（You could stop the mayor, something whispers inside me, and it sounds so much like me, and not like my mother or any of the girls, that I don’t know what to do but reject it.）
“You gotta go,” he says. He whispers it, like he’s still afraid, and that’s when I realize he is, and that I’ve never seen him afraid before. He is strong and he is quiet until you draw him out, and then he runs his mouth in the best way, but he carries himself like he’s accepted the pain of the world, not like he fears it. “He’ll be back soon. If he finds you here . . .”
“I’m not leaving you,” I say. “You need a hospital. Stitches.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t.”
Of course. Why did I even say that? Why am I not thinking right?
I’m thinking like Nora. Like I’m normal. Time to stop doing that.
“Where’s the first aid kit?”
“Downstairs. In the kitchen.”
“I’ll be right back. Keep the pressure on it.” I press the towel against his shoulder, and his hand comes up to hold it, his fingers brushing against mine. “I love you,” I tell him, and it’s so little, it’s nothing, but he looks at me through red-rimmed eyes like it’s everything.
It takes me forever to find the first aid kit. I’m still rooting around in the bottom cupboards when I hear it: the sound of tires on gravel. Someone’s coming.
I jerk up, snapping the cupboard door shut, the kit forgotten. The hairs on my arms rise as the sound grows louder, and I glance over my shoulder. The back door is right there. I could . . .
But if the mayor touches Wes again . . .
My mind’s full of half-formed thoughts; I’m so rusty. It feels like the part of me that’s supposed to react fast and smart is atrophied, struggling to come alive in time. But my body takes over like it knows what to do. I’ve set a pan on the stove before I’m even thinking of the plan. I move over to the fridge, pulling out the vegetables from the crisper and whatever was wrapped in butcher paper on the bottom shelf. Don’t rush, I remind myself. I’ll get red if I hurry, and he’ll be looking at me close.
I grab the biggest butcher knife. Wes’s mom likes to cook, and her knives are beautiful. Handcrafted in Japan and sharpened lovingly and expertly. It would be so easy to . . .
I could . . .
No. I couldn’t.
I hear the honking sound of the mayor locking his car. He’ll be inside the house any minute now. I drizzle olive oil into the pan on the stove and then turn back to the cutting board. By the time his footsteps hit the hallway, I’ve chopped an entire onion and dumped it into the heating pan. It sizzles. I pray that Wes stays upstairs. If he keeps out of sight, I can pull this off.
“Wes, are you cooking some—” He stops short in the kitchen when he catches sight of me.
I look up from the carrot I’m chopping and give him a casual smile. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I want to scream at him. I want to stab him. I want so many things, and most of them are violent and all of them are terrifying, because I’m not supposed to be like that anymore.
I’m supposed to be Nora.
But I’m not right now. I fall right back into my old ways now that I’m awake—alive—again, now that I’ve got a plan.
“Nora, what are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry, did I startle you?” I ask. “Wes wasn’t feeling good, and there’s that flu going around. I came by to check on him. He was already asleep, so I thought I’d make him some soup for when he wakes up. Mrs. Prentiss said it was okay to use the ingredients. I called her.”
I go back to chopping the vegetables as the onions sweat on the stove. I keep an eye on him out of the corner of mine. He’s trying to decide what’s going on.
I sweep the carrots off the cutting board and into the pan with the flat of the knife and then go back to the counter to take care of the celery. “I’m going to make homemade noodles,” I continue, filling the eerie silence that’s taken over Mrs. Prentiss’s cavernous kitchen. The mayor’s just standing there, staring at me, wondering if I know. If I don’t. What to do in both scenarios.
“I didn’t realize you could cook, Nora,” he finally says. He moves farther into the kitchen as he talks, closer to me. My fingers curl tighter around the handle of the knife. How many steps would it take to get to the back door? Ten? Fifteen? I should know this. I should’ve counted.
“I can knit, too. My mother taught me both before she passed away.”