Harry was the first girl I ever hooked up with. Because she climbed into my lap like that, and took my hand and put it on her stomach. We were watching TV in my room, under a blanket that my roommate left behind. I never got to know the roommate, but think she moved home because she was afraid of killing herself. For a few weeks, I wouldn’t go on her side of the room at all, which was empty except for her cheap sheets on her cheap mattress. Then I stripped her bed and spread myself out as much as possible, trying to crowd her presence out. Harry angled my hand until my fingertips were in her shorts. I could feel the thick elastic waistband of her underwear, and a few coarse curls of hair. I asked her if she was sure. We’d known each other for maybe three months then, made out a couple of times, drunk, and hadn’t talked about it. She was still with her girlfriend.

“Yeah,” she said. I remember my uneven heartbeat, and the sensation of having half swallowed something I couldn’t get down. I remember that I only really thought of her girlfriend because I was thinking that I’d never touched anyone but myself, and Harry had probably been fingered plenty of times. I remember feeling like the shape of her skeleton would be imprinted on me for the rest of my life.

* * *

In Portland, we stopped at Powell’s, where Harry darted off toward the true crime section and left me holding her hamster. Emily Dickinson was tucked in a little denim purse and squirming violently against my hip. I wondered if she was frightened, having been moved around so much all of a sudden. It was ridiculous to me that Harry insisted on bringing her. Hamsters only live about three years, and Harry’d already had Emily Dickinson for nearly two, cage hidden in the closet of her dorm. Her parents would’ve taken care of it, I’m sure, but she insisted. She didn’t want it to be alone, she said. Or she didn’t want to be alone. One of those.

I slipped my hand into the purse and tried to pet Emily Dickinson’s fragile little skull. She bit me.