Paige woke up in Abby’s bed, alone. The pillows smelled like Abby, like that weird lavender shampoo she used. Paige’s clothes were still in a bag, on a bench by the wall. She didn’t remember falling asleep in Abby’s room, but with her face in Abby’s shoulder, bawling her eyes out.
Dignity was something that other people got to worry about, most likely while the objects of their affections weren’t bleeding from gunshot wounds.
Paige recognized how much privilege she had. She’d been born in Boston, one of her parents’ younger children. She hadn’t had to undergo the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. Guns and war were new to her, although she’d spent her whole life hearing about them. Her father had taken off when she was young because he couldn’t get the echoes of gun fire out of his mind.
In th
