Girl in Pieces

Blue flips through my sketchbooks and drawings. “Oh my fucking God, Charlie.”

She traces her fingers over the faces. “This is amazing. I didn’t know you could draw like this. Holy moly. And look at your crazy wall.”

She glances at the toilet. “There’s no door on that.”

“I wash dishes for a living, Blue. You don’t get doors for that. There’s a locked toilet down the hall, but the guys use it. Don’t forget toilet paper if your modesty gets the best of you.”

Blue lights a cigarette and paws through the paper bag from the liquor store, extracting a bottle. She cracks the top, hunts for glasses in the sink, pours three fingers of vodka into each, and hands one to me.

She raises her glass. “You in? This place is fucked up, Charlie. Is everybody here like those guys on the porch?”

I take the glass, easy as pie, and drink it down, not even caring that I have to work in half an hour. It’s just that easy now. “I was kind of hoping,” I say softly, “that maybe you weren’t drinking or anything?”

Blue purses her mouth. “It didn’t take long for me to start up again after I got out, you know? Drinking, I mean. Not anything else.” She shrugs but won’t meet my eyes.

“Have you been…good?” My voice is careful. Blue is kneeling on the floor now, flipping slowly through another sketchbook. Her shirt rides up her back. The skin there is tawny, tender-looking.

Blue winces through a plume of smoke. “I really only ever did the bad shit when I was using, you know. I would lose total control. I’m a real pussy with cutting and burning unless I’m high or something.” She looks at me sideways. “You? You cutting again?” Her eyes flick along my sleeves.

“No,” I say. “Nothing like that. It’s just…”

What would she say about the drug runs? I drop my eyes to my lap.

Blue cocks her head. “You okay, Charlie?”

I’m kind of in a mess and I can’t get out.

But those words jam in my throat. I swallow hard; they drop back down my throat.

She looks at me for a full, pulsing second. “What about the rock star? He treating you okay? Some guys, musicians especially, have a real knack for crapping on women.”

I busy myself with cleaning my glass, finding a clean work shirt. “It’s good. It’s okay. You know.”

“He’s a little older, huh?”

“Yeah. Twenty-seven.”

I turn my back to change into my shirt. I can feel Blue’s eyes on me.

“Charlie, have you ever had a boyfriend before?”

I slide my shirt down over my face quickly so my mouth is muffled. “Not really. No.”

Under her breath, she says something I can’t catch.

“What did you just say?” I turn back to her.

“Nothing,” she says quickly, getting up and dousing her cigarette in the sink. “No worries.”

Then she says brightly, “Well, show me the television and the computer and I think I’ll be good to go until you get back.”

I pretend to smile, even though I’m wondering what she said that I couldn’t hear. “Oh, Blue,” I say. “I have some bad news for you.”

—

All night, the girls at Grit are talking about something called All Souls and the burning of an urn. It’s a big parade along Fourth Avenue to honor the dead, with people dressing up and painting their faces like skeletons and lots of weird stuff.

Temple says, “It’s the best. We get super busy, no matter what, and everyone who comes in is just stoked to be alive, ready to do some positive energy work. And the costumes! Brilliant as shit.”

The café is empty; they have nothing to do. At one point Julie calls to ask how busy we are and when Temple hangs up, Randy nods knowingly and assembles her things and goes home. Tanner’s been cut from the day and put on just one night a week and Julie’s still washing dishes. The pastry case has been dusty and empty for over two weeks. Bianca got tired of never getting paid.

Temple fiddles with the espresso machine. “Last year, I built wings with Christmas lights and some asshole fell into me and ripped them off. And my friend fell into a fire dancer, so that was crazy.”

She tugs at the filter and it suddenly gives, slopping espresso sludge all over her fluttery blue skirt, the one I secretly like because it has tiny bells at the hem. Temple swears. I bend down with a rag to swipe at the dark grounds on her skirt.

Linus comes out from the grill area, wiping her hands on a towel. “It’s Day of the Dead, Charlie. Día de los Muertos? Fucking twenty thousand people in a human chain walking downtown and burning wishes for the dead. All that shit in the air, you’d think it would do something, right? Community energy and all that jazz. But the world still sucks, doesn’t it, Temple?”

