"Next month will be a year." She reached up with one thin hand, the heel of her palm rubbing at one reddened eye. She was not on the cusp of tears, as she would later be when relating this tale to her sister; rather, what she felt was on the precisely opposite end of the spectrum, a kind of hollow emptiness and ragged fear that left her too worn out for such sensitivity. "I didn't speak to anyone til after Christmas. My family were still all back in Chicago... Fee hadn't moved here yet. At first I thought what I felt was homesickness, nothing else." She lowered her hand, lacing her fingers tightly together where she rested them on the table. "It started with the ocean. I'd go jogging there and it would sound like Lake Michigan back home. So inviting." She drew a deep breath, realizing too well how she sounded. But he asked for the story, and now he would get it.
"Then in February I kind of..." She flushed, remembering quite clearly her humiliating lack of control. It seemed she could still feel Shae's arms around her, dragging her inland, away from the surf. What had ever possessed her to think she could swim there, with the Coast Guard's boat circling as predatory as the sharks beneath the surface... "I lost it. The ocean almost had a voice, and I couldn't stay away. Another tenant pulled me to shore. I don't know what I would've done without him."
She pulled a hand through her hair, not noticing the sharp pull at her scalp when her nails caught an errant tangle. "Then the dreams started. I barely sleep at all anymore, they're so bad. I can't eat. I smell things in my apartment: sulphur, ozone, smoke. I see things out of the corner of my eye, shapes and shadows of moving things." She chewed her tongue, but she had already said too much to back out now. "Things have gone missing. I'm a very organized person, Mr. Sandoa. I'm very particular about my things. And suddenly I can't find my keys, my hairbrush, the book I was reading..."