Page 96 of The Narrow

“No,” I say immediately, in the same breath as Veronica. I look at her in faint puzzlement. Doesn’t she want Eden bundled away somewhere she can’t help me?

“Eden can’t go home,” Veronica says quietly.

Ah. Right. The brother.

Let him try to hurt me. I will drown him with a touch. I wonder if I can still do it from this body. I wonder if I can even leave Atwood. Delphine can’t, after all. But, oh, it would be interesting to try. And getting rid of that brother and his brute of a friend—that seems like a proper thanks for everything Eden has done for me. If I can find a way, I will.

I don’t think I’ll have the time, though. Pity. I do owe her.

“Eden?” Oster prompts. I wet my lips, not sure what the right move is. Oster folds his hands on the tabletop. I find myself staring at the gray in his hair. He’s so old.

You’re old, too. Old bones beneath the water. Long-lost.

“Nothing can keep me from finding you. We’re destined for each other.”

“You have to let me go.”

“When you last sat in this office, it seemed you were having a difficult time at home,” Oster says. “I didn’t push the matter, but now I wonder if that was a mistake.”

“No,” I say. When I slipped inside Eden, I didn’t have a plan. I wasn’t capable of thinking clearly enough to form one. Since then, I’ve thought maybe I could find a way to pull this off—to live as Eden, to reach Delphine, to be with Grace. Both of us living girls once again. But the only way to stay in this flesh is to become Eden, and I know that will never happen. I’m not like Grace. Shecan bend without breaking. I am sharp and brittle. I can’t be Eden and be me, the way Grace and Delphine are themselves and each other. I just can’t.

I have to make other plans.

“My home life is difficult. And this summer...” I look over at Veronica. If I lie, she’ll rat me out and say it’s for my own good, but I can skirt close enough to the truth to satisfy her and mollify Oster. “This summer was particularly bad. But it’s not going to happen again. My parents know what happened. We’ll manage.”

“I’ll need to speak to them.”

My first instinct is to tell him not to—but that’sEden’sinstinct, Eden’s fear. She’s too self-sacrificing, this girl. Willing to bear that pain so she won’t cause trouble. I’ve never been a martyr, though.You’ll thank me later,I tell her.

“You want me to give up everything I have. All of my friends. My family.”

“They don’t love you. They love the version of you they pretend you are. You’re better off without them.”

“Am I better off with you, then? Am I even safe with you?”

“You know I never meant to hurt you.”

“—tonight,” Madelyn Fournier is saying, and I jerk, startled back into the present. Fournier and Oster look expectantly at me.

“I’ll do whatever you think is best,” I croak. “But only if you let me see her one last time.”

They exchange a look. All these quiet conversations, as if I can’t tell exactly what they’re saying to each other withmeaningful glances and weighted silences. My fingers curl in my lap, claws I’d like to rake across their skin.

Fingers wrapped around one white arm, perfect lips parted in a shattered second’s surprise.

My nails dig into my thighs instead, my teeth clenched, holding the past at bay. I thought it would make me strong, knowing what I am, but my death pulls at me like a fist in my hair, its teeth against my neck. A drop of water slides down my knuckle and darkens the fabric of my jeans.

“I think that could be beneficial for everyone,” Oster says. “Let them say a proper farewell to each other.”

The only thing anyone ever wanted us to say to each other was goodbye. But our love held a different promise. It shouldn’t have ended like it did. We should have had years together—a lifetime. Lazy summers and winters by the fire and a dog that grew old curled at our feet.

We should have had a bright forever, and instead we had only the dark.

If we’d lived, I would have told her how sorry I was, enough times that she understood. She would have known how afraid I was of losing her, how the panic had welled up, cold and caustic, and scraped my insides hollow. It wasn’t me that did it, not really, but the fear. It wasn’t really me that hit her.

“No,” Madelyn Fournier says. Her lips are pressed tight, split with a dozen wrinkles all her beauty treatments can’t hide. “We can’t risk it. You can call her when you’re gone. Not before.”

Madelyn Fournier thinks she is a strong woman. She believes that love can make you strong. She has a great deal of love, after all. But she cannot comprehend how weak she is—a paper napkin crumpled easily in one fist. Your strength dictates the quality of your love. A weak woman can only ever be made weaker by love, and she is weak.

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