Warning: please feel free to skip the first section, as it's a bit gory.

I do this thing where I think I'm real sick
But I won't go to the doctor to find out about it
Because they make you stay real still
In a real small space
As they chart up your insides and put them on display

They'd see all of it, all of me, all of it—

All of the good that won't come out of me
And all the stupid lies I hide behind
—Rilo Kiley, "The Good That Won't Come Out"

WHETHER YOU FALL

002

Sophie Grey does not know what to do when the baby comes.

Showers and blood-stained hands and the wet absolution of his mouth are at the forefront of her thoughts; the waterfront villa and the beach and the rocking motions of making love on a boat come after; and then an elevator, and her doom in his blue eyes.

Water. Flux, change, flow. Easy come, easy go.

It is a strange sensation, like the beginning of a period. Something like tearing, and blood, yes, and clots that she doesn't dare investigate too closely, and the gurgle of the hungry shower drain. When the cramps come she slides down the wet ocean-blue of the shower wall and sits, naked legs hugged to her chest, the fingers of one hand in her mouth, stifling the cries of the wounded animal inside her.

If she had lost something else he'd given her, like a valued book or a precious bit of jewelry, the pain would have felt the same. Vesper had never been clumsy with gifts, having realized the value and scarcity of generosity from a young age; perhaps Sophie takes things for granted. But his arm is not around her and he can't wash the blood away because he isn't there, and doesn't know, and would think she deserved it, anyway.

The bitch is dead, Sophie thinks.

Vesper just cries.

—

They look at her with wary eyes, her coworkers, in the weeks after she comes back from Montenegro. She doesn't try, anymore, to bait the moronic crowd of men around the coffee pot with fiery feminist rhetoric—she stays to herself, quiet, absent one charmingly exotic necklace about which her female coworkers constantly ribbed her.

There are more important people about which to speculate, now. Who she's trying to fool, or why, is anyone's guess. And they all think she looked better as a smoldering brunette with banked fires in her eyes, anyway.

—

Once, there was a time when Vesper would have spent a considerable portion of her salary on museum admittance or shows on the West End. Now, it's the park or book stores or public art galleries. Sophie takes her pleasures cheaply.

In the park, young twenty-somethings sitting side-by-side on a bench some distance away. They've got copies of the same textbook spread on their laps, but she's leaning over his lap and pointing, angling her head in such a way that her hair waterfalls over her shoulder, and even at this distance Sophie sees his eyes deviate from the text, wander to her neck. Can see with a hawk's eyes the flare of his nostrils as he takes in the girl's perfume wafting on the breeze.

He leans in for a quick kiss, landing sloppily on the border of her hairline and her cheek, and she pushes him away even as her laughter entices him closer. Idiot, Vesper wants to scream, don't, you think you're so young but you're dying a little every day, but Vesper's mouth is still full of Venetian water and she's so far down no one could hear her, anyway. Sophie shifts uncomfortably on the bench, crossing her legs tighter against the nippy breeze; pretends that the scene with the young lovers doesn't make her feel lecherous and vile and dazed with longing all at once.

Sophie bets that he brings candy to her dormitory, and she lectures him fondly not to wash his dark colors with his whites, and she wonders if James Bond was the candy type or the bouquet type before standing hurriedly, abruptly, and walking off, as fast as her snappy heels can carry her.

Another time, then. The same park, the same bench. Spring is tempestuous in London, and the breeze is nippier and she's carrying an umbrella, folded neatly into her bag. A couple passes by, and they've got a baby carriage. The man pushes the carriage with one hand, and his other arm pulls the mother of his child closer, and Sophie winces, blinking rapidly.

Only because it's such a sweet little picture, she tells herself, as her hand wipes at her eyes and comes back black-streaked with mascara. Only because divorce rates are so high, and they look so in love—

It's a wonder anyone makes it, after all.

Another day, and she's watching a homeless woman pick up aluminum cans and put them into a shopping cart. She's dressed in rags, and old enough to be Sophie's mother, and she wonders what it's like to walk around these unfriendly streets with no identity and no one to care. A homeless person, she thinks, may as well be dead, too.

"Excuse me, ma'am," Sophie murmurs, far more deferentially than Vesper might have. But one had to wonder if Vesper would have even taken the time. "I was wondering if you'd like to join me for coffee and a bite to eat."

But she's carrying a leather satchel, and her skirt suit has the cut of a respectable designer. The woman turns to Sophie Grey, apoplectic. "I don't need your charity, missy!" she rails. "I don't need your coffee!"

She and her shopping cart rattle off, and Sophie Grey stands there, at a loss, as the threatening clouds make good on their promise and open up.