“Don’t knock it,” Temple says. “My parents used to take us to sweats all the time. Positive energy is a powerful force.”

“Do you have anything like that back home, Charlie?” Linus asks, gazing at the empty café. Linus always refers to Minnesota as back home when talking to me. Do you have tortillas back home? You must miss the snow back home. Are you going back home anytime soon, Charlie?

I glance up at them. “We aren’t much for death. Once you’re gone, you’re gone. We don’t like things that interfere with our ice fishing.” I say this lightly, because I don’t want to think of my dad right now.

They stare at me. “Kidding,” I mumble.

Temple airs out the steamer. “It’s a real trip, Charlie. You might dig it. It’s a giant art party in honor of the human spirit.”

I brush the last of the grounds from Temple’s skirt, flick one of the little bells so it tink-tinks. The human spirit. My dad. Where did his spirit go? Can he see me? What about Ellis, that part of her that disappeared? Is something of her left somewhere? These thoughts scare me.

I think Temple is wrong. I don’t think I’d dig that kind of art party at all.

—

Blue shows up at True Grit at closing time, having changed into shorts and sneakers and a hoodie. Her eyes are fuzzy. I wonder how much of the vodka she drank. I mop the main floor furiously, wondering what she’s talking to Linus and Temple about. Blue’s arms are covered, but can they see the lines on her calves? Sweat erupts on my forehead. In gym once, a girl busted the toilet stall door down, catching me in only my bra, my gym shirt in my hands. I changed in the stall, away from the girls, and always wore a long-sleeved shirt under my red-and-white gym shirt. She laughed and then covered her mouth with her hands. After that, everyone inched away from me when I came into the locker bay and drew out my gym clothes. They gave out sharp hisses as I took my things and went back to the toilet stalls. Temple is chatting amiably with Blue. Who was Temple in high school? Was she a hisser or a retreater? Did Linus ever push a girl’s head into the toilet, or did she keep her own down, just trying to make it to three o’clock? People have so many secrets. They are never exactly what they seem.

As we walk home, Blue says woozily, “Leonard told me how to get here, so I thought I’d meet you. Hope you’re not mad or anything. I don’t want to intrude on your space or anything, you know?”

She cranes her neck at the palm trees. “This place is totally weird. All this vegetation is some real Dr. Seuss–looking shit, you know that, don’t you?” We walk in silence for a while until she finally asks, “Bar?” She has a hopeful look on her face as she looks up and down Fourth Avenue.

I hold up my hands. “Eighteen. You want a bar, you’re on your own.”

She reconsiders. “Let’s go see if the rock star is home.” She gives me a big smile.

I can’t avoid it any longer, I guess, so I say okay. I wonder if he’s come back since last night. I hope he’s come back since last night.

—

We can hear him a block away, strumming, voice lifting and falling as he works through a passage. I’m surprised; he hasn’t played for several weeks now. A dreamy look passes across Blue’s face. “That’s him? God, that’s fucking awesome.”

He’s on the porch when we approach, smoke lifting in gentle circles from the ashtray at his feet. “Charlie.” He’s curiously cheerful. “And Charlie has…a friend.”

“Blue.” She reaches over, takes a drag from his cigarette. That move sparks an ugly wave inside me—immediately, Blue is a million times more comfortable and familiar with Riley than I ever was. I don’t understand how she can be that way. What is it about me that can’t? And is she—flirting?

“Blue. Well, that’s a beautiful name, Blue. I’m Riley West.” He leans the guitar against the porch railing.

Is he flirting back? I can’t read his signals.

“Thanks,” Blue says. “I mean, it’s not my real name, but I like it better.”

I look at her in surprise, distracted from my anger. “What? Really? What’s your real name, then?”

Blue takes another drag on the cigarette and exhales slowly. “Patsy. Patricia. Do I seem even remotely like a Patsy to you?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head and smiling. “You don’t seem remotely like a Patsy at all.”

