There she was in his giant shower, backed into a corner and naked, her arms plastered to the tile walls like he was holding a gun at her. There was a gash on her head just past her hairline, a sharp one. The water made the blood spatter so much worse, as it caught and diluted and flowed all over her, spreading down her head and all over her body like watercolor.

“Please, no!” she begged him, her eyes wild. “Please don’t, please don’t!”

Kaveh stared at her in mute horror, unable to make sense of it and already half convinced that some form of alien mind control had snapped her. The tile seat on the other side of the shower also had some blood dripping from it, likely the source of the gash.

“Please, no!” she cried, her breath coming in harsh, fast shrieks. “Please, no! Please, no!”

“Cora, it’s me!” he said, slamming the shower handle off.

“Please, no, don’t, no, don’t!”

He knelt in front of her, palms forward. “It’s me, you’re home, you’re at my house. I’m not going to hurt you!”

“No, don’t, no, don’t, don’t make me, don’t make me—”

“Don’t make you what?”

“Don’t make me leave!” She grabbed her hair violently. “Don’t make me leave, don’t put me in an institution, please don’t make me leave!”

“I need to get you to the ER,” he said in as gentle a voice as he was capable of in that moment, which was not very. “Honey, you’re bleeding.”

She pulled a hand away from her hair, saw the blood on it. “Oh no, oh no!”

“It’s okay!” he said, threading his arms under her armpits, trying to get her to stand, but she wouldn’t budge. Her body was stiff like she’d already gone into rigor mortis.

“Please, no, please don’t make me leave, please don’t send me away!”

“Listen, I don’t want to go to the hospital, either. They’re going to think I did this.”

“No,” she whispered, her breath gaining momentum. “No, no, no, no, no!”

“Listen—”

“They’re going to put me away, just like the air force doctor wanted to, they’re going to put me away!”

“Listen to me!”

“They’re going to take me away from you. If they don’t take me away, they’ll think you did it!”

“Shut up!” She cowered, closing her eyes and becoming quiet. “Yes, they are going to think I did it.”

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no, no . . .”

“Here is the thing. We’re going to have to lie about this. I don’t want you committed, either, but they only call in a 5150 if you’re a danger to yourself or others. Do you understand?”

She kept her eyes closed and shook her head rapidly, like a bobblehead on a spring.