“El—” Elena starts, gently.
I turn too fast and regret it immediately, the room giving another small sway. I steady myself with my fingertips on the counter and force a smile that probably looks more like a grimace.
I set the pitcher on the counter carefully.
“I’m fine,” I say quickly. “Just feeling a little off today.”
Bianca doesn’t buy it for a second. She and Elena drift into the kitchen behind me,concerned.
Elena keeps her voice light. “How long has that been happening?”
“It hasn’t.” I shake my head. “It’s just… today. This week.” I swallow. “Stress.”
Bianca and Elena share a look again—the kind of look women share when they already know what the other is thinking.
“I don’t want you two to start,” I say, too sharp, because panic is already clawing up my ribs. “It’s been a week from hell. Anyone would feel sick.”
Elena doesn’t flinch. She stays calm in a way that makes me want to scream and cry at the same time.
“Elsa,” she says softly, “I’m not trying to scare you.”
“Then stop,” I say, and my voice cracks on the last word.
Bianca’s expression shifts into sympathy, and it makes me want to burst into tears. “Okay. We won’t. We’ll just… ask questions.”
I swallow hard.
Elena’s voice stays even. “When was your last period?”
Heat rushes up my neck. “Not that one.”
I grab the pitcher and turn away to walk back to the couch.
They follow.
“It could be stress making you feel sick,” Elena says, but she doesn’t sound like she believes that’s the whole story. “But the dizziness, and the nausea, and the way you went pale when you stood up, it’s all a little too familiar.”
“I’m emotional,” I blurt, grasping for something that feels safer. “I’ve been… so emotional lately.” I gesture vaguely to my face, to my stupid tear ducts. “This isn’t normally me.”
Bianca’s eyes soften. “Honey, you don’t have to apologize for being human.”
My eyes sting immediately, and I hate it. I hate that my body is doing this again, like a faucet I can’t fix.
“I’m not—” I start, then my throat closes.
Elena steps closer, not touching me, just near enough that I don’t feel alone on the edge of some cliff. “Talk to me,” she says. “Is this how you typically handle stress?”
“I—” No. No, it isn’t. “This is different. This isn’t a meeting with a new client or a deadline on a big project. I’ve just never dealt with anything like this before, so the stress is different.”
But in the back of my mind, I know that’s not true. Maybe it wasn’t exactly like this, but I remember a time when I was in a situation where I felt unsafe and betrayed.
The floor of my agent’s dark office. Boxes full of letters sitting in front of me.
My stomach flips hard enough, and the nausea rolls through me sohard, I have to sit.
Reading the horrible things those people wrote to me. The things they wanted to do with me, wanted to dotome. And not all of them were sexual. Some of them were sick fantasies. Murderous, torturous.
I had a panic attack right there after a particularly bad one. I had more than one in the days that followed, just remembering them.