Riley laughs heartily. He must be a few down already, because he seems happy. I wish Blue wasn’t around. If Riley’s going to be happy, I want that all for myself. Lately, it’s taking him three or four just to smile. He bows to Blue.

“A refreshment, ladies?” He goes into the house. Blue giggles. “He’s cute,” she whispers.

She looks out at Riley’s neighbors on their porches, drinking wine and rocking in wicker chairs, fanning themselves with newspapers.

“He must like having his own audience. Besides you, I mean.” She strums the strings on his guitar lightly. I bat her fingers away, irritated that she’s being so friendly with his things. She glares at me.

Riley reappears with icy bottles. Briefly, he nuzzles my cheek, then holds out his beer. Hesitantly, I clink bottles with them.

Blue downs half of hers in two gulps and wipes her mouth, looking from Riley to me and back again. She giggles. “You guys are funny.”

“Why?” I take a sip of my beer.

“I don’t know. You just are.” Her face is shiny. “You guys can kiss or whatever. Don’t mind me.” I can feel my cheeks heat up.

Riley crosses his legs and offers her a cigarette. “There’s a story here somewhere. Something tragic, I’m guessing, in the way you two met?”

Blue snorts and blows out a series of perfect smoke rings. “God, I love unfiltered cigarettes,” she breathes. “Love them.” She takes another large swallow of her drink. “We met at the cutters’ clinic. I was there the longest.” She sounds almost proud. “Isis came after me, then Jen, and then Charlie. Louisa, though, she was always there. Wait. Hey, are you okay, man?”

Riley’s face is very still, like he’s holding his breath. Blue looks at me. “Charlie. Didn’t you tell him about Creeley?” She looks at me warily.

Riley clears his throat. “Charlie’s been a bit reticent about her history. But it’s not a problem. We all have our secrets.” His voice is mild. He reaches out and pulls me closer to him. I feel better that he does that. Relieved.

Blue nods. “I used to call her Silent Sue, she was so quiet for a while. What did they call it, Charlie?”

I click my teeth together, weighing whether I should answer her.

“See-lective mutism.” Blue suddenly remembers, sliding up on the railing, her legs smooth and gleaming. “Like, in certain situations, you just clam up, I guess. I’m a little bit of everything, myself. A mental mutt, if you will.”

“Interesting,” Riley says. “Hospitals are interesting, aren’t they? Everybody you meet is like a little mirror of you. I’ve done my time, so I know. Very unnerving.” The corners of his mouth twitch. I’m beginning to feel panicky, out of step with the way they’re talking about me and getting along so easily. I grit my teeth and shoot a look at Blue.

“She was always drawing.” Blue stubs out her cigarette. “After she got settled in, they had to practically kick her out of Crafts every day. She was the only one who liked it. I can’t make anything artsy for shit.”

“She has a lovely eye for line.” Riley gazes at me, not smiling. “Have you heard about her little art show?”

Blue continues as though she didn’t hear Riley. “God, I hated that place. I couldn’t wait to get out. Penned us all in there like cattle, slicing off parts of our brains, right, Charlie?”

“What about you, Charlie?” Riley’s finished his drink. “Were you chomping at the bit to get released, too?”

Riley’s face is worn and handsome, so familiar to me that a soft ache for him wells up inside me before I tamp it down, watching as he and Blue tease each other with lighters and cigarettes. “No,” I say softly. “I fucking loved it. I never wanted to leave.”

Blue guffaws. “Well, yeah. You were sleeping on a fucking heating grate before you came in. What was not to love?”

Riley squints. “Heating grate?” he says slowly. I look at him. I realize suddenly that he doesn’t remember, when we were sitting on the porch, all that time ago during the monsoon, that I told him I used to live outside. He doesn’t remember. Because he’s fucked up all the time. A wave of hard sadness rolls over me.

Blue looks from Riley to me. Her face pales. She smears her cigarette on the railing, mumbles Sorry.

Riley murmurs, “Hmm.” And then goes in and refreshes our drinks, lights new cigarettes, steers the evening back. They talk about me as though I’m not there, teasing me and laughing when my face gets red. Eventually, the neighbors go in, lights turn off, the street quiets down, but Riley and Blue are still going strong, trading cigarettes back and forth, giggling in the same snorty manner about music and politics.

