“Maybe you have a fever.” She tried to feel Rose’s forehead.

“Lay off!” Rose snapped. It wasn’t just getting over the flu, it was something going on inside that had nothing to do with being sick. A gnawing sensation, as if she’d forgotten something extremely important and remembering it was a matter of life or death. She tried to apologize, but Grace said not to worry about it, she understood. Her understanding only made Rose feel crankier.

At lunch she said she didn’t want to sit near Gregory and Company. She didn’t want Daniel looking at her red nose and sweaty face. Grace looked relieved instead of disappointed. “He still hasn’t said a word to me,” she confided. “I hope he remembers to show up for our date.”

“You’re sure he really made a date?” Rose asked. And when Grace looked confused, she plunged ahead. “I mean, it wasn’t a figment of your airhead imagination?”

It took a lot to make Grace angry. In fact, in all the years of friendship, Grace probably hadn’t been angry more than twice, and that was only when they were kids fighting about sharing toys. But now her face darkened in a way Rose had never seen before. Her lips became a tight line. Rose knew she’d overstepped the mark. The funny thing was, she couldn’t care. The gnawing had grown into something frightening inside her and she felt as if she might explode.

Grace methodically continued eating her lunch with lowered eyes. Rose watched her sticking the tines of the fork into a piece of gooy mayonnaise-covered chicken, raising the fork to her mouth, sticking the chicken in between her lips, chewing, swallowing. It was the most disgusting sight she’d ever seen. She wanted to grab Grace by the hair and shove her face down into the plate.

“Gotta go to the bathroom,” she mumbled and rushed away from the table. She had to get out of there fast, before the demon inside her made her do something terrible.

It was like a demon. Like something inside her body, a pressure building and building.

She went to the basement ladies’ room where nobody ever hung out at lunchtime and shut herself in one of the stalls. She sat there, just trying to catch her breath.

The pressure was like a festering noise now, building to a deafening crescendo.

“What do you want?” she shouted, not caring if anyone came in and heard. There was no answer. Only the small sound of one of the faucets dripping.

And then the smell.

Something decaying, putrid. A rancid yet sweet smell of blood that she could almost taste.