Sometimes, you had to let these things slide. This wasn’t one of those sometimeses. “You realise there’s a middle ground between ‘the way you’re approaching this isn’t helping me’ and ‘I think you’re Satan’?”

Silence, broken only by the storm outside. The hail had become snow now—the kind of driving snow that piles flurries against anything standing still, and dances ghosts outside the window.

“If …” Liza trailed off. There was no good way to say this. No good way to start it, and no good way to continue it after she’d started. “If I said we should split up, how would that make you feel?”

Hanna looked up, her eyes searching. “What do you mean?”

“Like … if I said we should split up, and you were like … if that was like a relief or something …”

Silence and snow again. For a long time. Liza could feel her heart in her chest, not pounding exactly, just … there, drawing her attention in a way she couldn’t quite remember it doing before.

When Hanna spoke again, it was very slow, very quiet, and very measured, like she was afraid she might scare something away. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Just—just pretend I am for a second. How do you feel?”

“Sick.” The answer was gratifyingly fast but unsettlingly sharp. “Is that what you want me to say? I feel sick. Happy?”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean, I feel sick too, which is … good, I think?” Good was relative, of course. A part of Liza wished she hadn’t taken them down that road, but another part—perhaps a braver part—hoped confronting the worst would make the shock and the nausea worth it. “I was just … I remember reading or hearing or something that if it’s just over and you admit it’s just over then it’s like—it’s like a weight comes off and you’re just—you’re just free. But I don’t feel like that; I just feel scared and cold, and like I want to die all of a sudden.”

Hanna was lying very still. She’d closed her eyes, like she’d also decided that dying might be a decent idea. “Is this you being helpful?”

“Kind of?”

“Even when you’re practical you’re dramatic.” Hanna’s tone was withering.

“I was just trying to—I don’t know—confront us with the reality of the situation or something.” This wasn’t the sort of conversation you could have when you were both facing the ceiling. Liza rolled awkwardly onto her side. “I don’t want to lose you, and I think us is worth fighting for.”

For a moment, Hanna made no reply; she just lay there breathing softly. “And what does that look like?”

“I don’t know.”