Jenni pulls a friend on an invisible leash, like property.

“Sarah wanted to come. Hope that’s OK.”

Jenni is 4’9, red hair, freckles, limbs too short for her trunk. Sarah is taller, charcoal hair, transparent.

It’s ten a.m.

My roommate smirks as we pass. I flip him off. He clutches his imaginary pearls.

The bed swallows my room. Sarah is asleep in the time it takes to look away and back. Jenni and I sit beside her, me in the middle.

Jenni talks. I stammer. Start, stop. Painful pauses. She teases, sees me folding inward. Kisses me. My eyes drift to Sarah but Jenni pulls me back.

“It’s fine. She’ll be like that for hours.” Smile like a spotlight. For a few seconds I’m whole. Easier to be chosen than to choose.

Shirts off. Her skin cold at first, then hot. Breath heavy and wet in my ear. She moves fast, repeats directions that sound practiced. My roommate throws a ball against our shared wall. Keeping time.

Sarah shifts. Her hand grazes my thigh—light, static, gone. Awake through the slits of her eyes. Watching. Her lips part, start to form a shape, but there’s only air.

I want to hear what she was going to say but I pull away. She pulls closer. I stare at Jenni’s hair spread across the pillowcase. Low thread count, rough on my face. I should buy something nicer.

When Jenni’s done, she pulls the comforter over us with a wave, careful to not flip Sarah off the bed. I fall asleep.

When I wake, Sarah is spooning me. Jenni’s gone but I can hear the shower down the hall. I try to roll away, but an arm is wrapped tight. I stare at the ceiling fan and listen to the water running through the pipe in the wall. It goes silent.

“I’ve got to be home for my grandma’s birthday or Mom will kill me.” Jenni holds a finger on my bottom lip. “Wanna come?” Drips it like honey.

I don’t but it’s more a command than a question. Sarah stirs. She watches me get dressed, a command there too. There’s a moon-shaped scar above her right eye that doesn’t move when she blinks. A frown when she notices me staring back, but she won’t look away.

Jenni puts us in the back seat of her car like pets. The world blurs. Bird song at stop lights. Soon, Sarah and I are helping each other out of the car and crawling up steps.

Jenni knocks and goes in. “Wait here.”

The house has columns. A place where a judge lives. Grass too green, air of lemon polish.

Mumbling, then a sharp “Please, leave.” The words yell, the voice does not. The door creaks open.

I see the silhouette of her mom in a sundress, blacked out by the chandelier behind her. The door closes. Too late. Whatever it was, already over. Sorry, Grandma.

Jenni’s paler than usual. Her freckles look like wounds. But she’s got a plan. She always does. We’re moving again. Another friend to see.

The houses get smaller. Yards turn to dirt. Asphalt splits wide. My hand surfs the air out the window. We pull into a trailer park and up to a sagging single-wide. The smell of mold hits before the door opens. A duct-taped window unit vibrates cheerfully.

Johnny’s younger than us. Skinny, bad skin. Controller in hand. His t-shirt: “WV State Academic Team Champions—2003”.

“Hey.” He smiles without looking, keeps playing. We sink in around him. He doesn’t make room for us.

From the hallway: “You shit! I asked you to do the laundry!”

“I’ll do it,” half to us, half to the wall.

Then his mom’s here—loud, wet hair, pulling at clothes. Doesn’t see us even though we fill the space. Johnny drops the controller. His fingers twitch like he’s still playing.

He mutters “Sorry,” says he forgot. She keeps going, voice raw static.

“Mom, please, stop. I said sorry.” She’s off planet, performing for someone else. Jenni fidgets. Johnny looks at each of us, pleading.

“You know what I had to do to pay for that stupid game?” She stabs a finger at the Xbox. Johnny crumbles.

I sink into the couch. Sarah is crawling out of her body beside me. Jenni’s giving us the same look she uses when she needs to be rescued in a club.  She points to the door. Whispers something I don’t understand.

Johnny’s crying, pushing his mom back toward the hall, shaking apart. The whole house rattles. I rattle too.

We slide out. Jenni says “Call you later,” to the screen door slamming behind us. She lights a cigarette twice, blows smoke sideways. A few inhales and her mask is back, cracked at the edges.

“Let’s get out of here. I’ll figure out someone else to buy from. Can we hang at your place?” I keep my mouth shut.

“That was fucked.”

First thing Sarah has said all day. Her head’s on my shoulder. Tugging on me like gravity.

Jenni makes eyes at us. A puppy in mourning. We bend and bend. She flicks cigarette ash into the weeds and jiggles her keys. We spend the rest of the day on her errands.

Tired now. Hours later, the low sun hums orange. We’re somewhere else. Maybe back where we started. Sarah’s looking at me, her mouth starting to open again. I turn toward the window.

Mine or her place? Same carpet. Different windows. Something strange in my blood. Fingers numb.

The stereo’s on, but I can’t tell what song’s playing. It’s all bass. Just a vibration in my chest. No shape.

Skin tingling electric. Hard to breathe. Jenni’s devouring Sarah on a couch that looks like it’s upholstered with an orange muppet. Wounds lit up, freckles on fire now. That smile.

The door is open. They’d forget about me until the morning. Time to walk away. It’s cold out there though. Thinner air. Too many choices.

My legs don’t move, the room does. Everything touching me, cutting, holding.

I’m on the orange couch, part melted muppet, drowning in Sarah. Jenni above us, mouth floating between ours like she’s feeding baby birds. No orchestration, just drift, caught in the tide with us. I let go of me.

Sarah’s hand finds one of mine. Squeezes. I try to squeeze back.

A hand on Jenni’s hip that looks like mine but I can’t feel it. Then another, and another, until I’m all hands, pulling myself apart. Freckles swarm, crawl across skin, burrow in. Half of me tries to run away. The other half wants to melt, sees the safety of it. A fast breath, then a slow one. Keep going. Keep going.

No. Try to climb back to myself. Too late. No one missed him. Pool of flesh, filling up the room. No edges left. Flash of light. Heat of the sun. Then we’re sliding deeper and deeper into black.

It’s later. A million years. Five minutes. No frame of reference. Something screams that we’re lost. But there’s warmth all around. And heartbeats. I follow them to the surface.

Cracks in my lips burn and stretch. Sunlight sneaking through the edges of the blinds. Jenni and Sarah are knotted around me. I slither free.

Stumble to the bathroom. Pictures of smiling people on the walls. Pill planner on the vanity. The man in the mirror walks away.

The girls where I left them. I cover them in a blanket and Sarah’s eyes open.

She mouths “Stay”. A hand reaches out.

Not sure who she’s talking to.