Finally, I clear away bottles and overflowing ashtrays, fit Riley’s guitar back in its case, lift Blue to her feet by her elbow. She whines. “Why can’t we stay here? It’s still so early! I’m on vacation, for fuck’s sake.”

But I take her back with me anyway, holding her upright as we navigate the narrow stairs to my room. In my room, I’m suddenly dismayed, looking down at the single futon tucked against the wall. Blue staggers to the toilet, pulling her jean shorts down. “Excuse me,” she says. The sound of her pee echoes in the bowl.

She flops on the bed and wiggles her feet. “Somebody take off my shoes, please.” I yank off her perilously high wedges and toss them in the corner.

“Turn off the light. That lamp is killing me.”

In the dark, I use the toilet and brush my teeth, splash water on my face, slide into boxers and a T-shirt, and stare at her, curled up on my bed, before I drop down next to her. I scoot her over with my hip. I feel a wave of missing for Ellis all of a sudden, the way we’d curl together in her bed, whispering, our breath warm on each other’s faces. Gently, I rest my hip against Blue’s. She’s very warm.

Down the hall, a television murmurs.

“What’s the rock star say about your scars, Charlie?”

I close my eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Blue asks, drowsy. “Go back to your boyfriend’s.”

“No.”

Blue is quiet for a bit. “You don’t have to worry about me, or anything. I mean, I like to flirt, it feels good, but I’m not…I wouldn’t ever…I’m half show, is all I’m saying, okay, Charlie?” She pulls at the blanket and rolls toward the wall.

“And you know,” she says, her voice getting sleepier, but with a little edge, “a girlfriend can touch her boyfriend’s guitar, you know. You were mad at me for playing it and I bet you never even thought you were allowed to pick it up, but you are. He’s not some god.”

That smarts a little, that she’s so right, but I don’t know what to answer, so I stay quiet. When I think she’s fallen asleep, when her breath has become heavy and I’ve almost fallen into darkness, she suddenly murmurs, “Hey. Don’t let me forget. I have something for you. From Louisa.”

—

In the morning, she’s white as a sheet but perky, lustily gulping the coffee I bought for her at the café down the street. She takes a bath in the tiny tub as I wash a few cups in the sink. She’s not shy like me; I can see the history of her as she leans back, the water lapping at her breasts. After, she takes her meds, one by one, and then lines the prescription bottles up on the windowsill. I think back to her email, when she said she was on a lot of medication.

“I need grease for this hangover.” She pulls on her T-shirt. It’s short-sleeved. The burn scars on her arms are neat and deliberate. “And a soda. Like, a giant Coke.”

I motion to her shirt, her arms. “You don’t…I mean, if anybody sees?”

She scowls. “What the fuck do I care if they see, Charlie? This is it. This is me.” She tugs on my long-sleeved tee. “You’re gonna live your whole life in the dark this way? It’s better to get it out up front. And you know what makes me super mad? If a guy has scars, it’s like some heroic shit show or something. But women? We’re just creepy freaks.”

“Take your boyfriend. I mean, I’m not trying to be mean or anything, I like him, that whole charming rogue thing he’s got going on works like butter, but he’s got major problems.” She mimes drinking. “So, why didn’t you tell him about the hospital or that you were on the streets? He can have problems but you can’t?” Her words tumble out in an angry rush, surprising me.

I feel the press of tears. She’s moving very fast for me. “I don’t know.” I swallow hard. “I just want to get something to eat, okay? Can we do that?”

I feel in my pocket for my money, but she pushes my hand down. “Don’t. It’s on me. I’m sorry. I am. It’s okay.”

She slings her purse over her shoulder. “Let’s cruise. If I don’t get that soda soon, I’m gonna vomit.”

Blue buys us scrambled egg and hash brown burritos with green chile, and icy sodas. She’s ravenous and catty in the diner, whispering about the waitress’s wide ass, making dirty jokes about the salt and pepper shakers shaped like saguaro cactuses. She orders an extra soda and a cinnamon bun, the frosting sticking to her upper lip.

