I close the bag. I keep walking.

I remember. I said “That’s not what the magazines say.”

Eleanor nods slowly. “They heard you, Lucy. They always hear you. That’s why they send the watchers. Not because you’re vain. Because you’re listening.”

But in my bag, I feel the weight of something I didn’t take. Slowly, I open the clasp.

“That one’s a respire ,” Eleanor whispers. “Breathes in longing. Feeds on the wanting. The ad says ‘Indulge your desires.’ But the desires aren’t yours after the respire finds you. They belong to it. You just keep buying the perfume, thinking the wanting is your own.”

I turn my phone over. The screen lights up with a notification from an app I don’t remember installing. A photo-editing app. The icon is a woman’s face, half-turned, looking at something just over my shoulder.