“I feel like drinking is kind of whatever at this point,” Greta said. “Like, culturally, it seems kind of over, you know?”

She was proud of her young colleague’s confidence, but worried for her, too. How long would it be before the first major rupture in her life, the event that pulled her out of her youth and into whatever her life would become? (And how long before the next one for Cassie herself?)

“Alcohol makes me insane,” she said, “but it’s fine for regular people. I like watching people have one or two drinks. After that I start to feel embarrassed for them.”

“College in Boston scared me straight,” Greta said. “I mean, straighter. I think there’s maybe a quota of vomit that one can witness and still have a happy life, and I might have just about reached it. More?”

She held the spliff out between her fingers.

“Nah, I’m a one-hitter these days,” Cassie said. “Cheap date.”

Greta’s eyes widened, whether in mockery or admiration, Cassie could not be sure.

On the train, she looked up from her book, as she always did while they crossed the Charles. It was half frozen, the water undulating discreetly around the blocks of ice, like cars swerving slightly, one by one, around a pothole. Was it doing that? Her language sometimes outpaced the available stimuli. Let it. The water was moving, and the ice was staying still. The train was moving, and she was perched solidly inside of it. It felt right. As the train descended back into the ground, she closed her eyes and waited for her stop.

Cool for America

I snapped my leg in two and lost the summer—six months on crutches and I’d be lucky if I didn’t limp for the rest of my life. I went to the ground for a slide tackle in a pickup soccer game and felt what turned out to be my tibia shoot through my skin. I couldn’t believe how fucking badly it hurt, and I must have conveyed that, since I spent the next three days on morphine. They sent me home all messed up and helpless but it’s amazing how much trouble I got myself into anyway.