"Wait." Suzy lifted a hand, stopping the torrent of vitriol. A single, solid fact had broken through the rant. "Aurora… was allergic to pollen? Seriously allergic?"
Claire gave her a look of pure exasperation. "Yeah. Apparently it was bad. Anaphylactic, I heard. The teachers had memos about it. How do you not remember? They banned peonies from the spring dance in my school because of her and everyone in our circle was literally talking about it."
But Suzy wasn't listening anymore.
Her mind stilled. Then it began to spin, rapidly connecting dots.
Aurora. Allergic to pollen.
Fragments of the past few weeks flashed behind her eyes: Aurora since the wedding. The subtle off-ness. The slight clumsiness where there was once brittle precision. The strange softness in her eyes, the uncharacteristic hesitations and sometimes... no hesitation at all. The way she sometimes looked at a room full of people as if she were a tourist reading a confusing map.
