Chapter 18

18

The cottage is hot and stuffy, too bright with all the windows.

Naomi staggers into the bathroom. “I really don’t feel well. I feel so…so weird…like…Oh shit.”

“What?” I ask, poking my head in.

She stands in front of the mirror. “Look.”

It takes longer than it should for me to realize that we don’t have reflections. That we don’t appear in the mirror.

My lip starts to quiver, and my eyes go wet. One, because it’s further proof of something I don’t want to accept. And two, because I’ve been so frustrated and upset by my reflection lately, and I never thought I’d ache for it like this. I’ve never wanted to see myself more. To stress over a forehead wrinkle, over crow’s-feet, over beautifully perfect drooping eyelids. It’s the worst feeling in the world, knowing you’ve taken the sight of your own face for granted. Knowing you’d give anything for yesterday’s problems.

Naomi sniffles. She’s crying, too.

“This is really happening, huh?” she says. “This is…really happening.”

I can’t stand watching her cry, so I leave the bathroom before we both lose it. I go upstairs to the loft. I plug my phone in, turn it on, anticipating at least one missed call or message from Joel checking in, but there’s none. There’s nothing.

I find the present he gave me and rip off the bow, tear the pretty paper. Underneath is a plain cardboard gift box, taped shut. I get a nail under some puckered tape and pull.

The box is stuffed with glittery tissue paper. Did he pick this out for me? I’m not glittery. I never wear sequins, or shimmery eye shadow. Not even on New Year’s Eve. At no point ever in my life have I been a sparkle person. We’ve been together for so many years. Shouldn’t he know this about me?

I flip the box over onto the bed, shake it so the paper falls out. Somehow this is just as terrifying as anything that went down last night. I’d almost prefer getting my leg gnawed by the skeleton man to this. Discovering what the person I chose to waste the last fourteen years of my life with got me for my birthday.

It’s AirPods. A pair of AirPods. No card.

“What?” I ask, picking them up. I rack my brain. Did I ever mention wanting AirPods, or any wireless earbuds?

If I’d opened this box two days ago, I would have thought they were a good, considerate, practical gift. Because I would have needed to think that. Because if I allowed myself to think it was impersonal, to be disappointed, that would have meant acknowledging my unhappiness, pulling out a block in the Jenga tower and risking the collapse of everything.

A few days ago, I would have opened this gift and said Thank you . I would have plugged these stupid things into my ears and listened to podcasts about horrific shit happening to other people, or music—art made by other people—and I would have gone on being grateful for the AirPods, until they inevitably broke or were lost within a year or two, and I had to get new ones. Maybe I would have asked for them for my birthday. And I don’t know anymore if that’s the saddest fucking thing, or if I wish that were still my future.

I repeat Naomi’s ridiculous question in my head. What if this wasn’t bad luck?

I run my tongue across my teeth, which are no sharper than usual, I don’t think, and I call Joel.

He picks up on the fourth ring. “Hey! Happy birthday.”

Right. It’s my birthday. Some birthday. “Thanks.”

“How’s the place?”

I’m quiet, waiting for some magical clarity. Do I bring up the woman, admit what I know, what I saw on that camera? Admit what I did last night, my own indiscretion? Or do I sweep it all under the rug? Does any of it really matter now?

“Sloane?”

“Thanks for the AirPods.”

“You’re welcome. Everything okay?”

Needing to fidget, my fingers stroke my neck. They find a silky patch of raised skin just below my ear. Where Henry stuck the spile in.

I’m tempted to say nothing. To keep the peace. It’s easier this way. So much easier to pretend. But here’s Naomi again, in my head. The choice was made for us.

“Joel. We have a doorbell camera.” I sound angry. Am angry. When did this happen? When did I wake this beast?

I get a flash of me beating the shit out of the skeleton man with a fire poker.

Where did she come from?

“What—what do you mean?” he asks.

“Denial? Really?”

“I’m not…I don’t…I—I…” he stutters. “What are you…”

“I saw a woman show up to our house Thursday night. Our house. My house. Hours after I left, after you sent me on this trip that you had the gall to pretend was a gift for me.”

