What if she’d really done something bad this time?

(Or had something happened with Olive? The lady had seemed kinda in a state.)

Stop, Gemma thinks. It’s all probably fine. Her instincts are telling her differently—but Gemma knows better. She has woken up enough times after blackouts with alarm bells crying wolf in her gut. She is aware that sometimes your instincts do not help you. She’ll check her phone for any clues, and if that reveals nothing, she’ll leave it be. She does wish she’d taken pictures, though. Stupid world she lives in. She has a device that takes limitless free photographs and she never uses it. When she was a kid, grade five maybe, her dad gave her a pocket camera for Christmas, and it felt like a magic wand that made her life beautiful. It had died a year later during recess, slapped out of her hands and into the snow. She’d been particular about what she snapped pictures of, in a very ten-year-old kind of way. Dishes in the sink. Her Opa’s record player in Roland, holding a still Burl Ives LP. The sapling planted years ago by the owners of the house on Nelson Street. Her father’s bedroom window and, beyond it, the sky.

She should’ve taken pictures last night. Oh well. Gemma towels off and changes into sleep clothes. She checks her phone for messages, calls, even her steps … nothing out of the ordinary. Everything’s fine, she soothes herself. Go back to bed. She opens the door and Ava is standing there, glaring in the dark.

“The fuck are you doing?” Ava says, pushing past her to the toilet. Gemma stammers. Her arm prickles where Ava made contact. Eventually, she echoes, “What am I do—”

“What?” Ava interrupts. She smiles mockingly with her mouth open.

“I wanted to shower,” Gemma says in a small voice.

Ava laughs, high-pitched and cold.

“Are you okay? Is everything okay?” Gemma says, her voice smaller

still.

Ava leans forward on the toilet. Her hair obscures her face. She has not looked at Gemma since she sat down. Finally, she says, “I’d like you to close the door, please.”

Gemma shuts the door. She looks at the dark living room. She feels like her throat is closing. She goes back to the bedroom and gets into bed with the covers unfolded above her knees, lying there like an open sandwich. She begins to hyperventilate. Which is bad. She knows she has to calm down. Only bad things will happen if she does not calm down.

Fortunately, Gemma is still nicely drunk. And so, she becomes calm soon.

Pictures. Minutes ago, she was thinking about pictures. She picks up her phone. What’s the last picture she took in the first place—

Wait.

Gemma focuses. What is this picture?

It appears to be of a hallway in the building. Aimed at a corner. The picture is filled with beige walls, plain white moulding at the bottom, the perspective as if she’d taken it sitting or lying on the floor.