There was no one in the apartment. Megan pissed without turning on the light in the bathroom. When she was finished, she washed her hands with cold water because her fingers tended to get stiff and swollen in hot weather. She always wondered if that happened to everyone. She could hear the shrieks and chatter of the party outside. Someone started shooting bottle rockets.

JILLIAN HUNG UP the phone and then lay down because she was already on her bed, so why not?

IT WAS HARD for Megan to make out what the living room looked like in the dark. The streetlights were visible through the open windows, and they had that hypnotic effect over Megan that bright things sometimes have over moths and the drunk. She walked to the windows. There were large plants in the living room and bookshelves and a tv. A cat lay on the couch. If anyone came into the apartment she would say, “Oh, I’m just looking at the cat.” People love to look at cats.

She put her palms on the windowsill and looked out onto the street. Even though it was cooler now, a bead of sweat ran down her asscrack. A cyclist rode past and a guy stumbled around on the pavement. Megan zoned out. Megan turned to the cat.

“I envy you, you fucking idiot,” she said to it telepathically.

It squirmed and said, “Whatever.”

She sighed. She looked out the window and again thought about taking some kind of long road trip or maybe faking a fugue state or maybe drinking so much or becoming so stressed out that she actually entered a fugue state. When she came to, she would work on getting it together. Etcetera. There were very few cars out on the street. Everyone must be drinking, she thought.

IT WAS DIFFICULT for Jillian to sit up and, when she did, she felt like a ghost, like she was sending her avatar to continue her life while she was really still there on the bed. This feeling had happened before. It was fun in a certain way, because of how she felt like she was floating around, which made her feel, even if she didn’t think it specifically, as if there were some kind of random current to life sloshing her towards her fate.

She sat next to Adam on the couch. They didn’t speak. They watched the program about the sentient dolphins.

MEGAN AND RANDY walked home together. Megan started crying and Randy held her hand. They fought again in the morning. Sunday was a generally bad day. Megan smoked a lot and sat outside on the curb and fantasized about fugue states.

JILLIAN TOOK the battery out of her phone and hid it somewhere in her house, then sat down and consciously forgot where she put it. Then, since it was Sunday, she observed that it was her day of rest.

FIVE