Despite feeling like absolute garbage, I look good. I have no dark circles under my eyes. No blemishes. My hair is thick and dries almost instantaneously in perfect loose curls.

I dart into my room, hoping to avoid any interaction with Scarlett, or Reaper, though his bite from less than an hour ago has already healed.

I stand naked, running my hands over my skin.

“I’m okay,” I say to myself, but my voice is so hoarse, I sound possessed.

I cough, and the fit becomes so violent that it knocks me off-balance and suddenly I’m on the floor, retching on all fours.

Something slithers up from my esophagus and out onto the carpet.

It’s a rat tail.

I run back to the bathroom and hover over the toilet for the next hour so exhausted, I can barely form thoughts.

When I’m done, I pick up the rat tail with a wad of toilet paper and flush it. Then I get into bed and close my eyes, hoping that when I open them, I won’t remember any of the things that came out of me this morning.

—

I wake up sometime later, my head still hammering. I stumble out of bed and put on a pair of sweatpants, a bra, and some thick socks. I zip up a hoodie over my bra, and even that feels like too much effort. I slide down the stairs on my ass, too dizzy to keep upright.

I’m spent but starving. I yawn on my way into the kitchen.

“Hello.”

I gasp.

It’s my mother. She sits at the kitchen counter, drinking coffee from a to-go up, her suitcase beside her.

“You scared me,” I say. “Oh, shit.”

“That’s all right,” she says, jumping up to hug me. “My baby.”

She wraps her arms tight around me. She smells like Chanel No. 5 and French vanilla coffee and Virginia Slims and airplane. A hint of airplane bathroom. My sense of smell has become too keen.

“I’m sorry. I have a migraine,” I say. “I was supposed to pick you up. I slept in. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know, I know,” she says. “I figured. I took a cab.”

“I really am sorry,” I say.

She’s still hugging me. “No worries, baby.” She finally pulls away from me. “Look at you. I did something right with you girls, didn’t I? Gave you all my good genes. All your daddy’s good genes. None of the bad, none of the bad.”

My mother is beautiful. She takes great pride in her appearance. Her favorite thing now is to be asked if she’s our sister. I’m surprised she’s let her hair go gray, but it suits her. Highlights the green of her eyes.

She wears an elegant black trench coat, a gray turtleneck sweater dress, and ivory knee-high boots with a significant heel.

“You want Advil?” she asks me.

“I took some.”

“Water?”

“Had some.”

“Cigarette?”

“Sure. Why not?”

We sit on the front steps sharing a cigarette. It’s overcast, not as cold today as it was last night.