Jessica Jones by Lauren Beukes

Jessica Jones by Lauren Beukes

Author:Lauren Beukes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2024-07-15T00:00:00+00:00


Chapter 10

Newton’s Third Law

Sam Beckbessinger

The train to Brooklyn Heights is running twenty minutes late. When it finally pulls in, it’s packed, even though it’s three p.m. on a weekday. She skips the seat with a sticky red puddle and sits in the only other empty one next to it, hoping the mystery substance doesn’t touch her. Probably just Snapple.

Sure. Let’s tell ourselves it’s Snapple.

Usually she wouldn’t mind standing, but it’s time to admit it: her body still hurts. She reaches up under her shirt and surreptitiously checks her ribs. Better, but not great. The bones aren’t floating around her torso anymore, so that’s nice.

The group of teens sitting opposite her are bending over a phone, laughing at something. She wonders what it might have been like to have lived the commune life like Sam and Jamie. To have had a whole gang, a pack to move around in. Feeling like it’s you and your buddies against the world. If Diane is involved with this somehow, she hopes the friendships between the flares will survive. Friendship used to be so easy—you just had to like the same music or hate the same people.

Who’s she kidding? She’s never been good at friends.

She pulls out her phone and texts Luke: Sorry I ran out on you earlier.

He responds: It’s hard to be friends with you sometimes. But then he follows it up with an eyeroll emoji, and she knows he’s not really mad.

There’s a message from Mel following up on their last phone call. Hope your nice easy case is going well, she adds. It’s okay to look after yourself sometimes.

Jessica sighs. She fingers the rip in her jeans. This is what aging is, she thinks: the slow accumulation of ruptures. Maybe she could pass the bodega on the way home, pick up a needle and thread, stitch it up. That would be a whole new thing for her: mending.

Diane’s street is a row of neat brownstones just a couple of blocks up from the promenade. The red bricks glow in the dappled afternoon sunlight filtering through the beech trees. Jeez, running a charity must pay better than she thought.

Jessica had taken her jacket off in the muggy train, but she shrugs it back on now to cover her scrapes. She knows the damn thing is going to trap a layer of sweat on her skin and she’ll be sticky all day, but that’s fall in New York for you.

Jessica spots Diane’s house and makes her way up to the door, trailing her hands along the climbing jasmine plant woven into the wrought-iron railings. She rings the bell and sees Diane’s ghostly shape appear immediately through the dappled glass, like she was waiting in the entrance hall.

“Oh,” she says, her face darkening when she sees Jessica. She glances past her, looking to see if Sam’s there. “You’re not who I was expecting.”

Jessica tries for a professional smile, but she can feel it coming out like more of a smirk. “I have a few more questions, if you don’t mind.



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