Two men—the owners, I guess—immediately surround them. I am entranced by the performance and stare for a beat too long, then snap myself out of it. This is exactly what I was afraid would happen if I did —that I would do socially inappropriate things like stare at people or be nice to them.

Cinnamon’s arm drapes around me and plucks me from my paranoid thoughts. She raises her eyebrows at me. “How you feeling?”

I’m not sure if she’s talking about the molly or Beau’s entrance.

“I feel great,” I say. “I was just texting my dad.” I don’t care that this probably sounds dorky. I gave up trying to be cool a long time ago.

“God, I love texting my parents on molly,” she says. “It’s like all my petty resentments evaporate and I’m just amazed that they are genetically half me, that they raised me and funded my existence for decades.”

“Same!” I shout, although I sense Cinnamon’s parents funded her existence in a different way from how mine did. My parents gave me the bare minimum. If I wanted a shirt from Limited Too, I had to work for it.

“I wish I could be on molly all the time,” she says.

“Same,” I say. I feel great. Beau is here, and Cinnamon the babydoll has her arm around me and I look uncool in an endearing way, I am sure.

“Let’s go try to do a line before Angsty Anna does it all,” she says.

I hadn’t planned to do another line before seeing Beau, but maybe it will be good. Just a small one. This is always how drugs work. Just a little more. It never feels like a big deal until the next day, when you want to kill yourself. I’ll jump off that bridge when I get to it.

All the mirrors allow me to look at Beau without looking directly at him. I like to imagine him doing the same, but he probably isn’t. I sneak a final glance before we slide backstage.

“Okay,” Cinnamon says as she approaches the lines. “What’s the game plan?” She snorts.

“You tell me,” I say. “I’ve never had a boyfriend.” I’m embarrassed to reveal this, then remind myself it is unique. Everyone has been in relationships. Most of my loser friends from Riverside are married with children. It’s more interesting that I’ve never done that. It’s gutsier to go it alone.

“You normally date women?” Cinnamon asks. She snorts another line. I wonder for a second if she was projecting onto Angsty Anna—Cinnamon seems like the biggest fiend here.