Turn 17 of 19

We sat on the couch in tense silence. I kept adjusting the short skirt, crossing my legs the way she would. He watched every movement. “You don’t even sit like yourself anymore.” I swallowed. “I know. I can feel her taking the wheel. And the worst part is… sometimes I stop wanting to take it back.”

The couch cushions dip under us. I've crossed my legs at the knee — left over right, the ankle hooked, the foot in its patent heel bobbing slightly with a rhythm I'm not choosing. I uncross them. Cross them again the other way. The skirt rides up another half-inch and I don't pull it down. My hands smooth the fabric over my thighs and the gesture is so fluid, so automatic, so *hers* that I watch myself do it like a passenger watching someone else drive.

Marcus sits a foot away. Not touching me. His hands are between his knees, fingers laced, knuckles white. He's watching my legs, my hands, the way my spine curves against the back cushion. Cataloging. I can almost hear him counting the changes the way you'd count cracks in a wall that's getting worse.

"You don't even sit like yourself anymore," he says.

I swallow. My throat moves differently — longer, more graceful, the swallow of a woman with a longer neck. Everything is different from the inside. The way my tongue hits my teeth. The way my lungs fill. I can feel Vivian's body the way you feel a coat that's been broken in by someone else — the creases fall in the wrong places, except they don't, except they fall exactly right, and that's the problem.

"I know," I say. The voice is low and warm and it fills the space between us like smoke.

"I can feel her taking the wheel. And the worst part is —" I stop. My hand goes to the bag on my hip. The leather is warm. I leave my fingers there.

"Sometimes I stop wanting to take it back."

Marcus turns and looks at me — not at my body, at my face, searching it, and I see him find something there that makes his own face go still. Not the polished mask. Not Vivienne's knowing smile. Something in between. Something that has given up pretending the fight isn't happening and can't yet pretend it's been lost. He reaches for my hand. I let him take it. His fingers are cold. Mine are warm from the bag. We sit like that in the silence, his cold hand in my warm one, and the clock on the wall ticks toward seven-fifteen, and my phone sits in the bag like a held breath.

"Then fight now," he says. "Right now. Tonight. Put the bag in the attic. Don't go to the restaurant. Stay here with me and fight it."

His eyes are wet. His grip is tight. The bag pulses once against my hip, warm and patient, and the clock ticks again, and I feel the choice sitting in my chest like a held breath — Sophie's breath, Vivienne's breath, I can't tell anymore, I can't tell.