But if she explained those facts, her sisters would insist she’d simply had a bad experience, then start insulting everyone who’d ever left her. And then Chloe would be forced to remember all the things she’d lost, and to wonder, for the thousandth time, what it was about her that made her so easy to leave.
It was time to change the subject, and also her pajamas.
Pushing off her blankets and rising to her feet caused a moment of dizziness, but she’d been ready for that. She waited. The encroaching blackness faded. “There,” she smiled, pleased with herself. “Right as rain.”
Dani looked up in alarm. “Where are you going?”
“I’m just popping into the shower. Won’t be long.” That was an unrepentant lie. She would indeed be long, and everyone present knew it.
“Would you like some help?” Eve asked.
“I’m not that bad.” Chloe rolled her eyes and left her sisters in the living room. As she peeled off her worn-in pajamas and settled into the bathroom’s plastic shower seat, she thanked God for the disability aids all ground-floor flats came with. After grabbing her shampoo and conditioner, she switched on the water and tipped her head back under the spray.
It had been a frustrating few days. She’d fallen into an infuriating cycle when she’d climbed that tree. Physical overload led to pain and a complete dearth of spoons, also known as mind-numbing exhaustion; which led to extra meds and insomnia; which led to sleeping pills and too much brain fog; which led to, in a word, misery.
When she found herself trapped in that cycle, Chloe was supposed to do certain things. Things like socializing with all her nonexistent friends, despite her inability to brush her teeth and change out of her pajamas. Things like forcing her battered body into excruciating Pilates positions, because it was sooo good for the muscles. Things like meditation, presumably so that she could think more deeply about how much she resented her own nerve endings. These, obviously, were the suggestions of specialist consultants who were rather clever but had never lived inside a body in constant crisis.
What Chloe actually did to cope was take her medication religiously, write fanciful lists, play The Sims, and live through it. Sometimes it was hard, but she managed by whatever means necessary.
Right now, her aches and pains had faded to a low background hum and her mind felt clearer than it had in ages. She scrubbed the three days’ fever sweat from her scalp, smiling as she fingered the cute little kinks growing out at her roots. It was almost time for another chemical relaxer; she didn’t have the endurance to care for her natural texture, pretty as it was. After conditioning, she lathered herself with entirely too much scented soap, standing long enough to rinse all the necessary bits. She watched the water send white suds sliding over her skin, like clouds moving over the earth. When she was sick and tired of being sick and tired, she clung to moments like this: the first shower after a flare-up.
Bliss should be held on to with both hands.
Some time later, Chloe was clean and dry and neatly outfitted in a tea dress and matching jumper—though her jumpers were all designed to look like cardigans. She liked the little buttons, but her fingers couldn’t always handle slipping them in and out of holes. Her glasses were freshly polished and her hair was in a sleek bun. She’d taken her anti-inflammatories, her weakest painkillers, and the pills that protected her stomach lining from the damage caused by her other pills.
Then she’d returned to the living room, largely ignored her bickering sisters, and written several lists: people to email, jobs to catch up on, mood and diet diaries to fill in. Last of all, she’d put a note in her journal, under the weekly to-do section. It was a single word.
Red.
She hadn’t been sure what else to put. What did one write about a man with hair like a fall of fire and silver rings on his fingers, a man who smiled at everyone and didn’t feel awkward about it, a man who was the exact opposite of boring Chloe Brown?
Apparently, just his name.
She drifted back to reality to find her sisters arguing about Lady Gaga, because of course they were.
“It was a stepping stone. Everyone stumbles during a period of growth.”
“It was ruinous, Evie. I mean!” Dani threw up her hands. “After the majesty of Born This Way—”
“You only like Born This Way because it’s all dark and evil and rah-rah-rah.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I like it because it’s unapologetically sexual and ironically German.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Says the woman who prefers ‘Paper Gangsta’ to ‘Judas.’”
“Oh, please,” Eve scoffed, clearly disgusted. “That track is the biggest waste of vocal talent ever created.”
Dani arched an eyebrow. “Darling. You act as though you’ve never heard a Miley Cyrus song.”
Eve’s scowl wavered, then disappeared. She giggled. Dani laughed.
Chloe rolled her eyes. “If you two are quite finished . . .”
Truthfully, they shouldn’t be here at all. Dani had a never-ending list of Ph.D. things to accomplish, and Eve was always embroiled in some favor or other for one of her many friends. But they’d come anyway, because they were her parents’ agents in the secret war to Monitor Poor Chloe’s Health—and because they wanted to make sure that she didn’t pass out in the shower and crack her head open. Chloe wanted to make sure of that, too, so their presence was always appreciated on days like these. But they had other places to be, lives to live, et cetera.
And Chloe had an item to check off her Get a Life list. All she had to do was get the ball rolling.
So she shooed her sisters out of the flat, kissing cheeks and arranging a film night, vowing to visit Gigi soon—Eve would pass on the message—and showering them in sarcastic remarks because she’d rather die than actually say Thank you. She hadn’t always been like this, a tongue with the tip bitten off, her feelings squashed into a box. But help and concern, even from the people she loved—even when she needed it—had a way of grating. Of building up, or rather, grinding down. Truthfully, guiltily, sometimes simple gratitude tasted like barely sweetened resentment in her mouth. So she didn’t express it at all.
When they were gone, she felt deflated and unusually alone, even though Smudge had reappeared from his hiding place. She stood in her empty living room, which was now tidier, thanks to Dani, and stared at the window across the courtyard.