“Sorry about that.”

Ava shrugs and looks down again.

“Did that make you upset?” Gemma asks plainly.

Ava scrunches her eyes. “A little.”

“I understand. It’s okay to be upset about something like that.” Gemma feels very calm saying this. She has learned this too, about addiction. Running at the truth was the only debt-free way to modulate its destruction. “I’m sorry you had to take care of me in that way.”

“It’s okay.”

Ava goes back to tracing her finger around Gemma’s palm. “I think I like you more than I understand.”

“I like you a lot, too. Maybe you know this by now.”

Ava breathes out.

Tell her you feel something for her. Tell her you want to see this out. Tell her. Gemma opens her mouth as Ava says, “I don’t think you can stay here much longer. Do you have somewhere else you can go?”

Fuck.

“Yes,” Gemma lies.

“Cool,” Ava says, visibly relieved.

Gemma gazes at Ava with a face of glass. “Mind if I head out tomorrow?” she asks.

“Of course,” Ava says quickly. “One more night is fine.” They’re silent for a minute. “But tonight, uh, should we get up to something?”

“I could make dinner.” Gemma says this without thinking.

Ava breaks into a wide smile. “That’d be cool. What’ll you make?”

“I could do a Menno supper.” The T1s have definitely kicked in. Gemma’s brain is a smooth lake. “Wareniki and Foamavorscht.”

“Uh—”

“That’s Plautdietsch for perogies and sausage,” Gemma says. “But better.”

“Oh, I’ve had that stuff! Holly took me to the Don once.”

“Gotta love the Don,” Gemma says coolly.

Ava gets up. “Sweet. Been a while since we cooked anything real in here.” She gestures to the kitchen. “Use whatever you need.”

“Okay.” Gemma looks out the window as she hears the clack of the beads.

Alas, Gemma now has a new problem: she has no money for the groceries to make this meal.

Yes, she could’ve asked Ava. She could’ve asked for $50, and Ava probably would’ve immediately e-transferred her $100 with an insufferably sympathetic look on her face, and frankly, Gemma would rather get run over by a truck.

She resurrects an ad and posts her location. Yes I am actually here! One day only. She doesn’t actually expect to snag a boy, but. You know. A smart girl at least casts a line out.

She flits through her socials, and it is then that a veil of heaviness descends upon her. She’s leaving tomorrow. And she really has tapped out all the favours she can call on. Even if she can hitch back to the city, where is she gonna go? (She has no booze for tonight either, fuuuck.)

It’s so stupid. Gemma grew up in this town! Yet she’d had so few friends, and now, no family. Even the people who would’ve been nice to her—she just hadn’t stayed in touch, hadn’t wanted to, and now she recognizes no one; there’s no one …