“I mean, two-fifty a month — I’m not starving without it or anything, but that’s the difference between being able to, like, make the food I want to eat, and not being able to.”

“Right, like, I don’t have to be constantly doing math in my head.”

Sara was short and femme and had pink hair, Fern had been taking low-dose testosterone for six months, Rebecca had jet-black hair and bangs that hovered high and skeptical above her thin eyebrows. And then there was me, the only trans girl in the group, just sort of towering over them. We formed some piece of the inevitable scenery in the part of Brooklyn centered around Broadway and Myrtle, doubtlessly connected in some people’s minds with raising rents and the encroachment of cafés like the one we worked at, which in addition to overpriced coffee also sold a random assortment of books, dried flowers, crystals, tarot decks, incense, and so on.

When we got back to the apartment it was about eight and it was pitch dark outside. Rebecca reheated some leftovers and disappeared into her bedroom for the evening, flicking on the lamp that scattered pink light around her room before closing the door with her foot. I ate some crackers and arranged myself in front of my mirror. I heard the beginnings of some HBO show through the wall as I did my makeup, and then she found her headphones.

It’s taken a year of living here, but I think I finally like my bedroom. It’s narrow — my queen-sized bed takes up most of it, and the only other piece of furniture is a small table with a big mirror with lights around the rim. I found it on the street a while ago — obviously, the lights didn’t work, which is why it was on the street, but those can be fixed with a soldering iron, a few trips to the hardware store, and some patience. I had one window, with bars over it, that gave a good view of the brick row houses with arched windows and beautiful tall stoops on Wyckoff Avenue. I had hung a translucent purple curtain over it, which fluttered a bit because I always kept the window open just a crack, even in the gross, wet winters. When I sat there, my face brilliantly illuminated, with the sounds of the street filtering up into my little, cell-like room, I felt calm and protected in the way a bird must feel in the ample knot of a great tree.

I took a little orange pill — Adderall XR, 20 mg — from the bottle I kept in the drawer of the vanity. I considered taking two, but it wasn’t going to be that kind of night. A visit to a meaningful ex, then a house party, no afters. I had to be at my best, but one was enough.