The Expansion of the Universe

Thirty-Seven | "That's fair."

Liza wasn't sure when she'd fallen asleep.

All she could recall was that, in one moment, she'd been listening to Elijah cry from the outside of her condo's front door. In the next, she was blinking open bleary eyes to find Milo tucked against her side, where she was still slouched by the wall across from the front door.

She stared at the oak wood blankly.

How strange was it, that an inanimate object had become so critical to her existence? How was that a door, of all the damned things, had become the most important sign of safety to her?

For someone who had supposedly made so much progress, she still felt like a basket of craziness, just waiting to burst.

Thinking back to what had occurred with Elijah, she supposed that maybe she had already burst.

But no, that was Elijah's fault. He'd yelled at her. He'd verbally attacked her.

Scrubbing a hand over her face, she sucked in a shaky breath and looked down at Milo, scratching at his snout idly. "I think . . . I think we need to call Whitney." Whitney could talk her down. Although she felt somewhat more grounded, now that Elijah was out of her condo and she was reasonably confident that he wouldn't come back in, she knew that she was just one more unexpected sound away from crumbling apart once more.

"Yeah, we need to call Whitney," she repeated herself, standing carefully, only to teeter and nearly fall over the second she was upright. "And, and maybe we should eat something," she muttered.

A deep, rumbling sound echoed through the door abruptly, and Liza halted in place. Baffled, she exchanged a glance with Milo, grabbing onto the scruff of his neck to remain grounded in reality as she listened intently with swiftly rising concern.

What in the actual hell? What now?

The sound echoed again, before it seemed to stop sharply, and she blinked when another, even shorter snorting noise seeped through the oak.

It sounded almost like . . . snoring?

Oh, God.

The pieces of information fell together, and she gasped, raising a shaky hand to her mouth as she realized what she was hearing.

Elijah was still outside, and must have fallen asleep.

He was still outside.

Gulping, she chose not to dwell on this development, knowing that she needed to talk to Whitney before she did anything else. Whitney would be able to fix this. Whitney was capable of making sense of things, and Whitney would know what to do.

Yes, she would call Whitney.

She carefully returned to the safety of her bedroom with Milo's help, her laptop and charger tucked under her arm.

It took several minutes for her laptop to boot up, and she spent that time fidgeting with her blankets, her sweatshirt, and anything else that wouldn't cause her any physical harm. She counted, too, just like Whitney had taught her.

Five things to see: Milo, her laptop, the blue curtains covering her bedroom window, the closed door of her closet, and fan above her head, spinning in slow circles.

Four things to touch: Milo's soft fur; the denim of her loose jeans; the cool, smooth fabric of her comforter; the matted fuzz of her ancient sweatshirt; and the stiff, scratchy strands of her unbrushed hair.

Three things to hear: The fan above her head, clicking every time it made a full circle; Milo's gentle breaths by her knee; and her computer, buzzing and singing as it finally came to life.