I don’t answer him. Instead, I stare at the door and imagine the kitchen counter on the other side where Hazel has been working for eight weeks straight to heal a girl she barely knows, because it’s the right thing to do. Because she’s stubborn as hell too. The women around me are all in the business of throwing themselves at the wall, again and again, until it breaks—or molds itself in their images. It’s a type of impatient living that I’ve never dared try.
