far away. But being awake hurts her.
Seeing her in pain hurts me.
“What would it be like?”
I brush my knuckles over her cheek. How is she still so soft, after everything?
“Stars,” I tell her, and the scene springs to life in front of me. The church basement and the cot with its white sheets dissolve into a humming dark. “There would be a million stars to look at. Skies so clear we could lie there and watch the constellations rise and set. We’d bring blankets and lay them out to watch. It would be warm if we held onto each other.”
Holly’s eyes flutter closed. The corner of her mouth curls in a smile. “Keep going.”
“We’d find a brook to drink from. Or maybe a lake, the kind that appears so suddenly. One minute there’s grass and ground. The next there’s water filled with reeds. They’d wave above the water while we slept. Or while we didn’t sleep.”
She laughs, the sound as dreamy as her eyes. Holly leans into my touch, her cheek warm against my palm. Blissfully warm. Heat means she’s alive. I haven’t stopped touching her, but I should.
I can’t.
“The ripples move through the reeds and onto the grass. They’re steady. And calm, for our camping trip. Calm water. The same sound wakes us up in the morning with the sun. Time means nothing out there. Everyone has enough.”
I don’t know what I’m saying anymore, but I keep talking. There are enough words to describe a day on the shore of the lake. A swim. An afternoon in the shade of a tent. An evening with a blazing sunset over the reeds and the water. Food over a campfire. Hot dogs and marshmallows. Innocent things. Things that make people like Holly happy. Stars, infinite stars.
Her breathing evens out. Gets deeper. I still can’t pull my hand away from her face. Not for a long time. The sunset is long over outside the church by the time I stand up and go about the second set of tasks. Getting rid of old gauze. Setting out new supplies. Counting her pills. We have enough water. There’s enough food. I turn off the overhead light and turn on an antique lamp brought down from the old church office.
It’s only when I take my seat again and listen to Holly’s deep breathing that I realize—
I wasn’t describing some fictional campground.
I was describing the woods in France where I fucked her for the first time. That’s my definition of peace. That’s the place I’d go back to if I could.
5
Holly
My side throbs.
It throbs constantly, like those damned ripples Elijah put into my brain. I don’t know how he got them there, only that he did, and now it’s all I can think about. My body is a lake. The pain ripples through me, through the reeds. They get smaller with the painkillers and larger when the painkillers wear off but they are always, always there.
Living in this church is driving me insane.
But the pain is the worst of all.
Sometimes, the painkillers don’t touch it. They leave it whole. During those times I can’t move. My strongest instinct is to stay still, because if I stay still, then it can’t dig its claws in deeper.
It would be easier if I weren’t so tired of lying down.
I’m either unconscious or I’m hurting.
I am bone-tired of being here, on this cot. So tired that the exhaustion comes full circle and I’m wide awake, pointing my toes to stretch, trying to bend my knees. Anything. Anything other than lying still. Sometimes, I try to get up.
And Elijah stops me.
It feels like I’m still in France in that medieval church. Like I never really escaped. Like the last six months of my life have been a dream I created in my madness.
Sometimes I try to get up, but he is always here, urging me back down onto the cot.
I know he’s going to do it. I know he’ll rush in here the moment I so much as breathe deeply, but I can’t help it. I need to move. And so I try again, holding my breath while I push myself up on one elbow. Trying to be as silent as possible.
It doesn’t matter.
Elijah must have been waiting outside the door because he steps in before I’m fully upright. This time, when I grit my teeth, it’s to keep in the frothing resentment expanding in my veins. In this moment I resent all of him. All of his carved good looks