Face Of The Monster

***18***

Phoebe Kim needs to get out of the house and she knows it.

She and Chloe have been closed up inside all day, cuddling and sleeping and talking sometimes. Phoebe has been reading to Chloe from a book they both enjoyed as children and now they are stuck together on the bed, crying. Phoebe's stomach growls, but she doesn't want to eat if Chloe can't. Neither of them have changed out of their nightshirts.

Phoebe needs to get out of the house, but when the doorbell rings, she ignores it. She closes the book and puts it on the nightstand. Chloe is crying too hard to be listening, anyway. She leans her head on Phoebe's chest and closes her eyes.

By the time the phone rings, Chloe has drifted into a fitful sleep. Phoebe carefully moves out from under her and grabs the phone. "Hello?" she says, a bit annoyed. Chloe has barely slept all week. That call could have just woken her up.

"Phoebe? Hi. It's Emma." Her annoyance dissipates, replaced by a strong, potent onslaught of worry. Emma's voice is quiet, thick with tears. "I'm outside."

"Oh, that was you." Phoebe rips open her closet door, yanking on a pair of jeans. She darts into the bathroom and begins combing through her hair. "Okay. I'll be right down." Phoebe lets her hair stay down, no longer heavy and straight as it was before. Now, the locks are feathery and light, each making its own layer. She runs her hand through it, admiring what Emma has done. She puts on some deodorant, a spritz of perfume. Brushes her teeth.

When she checks back on her, Chloe is still asleep. She looks troubled, her sleeping face twisted with discomfort. Phoebe closes the door.

She walks carefully down the stairs, feeling shaky from lack of food. Perhaps she will eat something with Emma. She ambles to the front door and pulls the lock. Opening the door, she grins at the woman standing on her front porch. A starburst of happiness goes off in her stomach, even if it is soon doused in the toxic slosh of dread that lives beneath her ribs."Come in, come in," she says. "Don't you look lovely tonight?"

Emma offers a weak smile, following Phoebe into the living room. "Thanks."

"Would you like something to eat?" she asks. She feels herself leaning on Emma before she realizes she's doing it. "I think I'm going to get something. I haven't eaten all day. Feeling a little wobbly."

Emma doesn't return her breezy tone. She locks her arm around Phoebe's waist and guides her toward the kitchen. "That's not healthy," she says, lowering Phoebe onto a stool beside the kitchen counter. "You've got to eat something. What would you like?"

"Let me--"

"No, I'll do it. You sit."

So Phoebe directs Emma through the mechanics of their coffee pot and guides her to the surplus of home-baked pastries in the fridge. After a minute, they settle down at the kitchen table across from one another, a Tupperware container of cream cheese croissants between them like a centerpiece. Phoebe sees spots in her eyes, perpetuating her dizziness. She takes a croissant and devours it in three bites.

Once she has something inside her stomach, Phoebe comes to her senses. "Oh, Emma," she sighs. "I completely forgot. Enrique started his surgery today, didn't he?" Emma nods. "Is he doing alright?"

Emma takes a pastry, stalling before she has to answer. "I don't know," she says after a long minute of chewing. "I left. I just . . . I hate the hospital. Everyone's just so miserable."

Phoebe nods. She knows this firsthand. She'd had half a mind to leave Chloe there, too, but in the end she managed to stick it out while they ran the tests. Now, she feels a wash of gratitude for the comfort of being in her own home.

"They'll call me if something goes wrong," Emma says. She shudders. "If. If. Can we talk about something else?"

"Of course we can." Phoebe rips into another croissant. They're delicious, if not tainted by the knowledge that Chloe made them with angry tears rolling down her face because Phoebe wouldn't let her go outside to sit in the sun. That's all I'm asking for, Chloe had griped. Just a few minutes. I hate being stuffed up in here all day.

But if Phoebe knows one thing about Lupus, it's that the sun doesn't help. She wraps her fingers around her coffee cup, looking out the glass-paned sliding door beside the kitchen table. Maybe she'll take Chloe out later, once the sun has tucked itself away for good.

Phoebe turns her attention back to Emma. "How are the kids doing?"

"Not that, either."

"Fine." Phoebe takes another bite, pondering the rest of what she knows about the woman sitting across from her. "I liked the last chapter of your story," she says. "It was very sweet."

Emma blushes a furious red. "Thanks," she mumbles.

Phoebe thinks of Agatha, of the chains that embrace her wrists and the burning pendants that hang from her ears. "I hope you know that you aren't hurting me, Emma," she says. "I don't want you to think you're causing me pain."

"But how could I not be?" Emma asks. She won't look Phoebe in the eye. "If you really do feel the way you say you do, then it should hurt."

Phoebe nods. It does hurt. She's lying if she says otherwise. Every time she sees Emma, there is a flare of sharp pain that accompanies the warm feeling of love. It's a pain that comes from the burden of secret keeping, the burden of restraint. She wants to hold her, comfort her, kiss her, be with her, but she can't. They're separated by an invisible barrier, one that might as well be made of burning steel. Phoebe can't seem to cross it without enduring the searing pain of pulling away again.

"I know, Emma," she says. "And you're right. It does hurt. What I mean is that you shouldn't feel responsible. Whatever pain I feel is a result of my choices, not yours."

Emma offers a weak smile. "You really do sound like her, don't you?"

It takes Phoebe a moment to realize Emma is referring to the character in her story. Agatha. "I suppose I do, don't I?"

Emma takes Phoebe's hand, absently stroking her wrist. "Is Chloe upstairs? Or is she still in the hospital?"

"No, she's here. Sleeping. She's going to be okay."

Tears spring to Emma's eyes. She doesn't bother to wipe them away. "I'm sorry," she says. "I just don't know what I'm going to do if . . . if I lose him. I still love him, Phoebe. I need him to survive this."

Phoebe recalls Lillian's words about Gabriel, how their love is a constant pulse that keeps her alive. She supposes this is how Emma feels about her husband. Their love is no longer voluntary, no longer exciting, but necessary. "He'll survive," she tells Emma. "Medicine has gone so far in the past few years. These surgeries are safe."

"Not one hundred percent," Emma sniffles. "I'm worried."

Phoebe thinks of Chloe upstairs, her sleeping face tear stained and troubled. "So am I."