Ice?" Cricket asks.

"In the freezer, up on the top, in the green trays."

Moriah listens to Cricket get down the ice trays and twist them back and forth, cracking the cubes to separate them from their silicone casing. She scrubs under her nails and rubs the backs of her hands until they're red and raw, stopping only when every bit of her hands feels clean. Sterile.

"There's a, uh, pitcher of mint lemonade in the fridge, or I have orange juice— I don't drink soda, really, but we could—"

"Mint lemonade sounds delicious," Cricket says, and the buzzing that had been kicking up dust in Moriah's chest settles, just a bit. "What can I get for you?"

"Oh," Moriah says and stalls, a cloth dish towel patterned with herbs in her hands. "I can get my own."

"No, don't worry about it, I'm already putting you out. You want lemonade?" Cricket asks. Moriah refolds the dish towel and drapes it through the oven door handle. "How'd you make this, anyways? It smells amazing. I've done blueberry lemonade up in Caerlloyd before, and that was so fucking good."

Moriah watches Cricket pour two glasses of lemonade and slide one down the counter while taking a sip from the other. She hums, low and breathy. Moriah's hands twitch.

One, two, three.

"I, uh, actually made a syrup out of the mint from my garden, and some honey I get delivered from a local farm," she says as she splits the dough in half and spreads it out on two small sheet pans. It's easier not to look at Cricket, with her soft, freckled cheeks and effortless smile. Looking at her starts to make the stone in her chest tremble, like something seismic is shifting. Like Cricket's round cheeks and smattering of freckles are the hammer Moriah has needed.

Cricket takes another sip of her lemonade, rolls it in her mouth, and swallows. Moriah tries not to watch the lump of Cricket's throat, and fails.

"This is really, really good," Cricket says. It sounds like she's underwater, and all Moriah can focus on is the soft skin covering her collarbones, the gentle touch of honey in her mouth, the way her lips move. The color of her red hair spilling against her pale skin, contrasting her freckles. Moriah feels her face grow warm.

"Thank you," she manages to spit out a beat too late and turns back to the counter. "Here, uh," she says and gestures, hands trembling. "This is yours, feel free to put whatever on it, and I'll bake them."

Cricket nods and moves into the kitchen proper, resting a hand on Moriah's hip briefly to steady herself, and Moriah has to swallow back a frankly embarrassing noise as she darts out of the kitchen as fast as she can before she makes a fool of herself.

"I'll be right back," she says and moves swiftly into the bathroom, where she sits on the closed toilet lid and hides her face in her hands.

Anxiety sits in her chest like a live round, like a grenade with the pin pulled. Just waiting to explode, to shatter any semblance of calm that the woman has nurtured since the pandemic began all those years ago. It vibrates like a wasp's nest and it takes everything in Moriah's body not to try to claw it out, nails dug between ribs and split at the sternum.

She taps a rhythm on her thigh like a razor blade, gliding across pre-scarred skin from years and years of violent thoughts.

(Cricket, battered on the cobblestone tiles outside, limbs bent askew, becoming nothing but a stain on the street outside, blood, and blood, and blood —)

Moriah taps her three fingers in turn against the knob of her knee until the reverberations in her bone begin to ward off the vicious intrusions.

After a long few minutes— at least, Moriah hopes it was only a few minutes, and not the eternity it felt— she manages to wipe away the blood that had been staining her thoughts, tapping in triplicate as everything washes away with the rain still thudding outside.

"Meow!"

Moriah turns and smooths her skirt where her clenched fingers wore wrinkles into the fabric. Then, she leans over and cracks the bathroom door just wide enough for Woolf to slip through before shutting it. She sinks down onto the ground, sitting with her back against the painted wall of the bathroom, and strokes her fingers through Woolf's unruly fur.

"Hey, little lion," Moriah murmurs. "Your momma's making a fool of herself."

Woolf prrrbts and head butts Moriah's knee. She drags her fingers through her hair once, twice, three times, and then allows her head to fall back, thudding into the drywall.

The bathroom is tiny, and it barely fits into her small apartment wedged between the bedroom and the balcony in the cramped floor plan. Most of it is taken up by a shower-tub combo, which is draped in vining plants and expensive soaps, covered by a gauzy shower curtain in a pale yellow. The rest barely squeezes a toilet— which Moriah has installed additional storage above for toilet paper and other things— and a sink, both of which are sparkling clean. The floor is covered in a small, shaggy green mat, and there's a litter box wedged into the cupboard underneath the sink.

Moriah catalogs each item in the room, looking at the leaves of her plants and making a mental note to water them the next time she showers, and when she feels that her heart rate has finally slowed back to a comfortable resting pace, she rises unsteadily to her feet.

Woolf curls around her ankles, purring audibly, and Moriah bites back a smile.

