NOLA
The morning sun is a cruel, blinding white that does nothing to warm the ice in my veins. I didn’t sleep; I sat by the window of my bedroom, watching the fog roll off the lawn and waiting for the world to start making sense again. As the light hits the grass, all I can see are the dark, flattened patches where the dew hasn’t settled. They are odd, heavy indentations that lead from the terrace into the deep shadows of the woods.
Rhett is silent on the other side of my door, a presence I can feel like a low voltage hum. I wait until I hear the distant sound of a shower running in his wing before I slip out. My bare feet are silent on the hardwood. I don’t go toward the kitchen; I go toward the terrace.
The air outside is freezing, smelling of damp earth and something metallic that ma