We browse in the funky wig shop on Congress. She buys feathery earrings and tries on colorful teased wigs. We walk aimlessly downtown, staring in wonder at the crisp, cakeish façade of St. Augustine Cathedral, the dainty, forlorn Wishing Shrine of El Tiradito, with its cluster of burned-out veladoras. Blue spends a long time peering into the divots in the pale, crumbling wall of the shrine, at the wishes and gifts people have left, the sunken candles, the stiff, fading photographs. I touch an empty niche. Should I bring a photo of Ellis here? I run my fingers over the smooth stones.

Blue is very quiet as we walk home. I breathe the early-November air in, look at the wide, endless blue sky. In Minnesota, all the leaves are on the ground by now and the sky is gray, readying for cold and winter. Maybe it’s even snowed once or twice. But here, everything is blue sky and endless warmth.

Back in the room, Blue settles on the easy chair with her phone, tapping and scrolling. When I casually ask how long she’s staying, her eyes fog over.

“I thought I told you I don’t have anywhere to go, Charlie. You’re so lucky here. It’s so nice. Look at all this fucking sun, even in the winter! It’s seventy-three degrees here right now.”

She puts her head down. “Do you not want me here, Charlie?”

I do, but I don’t, but I do, but I don’t.

I change the subject. “What about everybody at Creeley?”

Blue rocks her head from side to side. “I don’t really know, I don’t keep up. Isis left after you. Louisa’s never getting out, that dumb fuck. She’s gonna either die or be a lifer, I swear. Oh, shit!”

She scrambles from the chair to her duffel bag, rooting through it until she finds something. She holds out ten black-and-white composition books, tied up in a red ribbon. “Louisa said to give these to you.”

They’re heavy in my hands. I can picture Louisa, her red-gold hair coiled on her head, smiling when I asked her what she was always writing in those composition books. The story of my life, Charlie.

“Aren’t you gonna take a look?” Blue asks.

“Maybe later.” I slide them into my backpack. It doesn’t look like Blue tampered with the ribbon, but still. I don’t want to leave them here. Maybe there are things inside that Louisa only meant for me. Maybe I just want her words to myself.

Blue snuggles back in the chair. “Jen S. texted me. Dooley dumped her. She lost out on some basketball scholarship and kinda backslid, but her parents don’t know, yet.”

“Do you talk to anyone?” I ask Blue. “I mean, go to meetings or anything?”

Blue takes a swig of the beer she bought before we came back to the room. “Nah, I’ve got nothing left to say. You?”

“I emailed with Casper for a while, but she hasn’t answered anything lately.”

“You were always like her pet. We all knew it. Big fucking deal.” Blue gets up abruptly, begins pulling clothes from her duffel and spreading them on the futon.

I slowly zip my backpack shut. “Casper liked everybody,” I answer evenly, but what Blue says makes me feel guilty. Maybe I was a little bit Casper’s pet, her special project.

“No, she didn’t. She never liked me. Do you think she sent me emails when I got out? No.”

She has her back to me, winding her hair into a bun. There is the swallow, plump and blue on the back of her neck, watching.

To break the tension, I ask what she’ll do while I’m at work. Blue shrugs, shuffling to the kitchen.

I want to say Stop as I see her slide the bottle from the windowsill, rinse out a glass. But who am I to say? I’m just as lost.

“Oh, you know. I’ll be out and about. Maybe go talk to your neighbors.” She turns to me and smiles, her new perfect teeth a gleaming wall inside her mouth.

My hand on the door, I say, “Blue, take it easy with that stuff, okay? Maybe we can take another walk tonight, just the two of us. It’s nice weather to walk at night.” I smile at her, hopeful, but she just gives me the peace sign and scrolls on her phone.

—

She’s not in the apartment when I get home from work. I find her, instead, in Riley’s front room. I can hear the sound of laughter down the street as I turn the corner to his house. My stomach curdles with apprehension as I make my way up the porch steps and pause, looking through the screen door at the two of them on the floor, cigarettes in ashtrays, drink glasses everywhere, Blue strumming Riley’s Hummingbird as he gently corrects her fingers. He’s drawling jokes, she’s laughing, her face flushed in the universe of his attention. Just seeing his hands on hers hurts. I know she said she’d never do anything with him, but still. And then I feel shitty, because didn’t Blue say she was lonely? And here she is, having a good time, with someone paying attention to her.

