The only thing Natalia said about the whole thing later was that maybe Nick was right and Kimmie should wait on getting a tattoo because she had some she regretted herself. Kimmie nodded and thanked her for the new hair and said she was going to Uber back before her curfew. Natalia gave Kimmie a fierce hug good-bye and slipped her a half pack of menthols and a lighter so she could practice her technique. She made a point of saying good-bye to Nick, too, but he was back to playing his video game again, and only gave her a cursory nod farewell.

While she waited for her Uber at the front of their tiny apartment building, Kimmie leaned against Nick’s Volvo and lit up. She couldn’t help but dwell on Nick’s statement about growing up with girls like her. He’d said it so contemptuously, she would have ordinarily been offended, but on this particular night she wasn’t. She was currently hating on the type of girl she used to be, too. Natalia and Nick seemed so cool and real to her, saying whatever they wanted whenever they wanted at whatever volume they pleased. She especially admired how Natalia didn’t let Nick tell her what to do or think and how she was willing to get in his face and let him know he wasn’t the boss of her. Natalia was the ultimate badass, and Kimmie couldn’t get enough of her.

After that, Kimmie and Natalia were attached at the hip. Once, when Nick took a double shift at the restaurant, he gave Natalia the keys to the car, and the two girls went to the local mall, got pizza, and ended up piercing each other’s ears with ice and a needle that they sanitized with a Bic lighter, using a technique Natalia’s Vegas bestie, Sarah, had taught her. Kimmie now had three piercings going up her right earlobe, while Natalia had seven.

It was on that night that Kimmie finally confessed to Natalia about what had happened back in New York and how she ended up in Arizona. Natalia was a good listener and after hearing the story, she agreed that Kimmie should go through with her plan to confront Vronsky and give him a piece of her mind. Natalia told Kimmie that she loved being a girl, but that she often felt like boys had it way easier. They could screw around all they wanted and be lauded by their friends as a true hero. But if a girl fucked around and, God forbid, enjoyed sex, then she’d be labeled a total whore. It wasn’t fair. The only way to fight back against gender inequality was to not give a shit and not apologize. “If Nick yells at me, I’m gonna yell louder. If he hits me, I’m gonna hit him back harder.”