I should text Jo. I will. I’ll text her right now. I’m going to a party, but I won’t do anything. I won’t. I reach into my bag, but my phone is dead. I’m never motivated to keep it charged, since I have zero friends and no boyfriend. I guess I could borrow Eddie’s phone, but I don’t ask.

Eddie starts talking about his kid, his girlfriend, and I listen. Nod. Bad idea, bad idea is going through my head on repeat, but I tune myself out. Soon we’re at Park Street and transferring to the Red Line, which is fast and sleek. I hesitate before stepping into the train, but the doors start closing, and on instinct I jump in. Bad idea, bad idea. We get off at Harvard and Eddie nods to the punks camped out just outside the station with their guitars and cardboard signs and dogs. These are my people. The Justs. Square pegs in round holes. Maybe I will be homeless like them and I will write acorns on my signs and hope people give me quarters, or dollars, not just scorn or pity or an excuse to remember how lucky they are. Or I could be like Priscilla in Venice and join the freak show on the boardwalk: Come see the girl who lost both her parents in a tsunami! I look away from them before I can see my jeweler, my hookup. Before I can give her money in exchange for diamonds.

We walk past Harvard, where people like Mae are—people who matter, who belong. People who know what they want to do with their lives. I take in a ragged breath, and Eddie turns, eyeing me. He reaches into his pocket and takes out a pill.

“For the birthday girl,” he says.

I don’t reach for it. I can’t. Can I? My fingers itch. All that hard work getting better, and suddenly here I am.

“Oxy. Good stuff.” He dangles it. “Going once, going twice…”

I take it and swallow the pill before I can change my mind. The sand in my hourglass falls faster. It’s at my waist. Faster.

Way faster than usual.