Chapter 10: The Morning After
The ceiling stain hadn’t changed. Susanna traced its coastline with her eyes, the same way she had when the candle died. Morning light, thin and watery, striped the bed through the blinds. Every part of her ached with a deep, resonant throb. The skin across her backside was a tight, hot map of yesterday. She moved her legs slowly, a testing flex. The soreness between them was a blunt reminder.
From the kitchen, a crash of metal, then a curse bitten off into a hum.
Susanna sat up. The quilt fell away. On the floor, the black harness was a coiled snake. The belt was gone. She dressed in yesterday’s clothes from the heap by the bed—the jeans a cruel fiction over her tender skin. Each step toward the doorway was a negotiation.
The kitchen was a crime scene of frantic normalcy. Lisa stood at the counter, her wild hair tied up in a messy knot, wearing only an oversized t-shirt. The scent of burnt grain filled the air. A plate sat on the chipped Formica table, holding two pieces of charcoal-black toast.
“You’re up,” Lisa said without turning. She was viciously buttering a third slice, scraping the charred bits into the sink. “Coffee’s almost done.”
The percolator gurgled, a sound like a clogged throat. Susanna hovered in the doorway. The bracelet on her wrist—the cheap silver chain Lisa had clasped there months ago during a better afternoon—felt like a lead weight. She didn’t remember putting it back on.
“Sit,” Lisa said, her voice singsong. “You need to eat.”
Susanna slid into a chair. The vinyl seat was cold. She looked at the toast, a monument to Lisa’s attempt. The receipts were still taped to the fridge, the sink was empty of ash but not of the ghost of it. Lisa placed the newly buttered slice on the plate, then bent and kissed the top of Susanna’s head. Her lips lingered. The gesture was so violently ordinary Susanna’s throat closed.
“You sleep okay?” Lisa asked, sweeping back to the counter for two mugs. She poured the coffee, black, and set one in front of Susanna before taking the seat across from her. Her eyes were clear, bright blue, and utterly focused.
“Yeah,” Susanna managed. The lie was ash in her mouth. She picked up a piece of toast. It crumbled at the edges, leaving black dust on her fingertips.
Lisa watched her, chin propped on her hand, a small smile playing on her lips. She sipped her coffee. “Good. I’ve been thinking. We’ve been stuck in this box for too long. The city air in here… it’s stale. It makes people crazy.”
Susanna took a tiny bite. The toast was bitter, almost acrid. She chewed slowly, waiting.
“So I fixed it,” Lisa announced, her smile widening. “I got us a cabin. Up near Mirror Lake. Remember I told you about that place? No service, no neighbors, just pine trees and the water. For the whole weekend. We leave tonight.”
The bite of toast turned to paste. Susanna forced herself to swallow. It scraped all the way down. Mirror Lake. It was a three-hour drive north, minimum. Lisa had mentioned it once, calling it a “pure place.” Susanna had pictured a void.
“Tonight?” Her voice was a thread.
“Mhm. Everything’s packed already. I did it while you were sleeping.” Lisa’s foot found Susanna’s under the table, a playful nudge. “Just us. No distractions. We can talk. We can just be. You can write, if you want. Bring that notebook of yours.”
The irony was a needle to the heart. That notebook. Susanna looked down at her plate. The second piece of toast seemed to blur. The cabin wasn’t an escape. It was a tightening. A silent, pine-scented lockbox where the only sounds would be Lisa’s voice and the wind. Where the only reality would be the one Lisa dictated.
“It’s a surprise,” Lisa said, and her tone shifted, just a fraction. A testing edge. “You like surprises.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a check. A gauge for resistance.
Susanna made her face move. She felt the muscles stretch, unfamiliar and stiff. She lifted her gaze and let it meet Lisa’s. “Yeah,” she said, the word tasting of burnt things. “I do. It sounds… perfect.”
Lisa’s eyes searched hers, looking for cracks, for the ghost of the girl who tried to call for help. Finding none, she beamed. It was a radiant, terrifying thing. “I knew you would. It’s what we need. To reconnect.”
She got up, took her plate to the sink, and ran the water. She started washing the knife, her movements brisk, efficient. The domestic angel again. “We’ll take the back roads. I’ll drive. You can look at the trees.”
Susanna’s fingers tightened around her coffee mug. The heat was the only solid thing in the room. She looked past Lisa, past the sink, to the window over the fire escape. The morning light was struggling through the smudged glass, touching the bricks of the opposite building. It seemed like a picture of a world, not the world itself. A distant, untouchable tableau.
A whole weekend. In the quiet. With the woman who burned her words and kissed her wounds and owned the very air in her lungs.
Lisa turned off the tap, drying her hands on her shirt. “Finish your breakfast, baby. We’ve got a long drive ahead.”
Susanna took another bite. She chewed. She swallowed. She kept her eyes on that distant, dirty windowpane, and somewhere deep beneath the ache, a colder, quieter thing began to settle. A realization, as still as the lake they were headed toward.
There would be no pigeons to watch there. No phone booths. No witnesses at all. Just the two of them, and the endless, consuming trees.