Gemma is beginning to understand her place in this apartment, where she might fit, the three of them. Not completely, but some blanks are getting filled in.

With this also comes a latent understanding, something Gemma has subconsciously already known: if she ever wanted to quit drinking, and quit for good, she might be able to do that here. If she wanted to, she could do it here. With these two women, she could ask for their help and she could try.

Gemma has never felt that to be a real possibility with another soul. It feels nice.

“What was Tracy like?” Gemma asks.

Olive looks out the window, like she is deciding whether to answer. “She had a gorgeous voice. She was a beautiful singer. Legit talented. She was the kind of friend you could’ve seen actually making it, y’know?”

“Oh, wow.”

“Yeah. I miss her. Always do I miss her. Only one other person I’ve been that close to besides Ava. Well—”

A strange light, gleeful and mournful, suddenly flickers in Olive’s eyes.

“‘Person.’ Not always the right term, is it? But yeah, Tracy was something else. She helped me transition. And straight people didn’t do that in my day. I changed my name again after she died, actually. Being Adrienne—that was my first name—it was too tied to her. I dunno. I couldn’t deal with it.”

“Damn.”

Olive shrugs and sips her tea. She leans back against her headboard, settling. “So you’re gonna hang out in this town you grew up in. What’s that like?”

“Oh, shit. I don’t know. It’s been so long. Stuff’s different. Small towns aren’t supposed to change, but mine did. It’s grown, too; it was smaller when I was a kid.” Though as Gemma says this, she remembers the trick from yesterday, like a figure rising out of TV static.

Olive laughs and pulls up her blankets. “Give it time.” Gemma remembers, too, her thought on the roof seeing Ava walk toward her, and then the morning after as she waited for Ava to come out of her room: There is so very little I truly know about her. She feels this truth now, in its iron mesh of beauty and warning.

“I do have to go out for a bit.” Gemma stands. “Anything else we should talk about right now?”

“I don’t think so. Inbox me when you’re back. We’ll get you a key on Monday.”

“Cool.” Gemma opens the door and Olive says, “Oh. Gemma?”

“Hm?”

Olive’s face is turned to the window now, only her trails of grey-speckled hair visible over the covers as she speaks. “Waking up alone makes her sad.”

Gemma pops out onto South Railway in the sun. The skeeters aren’t that bad as she crosses through the grass, up and over the tracks. She picks up Pepto and ginger chews at Pharmasave, and then walks up to the road that leads to the highway. She leans against the railing of the MTS building as a prairie breeze ripples around her shoulders. Looking south, she can see their building from here, dwarfing all in town. When had they built that thing?