"Thank you, buddy," she murmurs as she flushes the toilet— can't have Cricket knowing she just came in here, had a minor panic attack, and then left, if she doesn't already suspect, and that sends Moriah's heart pumping again— and washes her hands. In a layer of thought she doesn't quite register, her mind counts out from one to twenty-one while she scrubs under each nail and rubs at the spots between her fingers.

When she finally emerges from the bathroom, Moriah pushes a smile to her lips, and tries to seem as normal and neurotypical as possible.

Dinner turns out delicious. They bake the flatbreads and each keep to their own space, which holds Moriah's traitorous mind at bay for the time being. They each have a glass of lemonade, and they talk idly— mostly about the one thing they have in common, which is Simon and Bruce— albeit awkwardly. The two men live full time in their lighthouse up in Caerlloyd now, which has left Moriah more isolated in Boston than ever, but she still talks to Simon over FaceTime at least once a week.

Moriah has only met Bruce once or twice before, but they chat sometimes too; the burly fisherman texts Moriah crochet patterns, and she in turn occasionally ships him specialty skeins that he requests from the larger yarn stores in Boston.

Cricket and Bruce seem close— well, that's a bit of an understatement.

When Cricket talks about the man, her expression goes soft, and Moriah sees the love she holds in her own heart for Simon mirrored there. Cricket's already round face looks even younger as she talks about her brother in all but blood. Moriah finds herself prodding further, asking follow-up questions, if only just to listen to Cricket speak a while longer.

By the time they finish eating, Cricket is stifling yawns, and Moriah takes the dishes into the kitchen. It is quite late in the day— sure, it's earlier than Moriah would typically go to bed, but Cricket has had a long day. Train rides are grubby, loud experiences that Moriah has always tried to avoid as often as possible.

"Do you want to get ready for bed in the bathroom? It's just over there," Moriah offers as she warms the sink water to do the dishes. Cricket seems to hesitate, but ultimately nods, and takes a pile of clothes and a zipper bag into the small bathroom.

The apartment almost immediately feels smaller, somehow. Moriah swallows the claustrophobia and focuses instead on scrubbing melted cheese and smears of pesto off of their dinner plates. Her ears strain to catch evidence of Cricket's presence, but the woman is quiet in the bathroom.

She doesn't emerge until Moriah's done with dishes, and when she does, she's wearing a worn-through oversized t-shirt proclaiming MAINE BLUEBERRY FESTIVAL '92 and cotton shorts that are just barely visible under the hem of the shirt. Her breasts, free from the confines of the bra Moriah can see dangling from her fingers, press against the thin fabric of the shirt, and Moriah's eyes linger there before she can stop herself.

Immediately, she feels a wash of shame surge through her. Her hands are still in the now empty sink and she turns the temperature up, allowing the scalding water to wash away her transgressions. Her skin comes back red and aching when she turns the tap off.

"Here," she says as she dries her hands. The rough dishcloth grates against her raw skin but she scrubs regardless until every drop of water is gone. "Let me pull out the bed."

"I got it, I think," Cricket calls out, and Moriah watches as she yanks on the underneath of the couch by a cloth handle, pulling until the whole thing slides out into a bed, already fitted with pale yellow floral sheets.

( a cat, barely eight pounds, crushed under a recliner, a pullout couch, bones snapped, crying out for help, hurting — )

Moriah crouches and pets Woolf, who was curling around her ankles, three times from head to tail. Three long breaths, and she swallows the thoughts. When she looks up, Cricket is standing by her bookshelf again, staring at the third shelf from the top. It's most of Moriah's non-fiction, poetry, and a few small tchotchkes.

"Do you need anything else?" Moriah asks as she stands back up, smoothing her skirt habitually. Cricket doesn't respond— in fact, she doesn't move. Moriah takes a few steps closer. "Cricket?"

The woman spins around, her twin braids flying up with momentum, and her eyes are wide and glassy.

"Oh! Sorry, no, I think I'm good!"

The expression on Cricket's face is one that Moriah knows all too well, one she's mastered over the course of her life— a shield. A mask. Overexcitement to conceal something darker, something that people don't often want to see. Cricket's smile is bright, but there's something false about it, and Moriah itches to dig deeper.

"If you do, feel free to come get me, or text, or whatever. I'll be right in here. Do you want me to shut Woolf in with me? She has a litter box and everything," Moriah asks, but Cricket waves a hand.

"I don't mind either way," she says and blinks a few times a little too rapidly, and Moriah watches as she collects her expression.

"Alright," Moriah says. "I'm going to get ready for bed, then. Goodnight, Cricket."

"Goodnight, Moriah."

When Moriah leaves the bathroom after brushing her teeth and taking her medication, Cricket is standing by the bookshelf still.