She opened the window with one hand and exhaled smoke out of it. I went to sit by her on the windowsill, pulled my knees up to my chest, and looked out into the burgeoning morning. Our building cast blue shadows on the garages on the opposite side of the street. When I looked at her, I saw some concern in her eyes. I wondered what she saw in mine.

“I gotta go,” she said, after a few quick hits of the sour-smelling pipe. “If you don’t need help setting up, wanna come visit me when I’m done with work?”

“Sure,” I said. “Erin said she wanted to hang out.”

“Ok,” Lauren said. “Does Erin like me?” she added.

“Why wouldn’t she?” I asked.

“She has her guard up around me,” she said. “It’s just how it is, I guess. It’s like she doesn’t want me to see the creepy way she treats you.”

I made myself smile, cocked my head to one side. “She’s not my girlfriend,” I said.

“That much is clear to me,” she said.

“You know she’s calling herself bisexual now,” I said.

Lauren scoffed. “You know what I think about this,” she said, dismounting from the windowsill. She started rummaging through her bag, making sure she had everything. Then she ran into the bathroom to wash her face.

“See you later,” I said, retreating to my room.

“Cya,” Lauren said crisply, covering her face with shaving cream.

♒

Everyone calls this place “charming,” and I guess I get it. People who come from the college town a couple miles away like the old houses, the old trees, the new coffee shops and restaurants in the center of town, the open space. They like it because they can live cheaply in a beautiful little town, and they hadn’t really considered living in the middle of nowhere before. The town has a name that makes people in cities scrunch up their faces in inquiry. Is that near Detroit? It is, but if it weren’t for the highway that hummed constantly in the background, we could be miles and miles away from anything real. Those people come to this place, they come to nowhere, and they say, This seems nice and quiet. It is. Poverty and obsolescence tend to be quiet.