Her hair is falling against her cheek, a silky fan. Blue—Patsy, Patricia—looks really happy and suddenly, just a little, my stomach loosens. After what she said about Casper not liking her like she liked me, shouldn’t she be allowed to have this?

She gives me a big grin as I slowly edge in the door, excitedly telling me about Riley treating her to drinks at the Tap Room, dinner at the Grill. He’s going to take her on a drive in the morning, she says, see the sights.

My stomach jumps. He’s never taken me for a drive. She looks really pleased, her fingers petting the strings of the guitar. I look over at Riley, but he’s picking at the label on his beer bottle.

Maybe he’s just making promises to her he can’t keep, being nice, and he’ll just disappoint her. Because: with what car? And where? Is he going to blow off his shift? I start to get a little angry.

I sit down with a thump on the burgundy velvet sofa. Riley looks up, finally noticing me, and leans over, pushing up a leg of my overalls and kissing my knee.

“Oh, hey, yeah, your landlord came by.” Blue puffs on her cigarette. “Lonnie?”

“Leonard,” I answer dully. She chews her lips, concentrating on the placement of her fingers on the Hummingbird’s strings. She has pretty fingernails, white and well filed.

“He wanted to know how long I’m staying, ’cause the room’s so small and all, and you know, maybe you’d have to pay some extra money.”

My face drains of color. Blue sees this and quickly shakes her head.

“Don’t worry, Charlie, I have money and plus, I’m gonna work off the extra rent.” She beams. “I’m the new building handyman. I didn’t go on all those construction site visits with my dad for nothing, you know. Did you see the stairwell? I fixed it today. We could be roomies forever.” She smiles wide, her eyes shiny.

She looks so happy, and expectant, that I kind of melt. It’s been sort of nice having her, for a little bit. She’s not the same as she was in Creeley.

The girls at True Grit, Temple and Frances and Randy, they talk about their roommates all the time. It might be fun, having a girl to live with. “Yeah,” I say, trying to laugh a little. “That might be cool, Blue.”

Riley laughs, too, but it has a sharp edge to it. “Hey now, Blue! Don’t talk that way. I don’t wanna lose my girl to her bestie. She’s the only thing keeping me upright. I call dibs.” He squeezes my knee a little too hard.

Blue raises her eyebrows. She tries to meet my eyes, but I stand up and offer to get everyone more drinks. I keep getting everyone more drinks, and myself, too, until I stumble just as much as they do.

I let myself get heavier and heavier because I wanted Blue to be different when she came out, I wanted her to be better, so that I could be braver about being better, too.

Maybe this is just the way it’s supposed to be.

Later, in his room, the house quiet now that Blue has fallen asleep on the couch, hands snuggled between her knees, Riley exhales against my shoulder. His room is cool; the windows are open.

He’s behind me, pressing me against him, his breath against my cheek. “Your friend, she was just talking shit, right, about rooming with you? I don’t know how I feel about that.”

I close my whirling eyes. I’m so tired of drinking, and cleaning up after him when he’s too high. Dragging him to bed. Getting him up for work. Where am I? What am I doing?

My voice skips, my throat is sore from cigarettes, but I push it out and it comes out angry and I can tell he feels it; his body shrinks back, just a touch.

“You won’t even let me have a friend? Like, just one friend?” My words are slurry and I start to panic a little. I don’t want to lose it, but the ball is getting bigger, the alcohol is pushing it along greedily.

“Hey, now.” Riley’s voice is soft. “I didn’t—”

“I mean, do you know how hard it is to be around just you all the time? When you’re so fucked up?”

Riley is silent.

My voice gets louder. I push his hands away, press myself against the wall, the window open above me. Can the neighbors hear me?

