The American Girl by Kate Horsley

they told you?” Valentin held the door for me and guided me through with a hand on the small of my back. I guess he remembered the previous night.
    Inside, I stood for a moment in the familiar space with its smells of antiseptic, air freshener, and floor cleaner and breathed a sigh of relief to be away from the press. Whatever news there was about the investigation, whatever had gone wrong, the thought of sitting quietly with Quinn actually seemed really nice today. Just sharing that bubble of calm and medical orderliness with someone I’d begun to feel I know a little bit. Getting away from all those nuns running around the foyer like headless chickens.
    I turned to Valentin, trying to retain that brief moment of prospective calm inside myself. “So what’s up?” I asked.
    â€œWell, I think you should talk to the doctors . . .”
    Panic flooded through me. “What’s happened? Is Quinn okay?” It surprised me how horrible the thought of anything happening to her felt.
    â€œDon’t be stressed.” Valentin smiled his best charming smile. “It’s actually great news. She’s better than okay. She woke up.”
    I heard the rest as if underwater, filtered through the sound of my blood rushing in my ears. Eglantine rushed up to repeat the good news because she was the one who was there. This morning at precisely five thirty A.M. , Quinn woke briefly and asked for water before falling asleep again. The doctors say she’sin a normal sleep state now. It’s early days yet, but it seems the coma is over.
    E VERYONE WAS EVEN nicer and more solicitous than ever, because they’ve come to see us as family, because this was happy news, because they didn’t know the thoughts racing through my head: mainly genuine happiness, but one little part total dread at what was sure to come next.
    There was no option but to sit in the café and sip coffee and try not to look too shell-shocked. Valentin talked and smiled and touched my arm, but all I could think about was how in a little while those same overly familiar hands would be slapping cuffs on my wrists. I wanted to text Bill and get his advice, but no one would give me the space. And so it happened that when a young envoy nurse came down to summon me and tell me that the miracle had happened once again, I must come see, I had no script, no excuses, no fallback stance. I had to wing it.
    I walked to her room like a prisoner walking to the gallows, came to the door ready to faint from holding my breath. Valentin was there to witness the moment along with several nurses and a doctor, all crowded into the little room. And across that crowded room, as they say, I met the eyes of Quinn Perkins.

Quinn Perkins
    JULY 17, 2015
    Blog Entry
    By the time Raphael came to get us, he was pretty pissed off, particularly since he got out of the car to see Noémie’s head lolling on her chest and me trying to stop her from choking on her own vomit. Between bouts of puking, I told him what I knew: that we sunk a few beers, danced a bit. And then bam! Someone basically assaulted Noémie in there, and before she passed out I was trying to find out who so I could go punch their lights out.
    â€œThe person who hurt her, was his name Séverin?” he asked.
    I shrugged. “I didn’t see. She wouldn’t say.”
    â€œI know this was him,” he said, rubbing his hand over his eyes. “Putain.”
    He said nothing more and neither advocated going back into the club to pick a fight nor led the way. He just rolled his eyes like, I thought you were smarter than that , and scooped his sisteroff the sidewalk. As I climbed into his mom’s car, I realized I was now officially on the bad side of 66.6 percent of the Blavette family—a whole different 66.6 percent from the side that hated me yesterday.
    In the car, all was silent save for the crickets out in the bushes and the movement of the tires on the