“I’m sure you do,” he said, looking down and moving backward into the room. I felt sick, wanted to run back down the stairs and out into the darkness. I curled my fingers around the napkin. Come back. I could leave. Do it. But he held the door for us, and we walked inside.

Celeste was perched on the arm of her couch, her tiny body draped in a shimmery white sheath. She gestured grandly as she spoke, her subjects on the couch turned toward her, grinning like supplicants. She caught sight of us squeezing through the entrance hallway and bounded over. “I haven’t seen you in a million years!” she trilled, gathering Jojo and me, by default, into a massive hug. I closed my eyes and let my head lean into Jojo’s shoulder.

“It’s been two weeks!” Jojo laughed, pulling back and breaking the circle.

“Two weeks too long.” Celeste cupped Jojo’s face in her hands to plant a kiss on her lips, then turned toward me. “Great to see you again,” she said. “I’m glad you came.” The formality of her tone made me wonder if this was akin to telling someone you love her ugly sweater to cover up for how much you’ve been staring at it.

“Thanks for having me,” I said.

Celeste smiled at me—with warmth? Derision? I tried to smile back, but my lips were frozen into some kind of grimace. She was very beautiful, and it made me hate her. I wanted to excise my favorite features from her face, her body, and Jojo’s, too, and I wanted to make them mine.

“Well, come in,” she said, ushering us into the crowded room. “Put your coats in my room, wine’s on the kitchen counter, beer in the fridge—”

“We know everything,” Jojo said. “Oh! And.” She reached into her handbag and pulled out a bottle of two-dollar wine.

“You shouldn’t have.” Celeste examined it. “The white, thank God. The red tastes like feet.”

I looked out into the apartment. The crowd was already thick and humming. My stomach lurched, girding me for humiliation, but I saw hardly anyone else I knew. There was a long-sleeved velvet crop top over a pair of jeans with shredded knees, long brown hair chopped into bangs; a guy in a collared short-sleeved shirt with a bold jungle print; a V-neck white T-shirt. Benny was already talking to a girl in the corner, his palm flat against the wall above her shoulder. She had her head cocked and was twirling a strand of hair round and round her finger, a habit I found repulsive. Benny seemed to like it. His hand, splayed out on the wall like that, looked like a little boy’s, hairless and pale. Nothing like the bartender’s, those solid fingers curled around the knife. I saw you. He had watched me shove a dick inside my mouth, looking up at its owner like a desperate little slut, and he had seen me cry. I felt awash in fresh shame, squeezed my hands into fists to ward off the feeling. Come back, his note said. Why had he wanted me to come back—because he liked desperate little sluts? Because he wanted me to suck his dick, too? Because he wanted me?