“I mean it,” she said again. She wasn’t hungry anymore. She set her plate down on the floor and stood, turning to look out the front window at the dark. Raindrops sparkled on the outside surface of the glass, catching the lamplight from the room. She could see JJ reflected in the window, too, the image of him bending and breaking in the drops of water, could see and feel him, watching her.

After a minute, he took his eyes off her and went back to eating. She could hear his fork clinking against the plate. “I think you’re lying,” he said then, between bites.

She turned to him. “I’m not,” she said.

“Look, Anne, it happened just on my way home yesterday. This girl looking at me all hot and bothered, until she realized my leg’s gone. And that’s the first time I’ve been out in the world since it happened. I just mean, my prospects aren’t looking so good.”

Anne folded her arms, embarrassed. “Well, maybe not every girl, then, JJ. Or maybe she’d have to get to know you first. I’m not saying that no one would be bothered by it.”

“But you wouldn’t?” he said.

“I don’t know.”

He smirked. He set his plate on the bedside table, grabbed his pack of cigarettes. He lit one.

“I just don’t think it’s hopeless, that’s all,” she said quietly, still uncomfortable. “Is that all you’re going to eat?” she said, to change the subject. He had left more than half of the food she had given him.

She took their dirty plates downstairs, washed up what dishes there were, and put the food away. They’d hardly made a dent in the turkey, and there wasn’t room for it in the refrigerator, so she wrapped it up well and set it on the back porch, checking to make sure the door to the outside was latched tightly to keep out any hopeful raccoons.

As she slipped back inside the kitchen, she realized she had not put the picture of JJ’s blue eyes and arch smile out of her mind the entire time she’d been downstairs. She shook her head, and went to scrub the sink. She hoped that Harry would get back soon. She should have gone with him, she realized. She was going to marry him, for goodness’ sake—she should be at his side. And there was something about JJ that frightened her, even as she felt his strange magnetism pulling her closer.

She scrubbed and scrubbed at the sink, the counters, the stove top, as though she could scrub off the tracks he had already made on her, as surely as if his fingertips had walked across her skin.

If I ever get out of this place, I’m not ever coming back, she thought. Not with Harry, not at all. Ever.