No One Can Know

by Kate Alice Marshall

He wasn’t very good at reading people. That was one of the things she liked about him. She was keenly aware at all times how other people perceived her—

Daphne is twelve, and somehow both an “old soul” and “young for her age,” which means she doesn’t have many friends.

Haruspex.

Worry when it looks perfect, because that means you’ve caught up with your own ambition and judgment. Dissatisfaction is the engine of creativity.

“I’m married,” she told him. “And does he make you happy, Emma Palmer?” Logan asked, jokingly. “He makes me feel less alone,” she said. Logan fell silent, both of them startled by the answer.

She had a rule with Vic. No drinking alone, no drinking before five o’clock, never more than one drink.

“I’m okay,” she managed, more optimism than observed reality.

No one expects a fat woman in a paisley tunic and Crocs to be strong, but she spent her days moving patients and she’d always stayed fit, lifting weights so she could tend to her clients’ needs without strain. She liked lifting weights—getting strong, without all that obsession about looks and thinness.