Chapter 24

I wake up in bed, tucked in nice and cleanly with a nightdress on and a much clearer head; I feel less unwell yet still fragile and bruised with a lingering temperature. That cotton wool head is not as severe, and my throat no longer feels like razor blades are lodged in the passage. I think it must have been a virus and last night it hit its peak with a little help from a New York thunderstorm. This is what my body does, it gets sick and lingers for days and then WHAM like a flash flood it will spike, knock me for six for an intense twelve hours and flush it out of my system. It's how I have been my whole life. I jump when a girl wanders through from the bathroom and smiles at me, catching me completely by surprise as I assumed I was alone. She looks no more than a teenager and I gawp at her with complete suspicion, no idea who she is or why she's wandering the apartment like some sort of candy-striper. ''Who are you?'' I blink at her defensively, struggling to si