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I wake up kicking and sweating Rowan is standing next tomy name

I stare at her It takeshard "Hey"

"Are you okay?"

I s, my throat totally dry, and then nod "Yeah Bad drea, or crying or soe of it, facing me

"I was?" My brain is a cotton ball

She nods in the dark "You kept saying, ‘Listen to hted pieces of it aren’t fitting together anyure out Are you still sick?"

I continue to untangle myself frooing to school, about seeing Sawyer, about the vision everywhere,up "Yeah," I decide "I’ht in the rooain, and I feel refreshed, like I’ve slept a hundred years Rowan is gone, the house is quiet, and the first doughy s up from below I sit up and check the clock It’s al My head feelsI don’t know Less heavy or so, but it’s a kind of restlessness Like s won’t stay still

I get up and stretch, testingfear to take over, but it doesn’t The fear is still there, all right, but it’sI don’t know More eable Softer,lately, but today it is less in-your-face It stays in the background, and I can actually think around it I don’t even know if that makes sense, but that’s how it feels

I pad softly to the kitchen and toast a bagel in the quiet It’s so strange to be the only one up here So nice I takerooown I sit there and soak in the sounds of the street below--a garbage truck, an occasional honk of a horn, an exuberant Italian greeting a friend now and then

I think about the sno again and close my eyes to ward off the panic, but the panic doesn’t come, only a controllable fear, one that I can handle Iwhere the cal it out with Trey last night, or the night out for me in my subconscious, like Mr Polselli talked about once in a section on drea else Maybe it’s cohtto give me directions now and then if I would only listen

I think about that for a long ti shower With one bathrooh ti so luxurious But today I stand here, eyes closed, letting the water beat down and the steas I wash rease out of h it At one point, thinking about the conversation yesterday with Trey, about how he and Dad thought I was pregnant, I just shake h

But then rade, and tohim The water burron on my lips, my neck My collarbone I turn my hips slowly side to side, and suddenly I can feel every thread of waterit coood souess I needed it to feel good today, and it does I let out a heavy sigh, and ainst the current, up hs and over my hips, my stomach, to my breasts, and back down When the water starts to turn cool, urgent heat keeps me war off my hair I squeeze hs, and I just crouch there, feeling soaround me, insideall-ness of it

A painful longing takes over my skin and bones, and I ain It exhilaratesenough to halt and restart my breath a dozen times, and I’m almost too cold to turn it off

I think it shockedI stand in the tub for afrorief inside I think about hoeird it is that loving souess it’s that pain that means you’re alive, and love and pain are soso twisty I wonder if love would feel as good if there wasn’t any pain I don’t think it could So I guess that’s kind of what

It’s so bizarre, but I feel like I grew up in this one moment

Beforebecorimness of my task, I can’t believe I’ve let soI have been mysteriously tasked to do