“There you were,” I repeat, and I think I know where she’s going—no, I know where she’s going, and something’s rising in me.
“I got pregnant,” she says, and her eyes are on me, and they’re burning with the kind of fear that makes my entire body throb, not with the pain, but with the desire to touch her, to reassure her: It’s okay. “And I am a what-if person, Nora. You know I am. I like plans and details and I have been making decisions about my body and especially my uterus since I was twelve and started puking from pain with every period. So I called the clinic.”
I don’t speak, I just wait, her truth wrapping around me like a silk slip.
“I needed money for the abortion,” she continues. “So I put some of my vintage stuff online to sell, but I forgot to block my mom from seeing the posts. And when she asked me why I was selling the Lilli Ann coat that my grandma gave me, I didn’t have a lie ready. She saw through me, and I broke down.” She bites her lower lip. “She did everything I needed. She drove me to the clinic and she paid for it, and she held my hair back when I puked afterward, and oh God, I’m gonna leave her alone now.” She presses her hand against her chest like she’s trying to keep her own heart from tearing out. “She’ll be alone because now I’m here and we’re gonna die.”
“We are not going to die.”
Her lip trembles. She has to take in two big, shuddery breaths to hold back the tears. I know how she feels: If she thinks about her mom, she’ll break down from the potential loss. I understand, because I can’t think about Lee. It’ll make me weak. Clumsy.
“He found out,” she whispers. “My dad. And he’s always been um, protective? Controlling? For our own good, of course.” She stares up at the ceiling, blinking furiously. I recognize it in her: the fight against what’s ingrained in you through fear and what you’re starting to learn is truth now that you’re free. It spins in my head: We’re more alike than you know, we’re more alike than you know, she’d told me. I don’t think I heard. But I know now. We’re both girls whose bones got forged from secrets instead of steel. No wonder we snapped together like magnets. We are made of the same stuff, somehow.
“He yelled. And he punched walls and stuff. But he never ever laid a hand on me,” she continues. “Until the day he found out.”
She flips the kiss timer’s hourglass. Five minutes. I glance down at the bottle, trying to control the mix of rage and revenge rocking inside me.
“He just slapped me,” she says, and I hate that she’s still trying to lessen it, and that I recognize that, too. “But he did it in front of my mom. I’ve never seen anyone move so fast. She got in front of me, and they yelled, and he stormed out. She called my aunt and uncle, and it was almost like they’d been waiting for it, because they were there to pick us up in two hours. I haven’t seen my father since.”
My hands are curled tight around the paper towels I’ve twisted into a long fuse.
“I don’t want to leave my mom alone,” Iris whispers.
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that. This is so risky. This is dangerous.”
“This is survival,” I tell her.
She turns the pin. Four minutes. “We need to start,” she says.
“What do we do?”
It takes two turns of the kiss timer—two minutes left—but we get it done. We drag the garbage can full of sanitizer-soaked toilet paper into the biggest stall, carefully feeding the paper towel fuse inside and then laying the rest of it along the floor. Then Iris soaks the fuse with the rest of the vodka.
“There’s a handkerchief in my purse. Wet it down and get ready to tie it around your mouth,” she directs.
I do what she says, and then she wets down the hem of her skirt to hold in front of her face. She digs in the pocket and pulls out the lighter.
“We light the fuse, we let the room fill with smoke. Then we bang on the door to let him know we’re done. As soon as he opens it, I throw the bottle. It should hit him in the chest, and maybe, if we’re lucky, it’ll knock him down. Get his gun if you can. Then we get Wes and the rest of the hostages. Agreed?”
I walk it through my head once, and then I nod. “Agreed.”
She rubs her thumb against the bottom of the lighter, one eye on the heart pin, the other on the fuse. And then, abruptly, she fixes me with a look that rivets me in place.
“Who are you, really?” she asks me. “I don’t want to die not knowing your real name.”