“You never ask me anything about myself. You’ve never even asked me about my scars. Or about my parents. Blue at least knows, she understands—”

“Hey, listen, everybody’s got shit, honey, I just didn’t ask because—”

“You didn’t ask because I don’t think you really care, as long as I’m here when you need me to be.” A cookie or a book or a record on a shelf, like Julie said.

I roll over. I can barely make out his face because of my spinning head and the darkness of the room. He’s so drunk, too, his eyes slopping down his face. Is he even going to remember this? “Here’s all of it, Riley, here you go. Here’s my shit.

“I had a friend and she tried to kill herself, and it was my fault. And I broke my mother’s nose and she kicked me out. There was never a heating grate, but here’s what there was: a loaf of bread can last a week, but you get stopped up.” My words are tumbling out, caught in slurry clouds in my throat, but I can’t stop.

“When I ask you for change, you’ll give it to me because I’m small and I look sad and I’m dirty and you have some secret thoughts about me, because I’m small and sad and dirty. You think maybe you could do things to me, and I would let you, because I need money. And I know this, so when I say we should walk to the park and talk some more, privately, you’re happy to come with me, you’re excited and nervous.”

Riley whispers, “Don’t.”

He covers his face with his hands.

“I won’t look at you in the park when my friends jump you from the bushes. Or when you cry because they’re beating you with chains, taking your money, ruining your good suit. I’ve done my part. Why do you have so much cash in your wallet, anyway? You’re so fucking stupid, man, so fucking stupid.”

Riley says Stop, but I don’t, because I want to hurt him, just a little and just a lot, for how he looked at Regan, or whatever might have happened with Wendy, or the way he laughs with Blue and won’t let me be her friend, but mostly because I’m so tired.

I’m so tired of drunk and desperate. I’m tired and angry at me. For letting myself get smaller and smaller in the hopes that he would notice me more. But how can someone notice you if you keep getting smaller?

I kick the sheets off, claw my way over him, still talking, even as I jam my overalls up and try to slot the straps. I can’t. My hands fumble. I just tie the fucking straps around my waist.

“If you try to make it by yourself, a guy tries to rape you in a tunnel and he’s crazy high and strong. He gets his hands all the way down in your pants, his fingers inside you, his shoulder against your mouth so no one can hear you scream. Maybe two guys save you, two nice guys. If you pack up with a group, you better remember the rules of the group, you better remember who runs the group or he will try to hurt you, too.”

I lean down close to Riley’s face. He shuts his eyes tight. “I lived in a sex house. Someone tried to sell me for money. So I tried to die. There’s my story, Riley. When do I get to hear yours?”

I’m panting. He’s got both arms crossed over his face.

“Riley,” I say, my voice hoarse. “Riley, we have to stop. You have to stop. I don’t want you to die, Riley. Please, stop. I don’t want you to die. Will you stop?”

His voice is stronger than I expected.

“No.”

I almost trip, stumbling out of the room. I pull Blue off the couch by her shirt. She wobbles as she finds her footing. “What the fuck, Charlie…whaaat?” Her hair is in her face.

I yank her outside, shoving my boots on as she trips across the porch, jamming her feet into her sandals. “What the hell? Did you guys fight or something?”

“I just want to go. Let’s go. Please, just hurry up, Blue.” I run down the porch steps, taking big gulps of air. I don’t know what just happened, I’m confused and drunk, my skin itches. “I need to be somewhere safe. Please. Home.”

“Yeah, okay, yeah.” Blue buttons up her jeans and trots down the porch. She’s still half-asleep, drunk.

I don’t want to drink anymore I don’t want to drink anymore I don’t want to drink anymore I don’t want to be lonely.

I have to hold her up as we walk; her body is loose and jellylike. I say, softly, “Blue, let’s stop, let’s just stop with all this, okay? You know, messing up.”

“Cool,” she murmurs. “That’s cool, okay, all right.”

“Please.”

The sky is milky with clouds. I can smell the sweetness of Blue’s shampoo buried somewhere under all the alcohol and cigarettes. It’s not lost on me, either, that Riley never called out as we left, or ran to the porch. Or anything.

The ball inside me picks that up, too, adds it to the pile.