The Girls I've Been(36)

But if the mayor touches Wes again . . .

My mind’s full of half-formed thoughts; I’m so rusty. It feels like the part of me that’s supposed to react fast and smart is atrophied, struggling to come alive in time. But my body takes over like it knows what to do. I’ve set a pan on the stove before I’m even thinking of the plan. I move over to the fridge, pulling out the vegetables from the crisper and whatever was wrapped in butcher paper on the bottom shelf. Don’t rush, I remind myself. I’ll get red if I hurry, and he’ll be looking at me close.

I grab the biggest butcher knife. Wes’s mom likes to cook, and her knives are beautiful. Handcrafted in Japan and sharpened lovingly and expertly. It would be so easy to . . .

I could . . .

No. I couldn’t.

I hear the honking sound of the mayor locking his car. He’ll be inside the house any minute now. I drizzle olive oil into the pan on the stove and then turn back to the cutting board. By the time his footsteps hit the hallway, I’ve chopped an entire onion and dumped it into the heating pan. It sizzles. I pray that Wes stays upstairs. If he keeps out of sight, I can pull this off.

“Wes, are you cooking some—” He stops short in the kitchen when he catches sight of me.

I look up from the carrot I’m chopping and give him a casual smile. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I want to scream at him. I want to stab him. I want so many things, and most of them are violent and all of them are terrifying, because I’m not supposed to be like that anymore.

I’m supposed to be Nora.

But I’m not right now. I fall right back into my old ways now that I’m awake—alive—again, now that I’ve got a plan.

“Nora, what are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry, did I startle you?” I ask. “Wes wasn’t feeling good, and there’s that flu going around. I came by to check on him. He was already asleep, so I thought I’d make him some soup for when he wakes up. Mrs. Prentiss said it was okay to use the ingredients. I called her.”

I go back to chopping the vegetables as the onions sweat on the stove. I keep an eye on him out of the corner of mine. He’s trying to decide what’s going on.

I sweep the carrots off the cutting board and into the pan with the flat of the knife and then go back to the counter to take care of the celery. “I’m going to make homemade noodles,” I continue, filling the eerie silence that’s taken over Mrs. Prentiss’s cavernous kitchen. The mayor’s just standing there, staring at me, wondering if I know. If I don’t. What to do in both scenarios.

“I didn’t realize you could cook, Nora,” he finally says. He moves farther into the kitchen as he talks, closer to me. My fingers curl tighter around the handle of the knife. How many steps would it take to get to the back door? Ten? Fifteen? I should know this. I should’ve counted.

“I can knit, too. My mother taught me both before she passed away.”

“Cooking’s a good skill to have.”

“Especially when you have a sister who works as much as mine. She’s so busy catching criminals and helping keep us all safe. The least I can do is make dinner a few times a week.”

He slows down at the mention of Lee. At the reminder: I have someone waiting for me at home. She’ll hunt him down and gut him with a paper clip if he hurts me.

The celery gets added to the pan, and I stir the softening vegetables around. The mayor settles down on a stool set on the opposite side of the kitchen island, and I grit my teeth. At least if he’s here with me, it means he can’t be upstairs with Wes.

I unwrap the chicken from the butcher paper and set it on the cutting board. He’s watching me so closely; I know if I take a deep, steeling breath like I want, he’ll notice. So I take the knife and begin to break down the chicken like Raymond taught me to do. I’m good with knives and I’ve never been squicked by raw meat, so teaching me the basics had been his way of bonding that first year, when he was still in hard-woo mode with Mom and me.

I slice the chicken apart, separating the flesh and bone and skin with the deftness of a surgeon, and when I glance up at the mayor, he’s staring down at my hands with surprising intent.

“My son told me you don’t hunt,” he says.

“I don’t,” I say, setting aside the chicken legs and wings before splitting the breast into halves. I switch to a smaller knife to trim some of the fat off.

“You sure know how to use a knife.”

“I just know how to cook.” And then, in direct contradiction to my statement, I twirl the little knife. It’s showy and it’s bitchy and I shouldn’t do it, but I do. Because I want to throw him. Because I’ve already decided: I’m going to gut him my own way.

He gets off the stool. “I should check on Wes.”

My hand closes over the butcher knife to my right before the words are completely out of his mouth. His eyes fall to my hand, and mine stay on his. I don’t make a move to chop at the chicken or disguise the fact that I’m holding on, because he’s right: I do know how to use a knife.

“That’s okay,” I tell him, that smile back on my face. That casual, naive smile. “You’re so busy, I’m sure you want to go straight to your office to relax. I can do it.”

But he pushes. Because they always do. Because you draw a line, and they’ll walk right over it. I know you, something that’s maybe purely me whispers inside. I’ll end you.