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Shoshana

ere she is, perched on the ladder of our bunk bed, all
botched hair and bitten nails like her body is the one
Hthing she can stand to chew. Rowan’s face fits her name.
Sharp cheeks, heart-shaped lips, the kind of eyes that feel like
a challenge. When I told her that, she said it’s because R is a
menacing letter and she’s the fire-starter type. Today she’s
trying to expel that fire through one of her favorite games:

What If?
Last Thursday’s was What if we switched places with the
nurses for a day?
I said we’d quit our jobs immediately, hop on a train, and
live the rest of our days as TEFL course leaders abroad. But
Rowan said that was too easy. Instead we should separate
the nurses, refuse to give them any food, chain them to the
ladders of our bunk beds, and laugh devilishly at the sight of

their shrinking waists. It’d be the reverse of what they do to
us in here: fattening us up for what Rowan deems “slaughter.”
“When we get in there, you have to do it quick,” Rowan
hisses at me now, placing her fingers two inches above her
collarbone, on the side of her neck where a baited vein beats
blood to her brain, into this idea. What if you killed me at
breakfast this morning? That’s the pretend prompt she’s

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