“I so glad yuh okay.”
Aloe stroked her head. “Same. I wasn’t sure we were going to make it out of all this.” He sighed and turned to touch his forehead to hers. “I decided that I’m not going to work with Assata anymore.” He said it like he’d long since decided, but had been waiting to say it out loud so it could become real.
Bitter leaned up on her elbow so she could look into his face. “Why not? Yuh love that work, and from what Ube said, they still have a lot of work to do. Don’t they need you?”
Aloe was staring at the ceiling. “I need myself more, and besides, I don’t have to be with Assata to heal.” His voice shook a little, and Bitter could hear something tense and angry behind it.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, slightly afraid of what she might find in his answer.
He shrugged. “I’m just tired. Fuck the frontline shit. You know they still don’t have a count of how many people died while the angels were here?”
At least six, but definitely more, Bitter thought, with a pang of sour guilt. “Ube told me they’re still figuring it out.”
“You were right not to hunt with them.” Aloe looked at her, and his eyes were small storms. “I’m sorry I didn’t understand.”
She ran her fingertips over his cheek. “Doh worry about it. It’s okay now.”
“Nah.” He shook his head, and his eyes slid away from hers. “It’s really not. I spent this morning patching up a bunch of kids who were at the park. Their parents didn’t understand what the angel was about to do, and they got banged up in what was lowkey a stampede afterwards. You know how much therapy they’re going to need? I can’t do this anymore.” Aloe paused for a moment too long. “I don’t know if I’m going to stay at Eucalyptus either.”
Bitter had been trying to think of how best to comfort him when she felt so bereft herself, but at that, she jerked away in surprise. “What? Why?”
“I’m thinking of transferring to a regular school. Maybe I can become, like, a nurse or a paramedic or something. Don’t really wanna be a doctor, but I want to be close to the people.”
Bitter was confused and starting to feel betrayed. He wasn’t making sense. “How is that different from leaving Assata if yuh just going to do the same shit? Why you need to leave Eucalyptus to do it?”
Aloe sat up, annoyed. “It’s not the same shit if I’m helping civilians. They’re the ones getting fucked over the most when shit like this happens.”
Panic flurried up inside Bitter, ignoring her attempts to tamp it down. If he was leaving the school, what did that mean for them? Was she also part of this world he was trying to leave? She couldn’t gather the courage to ask him that.
“I just need some time to think about things,” Aloe was saying. “I’m going to go with Eddie to that farm her girlfriend’s working on, just for a little bit.”
“What? Yuh leaving?” He was leaving, not just Eucalyptus, but her. He was leaving her right when she needed him most, leaving her just like Eddie, leaving with Eddie, in fact.
Aloe didn’t seem to notice the hurt in her voice. “It’ll be a few days, max.”
Bitter couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You eh even talk to me about it!”
“Bitter, you were unconscious for a whole night! And I was right here the whole time, right by your side. I just need to go take care of myself now.” Aloe frowned, looking upset. “I didn’t think I needed your permission for that. I thought you’d understand.”
His words made sense, but Bitter couldn’t stop, couldn’t take them in. With all the secrets about Eucalyptus and Miss Virtue out, with Eddie walking away and Mr. Nelson dead and a rising death count all because she’d asked for Vengeance? She felt horribly unmoored, like all her anchors had dissolved into the water and now Aloe was pushing her boat out to sea.
“So yuh just going to walk away? Real supportive behavior.” Her voice was so caustic, she could barely recognize it.
Aloe flinched and pulled away from her, getting up from the bed. “I’ve had your back this whole time, Bitter, through everything. Even after you called up an angel and didn’t tell me shit. I put my feelings aside because you were going through it and you needed me.” He grabbed his jacket from the bed. “Just because I take care of everyone doesn’t mean I don’t deserve to be taken care of too, Bitter. I’m going to let you rest.”
“Aloe, wait—”
He glanced at her from the doorway, already halfway out. “I love you, but I can’t do this right now. I’ll see you in a few days.”
The door shut with a solid click behind him, and Bitter stared at it in shock for several seconds before curling up in the unfamiliar bed and dissolving into sobs.
*
When Bitter finally returned to Eucalyptus, it was a blazing relief to her. She’d never been so eager to be back in her room. Blessing and Alex had cleaned it up before her arrival, getting rid of the charred panel Vengeance had come through, rearranging the furniture, and filling the room with fresh flowers so the space could feel like something safe when Bitter reentered it. They changed her sheets to a flowered cotton set from the linen closet and filled her pillows with lavender. Bitter hugged her friends tightly when she saw it all; then the girls waited as she took a shower for an hour, standing numbly as the hot water blasted around her. When she came out, Blessing shaved her head and patted it dry with rose water before Bitter climbed into bed. “That’s enough from allyuh,” she said. “I good from here.”
“You sure you gonna be okay?” Blessing asked.
Bitter squeezed her hand. “Yuh done too much, even. Please go and rest.” As supportive as Blessing tried to be, she couldn’t hide the dark circles under her eyes and the sadness that had settled into the bones of her face. Alex looked worn out and close to fracture; all of them had paid a toll. They hugged Bitter and left, and Bitter pulled her covers over her head as soon as they were gone. She still hadn’t heard from Aloe.
She stayed like that for the next few days, only leaving her bed to take perfunctory showers and eat once in a while. Blessing kept checking on her over text, and Bitter kept lying that she was doing great, insisting that her best friend stay cocooned with Alex. It would be better for Blessing that way, to be in the arms of the person who loved her. She didn’t need to be babysitting Bitter, and Bitter didn’t need anyone’s help. Her part in the revolution was done, bloody and complete.
Everything now was up to someone else: the restructuring of Lucille, the dismantling of the police department and prisons, the seizing and reallocation of stolen resources. Alex had been sending her updates, which Bitter read but didn’t reply to because there was nothing to say, really. She had called an angel and then she’d sent it back. Theron was dead, as if by an extension of her hand. It meant that people were safer—those who had survived the angels’ visit—but it also felt like her palms were stained with blood, so Bitter stayed in bed. She hid from the rest of the world, curled up against the knowledge of what she had called forth and what it had done.
On the fifth day, Miss Virtue came in and sat on the edge of Bitter’s bed. Her hair was loose, reaching out into the air in tight steel curls. She smelled different, like the bottom of a river. “How are you feeling today?” she asked.