Chapter Sixteen

Feeling for the edge of the bed and shifting her legs, Mira slid her feet to the tiles, as Layla got to her feet and padded across the room.

“If you could narrate what you are doing,” she said. “It would help me.”

“Of course,” said Layla, taking pause.

“Is that silly?”

After a moment of Mira picturing Layla gaping at her, her friend said, “Not at all. Okay, I’m getting a pair of jeans and a sweater off the chair in the corner of the room. These are mine, by the way. Your clothes become saturated in the chemical.”

Mira reached behind her back and pulled the string on her hospital gown, helping it to fall to the floor, as Layla approached with the jeans, setting the sweater on the bed.

“Here are your jeans, can you feel for them and get your leg through?”

“I think so,” she said, surprised to find herself smiling. “In a weird way this reminds me of being a kid. When I was little I used to close my eyes and bumble around my parents’ house pretending to be blind.”

“I feel like I used to