Page 107 of How To Not Need You

Harper sets the wine on the coffee table and perches on the armchair opposite me. She’s wearing her glasses and the expression she uses when she’s about to be relentlessly reasonable. I hate that expression. I hate it because it usually works.

“Jake spoke to Luca” she says. “Megan’s water was off. She asked if she could use his while he was at the station. That’s it. That’s the whole story.”

“Right.” I pull the blanket back up to my chin. “That’s what she’d say.”

“She didn’t say it. Jake said it. After he got off a sixty-hour shift and found out what happened.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“No, it isn’t.” Harper’s voice stays calm. Infuriatingly calm. “One is an explanation from the person who was there. The other is a conclusion you jumped to without asking a single question.”

Elsie settles on the arm of the couch beside me, close enough that her hip presses against my shoulder. She’s warm. I hate how warm she is. She nudges my knee with her own, gentle and deliberate.

“He’s been calling all of us,” she says. “He’s worried about you.”

“Good for him.”

“That’s not fair.” Her voice is soft. It’s worse than Harper’s calm. Harper’s calm makes me want to argue. Elsie’s softness makes me want to disappear into the blanket.

Luca is pacing now. Back and forth across my living room rug, gesturing with both hands in outrage.

“You are torturing yourself,” he announces, “over something you haven’t even confirmed. You saw a woman in a towel. You ran. You’ve been sitting in this apartment for two days eating sad pizza and ignoring your phone like it personally betrayed you.” He stops pacing to point at me. “You haven’t asked him a single question.”

“I don’t need to ask questions to know what I saw.”

“What you saw was what’s her name..”

“Megan.”

“…whatever, using a shower. That’s it. That’s the entire surveillance report. Woman. Towel. Shower. The end.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is exactly that simple. You’re making it complicated because you’re scared.”

The word hits me like a slap. I am not scared. I am cautious. I am reasonable. I am sitting in the same pyjamas I’ve been wearing for two days with pizza sauce on my chest and a blanket pulled up to my chin because I am completely, entirely, one hundred percent fine.

“I’m not scared,” I say. The words come out smaller than I want them to.

Harper’s expression doesn’t change. “Yes, you are. And that’s allowed. But sitting here making up endings to a story you haven’t finished reading isn’t protecting you. It’s just keeping you miserable.”

“Maybe I like miserable.”

“You don’t.” Elsie’s hand finds my ankle beneath the blanket. Her fingers are warm. “You like control. This isn’t control. This is hiding.”

“I’m not hiding. I’m processing.”

“Process faster,” Luca says. “Some of us have an investigation to run.”

I glare at him. “You have an unhealthy enthusiasm for other people’s personal lives.”

“We have a duty to find evidence to protect Natalie… and maybe Matthew.”

“You have photographs and a napkin Ben drew on.”

“That napkin contains important information.”

“It contains a drawing of a car that looks like a potato.”