it’s cold, she thinks, and brushes the tips of gloved fingers up the length of her arm as if it’s enough to make a difference. she’s always cold -- feels it creep up her fingertips like a spider, ‘til it runs down her spine again. 

(when there are things you try and forget, the world has its own cruel ways of cementing them in your life -- you live in the present, and hope and think that if you hope and think enough, you won’t have to remember it, and steve writes a whole fucking franchise about your family trauma. nice work, big bro.)

          “it’s just a fucking house.”      there’s a copy -- hardback, well-thumbed -- on the desk between them and theo barely remembers the last time she sat down with half a bottle of whiskey and turned the pages like she was pulling teeth. one at a time. it didn’t happen like that. there goes her molar. then the incisor. steve chews this shit up and shits out tumult like he knows what he’s talking about.