“Here,” my phone said. I propped it in the cupholder, joined the line of traffic snaking to arrivals. The gates were crowded. Everywhere people held up hands, phones, flagging. Leah stood among them, face in her screen. She seemed shorter than before, flanked on every side by men. I honked, waved, and she looked up, grabbed the handle of her suitcase and rolled toward me. Aside from a few awkward FaceTimes, it had been four years since I’d seen her. I was suddenly aware that those years were years in which we both had changed. It wasn’t only me, becoming someone new. I watched her body expand as she neared the car, taller when she got close. She went to the back of the Prius and opened it.

“Dooooomer,” I called from the front, putting on her old persona, my voice a silly snarl.

Her suitcase slid in and the back slammed. She walked around, landed in the passenger seat. “Hey,” she said, affectless, as if she hadn’t heard me. I felt myself inhale, sharp. She wasn’t shorter, just wan like a consumptive, body folded in on itself, protective and weak.

“Hello?” she said, but I was staring at her kneecaps, popped up from the fabric of her leggings like baby skulls.

“Sorry,” I said and cleared my throat. “Hi.” We hugged. Muscle, bones, breasts. Against hers, my body felt animal and full. I pulled away first, reached for my phone. But cars honked behind me, every horn an echo. I put my hands on the wheel, signaled to turn, focused on the blinker’s noise.

“I can’t believe you made it,” I said. “I couldn’t believe it when you wrote back.”

“Why?”

“I’m just happy you’re here.”

“Naurene is sick,” she said, like she wasn’t sure it was true, and wanted to confirm.

“And drugged. She’s not herself. How are you?”

“What’s that smell,” she asked and I said, “Puke.”

“Yours?”

“No.”

We went quiet and I wondered how I’d survive her closeness, now that her body was so unlike what I’d expected.

“I’m on a running scholarship at uni,” she said, breaking the silence. “It’s a lot of pressure.” Her voice was accented now, Australian, every R an A. I accelerated to fill a hole in the traffic’s flow. The car beeped, urgent.

“It wants you to buckle your seatbelt,” I said. She pulled the strap.

“I’d ask what you’re up to,” she said. “But I already know.”

“What?”

She buckled, waved her phone at me.

“Oh,” I said, “very funny.”

“I know everything about you.”

“Not everything.”

She looked out the window. Strip malls spun by. When she spoke next, her words were slower.