Sublime

She walks home in a daze, thinking of the last thing Olivia said to her. “Gifts are fragile. You must never entrust yours to people who might break it.” She doesn’t say who she might be thinking of, and Barbara doesn’t need her to. She has what she needs and doesn’t expect to return to the Harris house again.

It wasn’t accurate to say she lost weight—it was more like she chased the weight off her body the way a farmer would chase a stray dog off his property. And like a suspicious farmer, Fawn still patrols the borders of her body, a shotgun propped in the crook of her elbow, ready to shoot any fattening food that tries to sneak back in.