The Long Count
Read the storyEveryone else is down. Heath has been sitting on the edge of his bed in the dark for almost twenty minutes. Alyssa is facing the wall, breathing too evenly to be asleep. He knows that rhythm. She’s awake and choosing not to move. He keeps turning the same thought over: she has the numbers if she wants them. She has the soft ones. She has the ones who still feel bad about Dari. He can feel the shape of a vote forming somewhere in the house even if no one has said it out loud yet. Several names make more sense than his. That doesn’t mean she’ll pick the sensible one.