“Sloane—”

“No, I get it. I’ve let a lot slide over the years because I genuinely didn’t want to know, didn’t want to deal with it. I think I checked out somewhere along the line. I know I’m not blameless in this situation, in our marriage. Which I used to tell myself was happy, despite the bullshit, but…it’s hollow. I’m hollow. And I’m…I think I’m done. Yeah. I’m done.”

“Sloane, slow down. I’ve made mistakes. I’m sorry. I am. But I love you. I’ve always loved you. I like our life. Our marriage…we can work on it.”

“Can we?”

“I can work on it,” he says, with such resolve. No one in his family has ever gotten a divorce. He has no divorced friends. Then there’s the issue of alimony. The house. That’s what he cares about, mostly, I bet. He doesn’t like hassle. To be fair, neither do I. “We should sit down and have a conversation when you get back and figure out a way forward. Together.”

I would have. And I would have been grateful, to go home and keep on pretending. To keep up the charade, to move through life as docile and unflinching as a rag doll until I died. Never feeling too much of anything. Thinking the emptiness was what I deserved.

But that’s no longer an option.

“I’m not coming back.”

“Sloane.”

I open the AirPods, pop one out of the packaging, twirl it between my fingers.

“Sloane? Please. I’m sorry. You know I am.”

“Are you?” I ask. “If you’re so sorry, why is this the third time? That I know of.”

“I—I’ve made some bad decisions. I don’t know why I…I don’t want to lose you. I just…I have these…urges. These needs.” It’s very evident that he wasn’t prepared to have this conversation. To explain himself. I can’t blame only him for that. “I’ve tried to figure out how to communicate them to you. My needs. I just…I don’t know.”

What I think he’s saying is, I didn’t fuck him enough. I wasn’t wild enough. Could be true. Could be that those of us who are ashamed of our needs inevitably become slaves to them.

He was too ashamed to ask me for more, and I, a reformed slut, was too ashamed to give it to him. Or maybe I just never loved him enough. He stirred such little want in me, and I thought it was my fault, that I was incapable. Until last night.

“Needs,” I repeat.

“Yeah. And then—then I go and do things, and then I regret it and then I do it again. Maybe it’s because of my dad. I just—it just happens.”

“Well, we all make mistakes,” I say.

“I’m human.”

“Right,” I say, failing to stifle a laugh, because he might be, but I don’t know if I am anymore. “Exactly.”

“We can work on it,” he says. “Work it out. We can go to therapy or something. We can figure something out, right? Together. We can fix this. I can fix it. It won’t happen again.”

That’s what he said the last time. This time, whether he means it or not, it’s true.

I walk over to the window. I can still see it on the glass. The handprint.

“Joel?”

“Yeah?”

“I hope you have a nice life,” I say, pressing my own hand to the windowpane. “Take care of the peach tree, okay?”

“The peach tree? Sloane, what—”

Just as I hang up, I hear a door slam.

“Naomi?” I call down the stairs.

No answer.

I repeat her name. I go check the bathroom. Check her room. She’s not there. She’s not anywhere.

She left. She’s gone.

—

Her suitcase is still in her room. Her purse is here. Her phone.

Where did she go? Why would she leave?

Then I remember what she said to me in the car, not half an hour ago.

I’m still thirsty.

I grab my key and step outside.

I want to believe she’s not lurking around the grounds of the Waterfront, trying to find someone who she can—I don’t know. Drink from? I’m not sure what we do or how we do it. There’s a vague tug in my throat, so I swallow my spit, wanting to wash it away, drown it out. Banish it.

The sensation isn’t unbearable, not acutely painful. It’s like the early hours of strep throat, when there’s still hope that if you ignore it, it’ll go away on its own.

My nerves pinch, stomach knots, because I don’t see Naomi anywhere. I should be running after her, but I don’t know which direction to go. I’m allowing too much time for things to happen. For our situation to get worse.

It’s inevitable, though. Things are going to get worse.

“Naomi?” There’s a rasp to my voice that’s strange and new. The tug in my throat isn’t relenting. I cough. My lungs are tight, tongue sits heavy in my mouth. It’s getting harder to breathe, like there’s a damp cloth over my face.

