It had been the longest day Mercy had ever been forced to live through. Her copy of the Prophet was on the table, mostly unread and covered in a giant brown stain from when she'd caught sight of the front page news and spat her coffee all over it. Her journal was on the side table, full of the most vitrolic comments she could ever remember directing toward people, especially people whom she sort of considered friends. But it had been necessary. She firmly believed it had been necessary. She couldn't handle their kindness and their sympathy and their desire to talk. She could barely handle the thoughts buzzing around her own head without adding other people's.
She was sitting cross-legged on the couch with her head in her hands, thinking of what she'd said to Toby and wondering why he couldn't have just been like Virginia, and ignored the whole mess, or like Ruby, and done something other than remind her that she was now a thing to be pitied, when she heard the double knock on the door. For the longest time, she didn't move, torn between pretending she wasn't home and simply leaving. But he had to know she was there; she had nowhere else to go and leaving was a bit out of the realm of possibility. Finally, she dragged herself to her feet and went to the door, resting her forehead against it and her hand on the doorknob though she refused to turn it just yet.
"What the fuck do you want?" she asked. It was an easy thing to sound vicious over the journals, her words carried weight and emotion there, but now she was just so tired that instead of sounding hostile, she just sounded numb.