Page 27

I know the voice before I turn.

Astrid stands in the corridor doorway with a paper cup in one hand.

I’ve been awake since yesterday morning and I have nothing left to put in front of my face, and she chooses this exact moment to walk into a room I’m in.

She has her sleeves pushed up. Her hair is coming down on one side.

I feel that land in my chest and then a long way south of it, and I have the sense that I’m in actual trouble. Her eyes go to me, then to the girl beside the printer.

“Tova, how is the hand?”

Oh.

The kid looks from her mother to me.

“You know him?”

Astrid takes a drink. “He was standing in a doorway when I needed to leave.”

“Your mother assaulted me with a bag.”

Tova studies my right shoulder. “You said the rest of you was gorgeous.”

Astrid’s gaze comes back to my face.

“I am beginning to understand the injury history.”

I laugh before I can help it.

Tova holds out the wrapped hand when Astrid crosses the room. Astrid sets the coffee down, checks the swelling, then asks her to make a fist.

Tova gets halfway there.

“Better,” Astrid says.

“Colt says hands are the wrong tool.”

Astrid looks at me.

“That needs context,” I say.

“He said if someone grabs me, I use my elbow to make room and then leave.”

Astrid keeps her hand beneath Tova’s wrist. “Did he.”

“Not to finish anything,” I say. “Get loose. Get to an adult. That’s the whole job.”

She holds my gaze for a second.

“Good.”

I put a hand over my chest. “I’d like Gabi to write that down.”

“No.”

“Cruel workplace.”

Astrid rewraps the hand. Tova watches her fingers.