She’s reckless , Henry said. Where is she?

It’s still overcast. A doggedly gray, cloudy day. But it doesn’t matter. I squint at the light like I’m coming out of the eye doctor with my pupils dilated.

I spin around, back toward the cottage. There are icicles dripping, long and sharp, winter’s teeth. These are the kind that kill people. The kind that leave death in the snow.

I look down. I don’t see any dead bodies in the snow, but I do see footprints. I follow them down the slippery drive to the road, then toward the main building. The sun emerges from behind a cloud, and my eyes white out, skin prickles like I’ve broken out in hives. I hate the light, this horrible, hideous, belligerent daylight. I cover my eyes and wait and hope for them to adjust, or to be spared by the clouds.

It’s hard to see, my vision distorted as if I’m looking through a lava lamp. It’s dizzying, and I lose my footing, slip and fall into the snow.

Then I see. The footprints veer into the woods.

There are two of them now. Two sets of footprints.

Is she disciplined? Can she practice self-restraint?

No. No.

No no no no no no no.

I get back up, spitting snow from my mouth that tastes like sour milk, and I run, following the footprints into the woods. The trees are naked, but there are so many of them that it doesn’t make it any easier to navigate through them, and the steep incline of the hill doesn’t help either.

I’m out of breath, but it’s not because of physical exertion, or because I’ve been calling for Naomi. It’s because of what’s lingering in my throat. The strange sensation. The thirst. It’s dry but it’s gluey. It’s steady but it’s growing. I force myself to cough again.

I can fight through it. I can ignore it until it goes away.

No, you can’t , says a voice in my head that sounds like me but also like Henry.

I remember blood in the snow.

There’s blood in the snow, coloring the footprints.

No no no no no no no.

What did you think was going to happen next ? says the voice. Don’t you understand? This is your life now.

The ground flattens and I come to a small clearing, where I find Naomi, crouched in red snow. Her back is to me. She doesn’t turn around when I call her. She’s in the middle of something. I hear it. A slurping, a sucking. The ugliest sound.

I’m afraid to approach her. I didn’t think I was in denial; I thought I’d accepted the circumstances, but how could I possibly? How could I digest the death of my humanness? The death of Naomi’s. How could I grieve what I didn’t fully understand?

The pang in my throat goes nuclear.

I want to fall to the ground and lap up the blood from the snow.

But I won’t. I won’t. I bury the want, and I take a step toward Naomi.

I pause. If I don’t move, if I just keep myself in a sort of stasis, if I don’t look, maybe I won’t have to confront it. Maybe I’m past pretending, but I’m not ready to submit to what’s next. It’s too big and too scary.

A violent gurgling echoes through the trees. It’s Naomi. Her shoulders jut up past her ears, and she starts to shake, to twitch.

I run to her.

Her long, dark hair curtains her face. Blood drips down, through her fingers. She’s holding something. Something I’m relieved isn’t a person, or from a person.

The relief is fleeting.

It’s a rabbit.

She’s got a dead rabbit in her mouth. She’s not looking at me. She might not even be able to see me. Her eyes are glazed over, staring raptly at nothing.

She gurgles again, and then spits, spraying the ground with little grayish bits floating in viscous red globs.

Bones. Inedible parts.

All of a sudden, she lets the rabbit drop and she keels over, landing hard on her side. She starts groaning, and it reminds me of the skeleton man, of what he sounded like. She doesn’t sound good. She sounds sick.

I fall in front of her. “Naomi?”

“I didn’t mean to,” she says, her eyes still glass. “I couldn’t help it. I needed it. I thought I would die. I would die without it.”

“It’s okay. It’s just a rabbit,” I say.

“It was so disgusting,” she says, retching. “It tasted awful. Rancid. But I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop myself.”

Her eyes finally find mine, and there’s something feral in them that turns my stomach. She shoots up, clutching my arm, sinking her nails in.

“I couldn’t help it,” she says. “I was thirsty. I’m still thirsty. Still so thirsty.”