Page 46 of The Narrow

I feel my cheeks go hot. My stupid blush. “I didn’t expect you to...”

“You must change in front of your roommates all the time,” she says.

“That’s different,” I say.

“Why is it different?” she asks.

I can’t answer; I shake my head instead. She makes a little sound, ahmwith no particular meaning. She reaches out, adjusting the neckline of my scrubs, her eyes tracking the movement of her own hands. Her fingernails trail against my skin. I catch my breath.

“I wish I got to see you the way you usually look. Not in these scrubs with that stupid cap,” she says.

“But those are the rules,” I remind her. My pulse is speeding up.

Her hand drops; she catches mine lightly by the fingers, already moving as she does and pulling me, trailing along behind her, toward her heavy oak wardrobe.

“Help me find something to wear,” she says, and I fix my gaze on her shoulder, wondering how I can be entranced by the simple shape of her shoulder blades, the hollow of her throat.

She’s grabbing things from the wardrobe now, tossing them behind her. Skirts and dresses and blouses. “These are all made for a little girl,” she says, scowling at a frilly white blouse.

“Here,” I say. I reach past her. “Let me.” I pick out three pieces quickly and hold them out to her.

I turn away while she dresses. Somehow it feels even more intimate to watch her get dressed.

“Well?” That one syllable holds so much: a plea, a demand, a challenge. I turn and take her in.

The little girl dress is gone. She wears a white button-up shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and the top two buttons undone, andover it, a black three-button vest. Completing the look is a pair of tailored pants in a tan plaid pattern. I can see why her mother bought every piece for the doll she thought she was dressing, but together with the new hair, with her chin tilted up and fire in her eyes—

“You look amazing,” I say.

“Amazing is a good start,” she replies playfully.

“You look hot,” I blurt out, and then feel my cheeks get warm again, but she laughs.

I made her laugh.

There is such wild happiness on her face that I want to grab hold of her, grab hold of that happiness. I want to kiss her and taste the smile on her lips.

She steps toward me. She puts her hand over my sternum, as if to feel my heartbeat.

“It’s perfect,” she says.

“It is. You are,” I say.

“You’re just saying that to be nice,” she says again, but this time it has the faintest edge of a challenge to it.

“I promised not to lie, remember?” I ask her, almost a whisper.

I think for a moment that she is going to lean toward me—

But she only smiles and turns away.

16

WHEN MADELYN FOURNIERcalls me into her room that evening, I walk across the hall with the feeling of going to an execution.

I haven’t done anything wrong, I remind myself.

And that absolutely won’t matter if Madelyn decides she wants to kick me out.

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