It’s strange to think of herself as the subject of feminist critique and debate, the same way the women she’s been hearing and reading about for months now are—to think of herself as a woman, much less a woman artist. Lulu imagines responding to all of these essays: “Thank you so much for your consideration, but I was just drunk and dumb and horny, tbh.” How hilariously disappointed they’d all be.

You know, you might be right about the hammers, Cass texts her. Weirdly, I think analog is our best bet in this case.

Let me know when you’re ready, Lulu says.

Can’t tomorrow, Cass says. What about Wednesday night?

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

WHEN CASS OPENS her door, Lulu holds the hard drive out between them like an offering, or a shield. “I brought it,” she says.

Cass smiles briefly. “Good.”

“Are your parents or anyone home?” Lulu asks as they make their way through the house. It’s 4:30 p.m. and starting to get dark already. She’s ready for spring, but it’s still a few months off.

“No.”

“That’s nice.”

“Mmmm.”

Cass’s backyard looks bigger without all of the stuff that was in it last time she was here, the couches and projector and screen, and all of those boys. She leads Lulu to a corner where apparently at some point someone tried to build a fire pit; now there’s just grass-free dirt and a circle of rocks. Cass has already laid down a tarp; she has a toolbox off to one side.

“So do we just go at it?”

“Hang on a sec.”

Cass sits on the tarp and opens the toolbox, pulls out a screwdriver. After a moment, Lulu comes to sit with her.

There’s a cover on top of the drive that she’s trying to pry off, working on unscrewing the screws. She does the first three before Lulu stops her.

“Can I do one?”

“If you want to.”

“I do,” Lulu says. “I just. I want to feel it come apart.”

Cass nods. She hands Lulu the screwdriver and the drive. “It’s sort of more prying than unscrewing.”

“Cool,” Lulu says. She tries to do what Cass did. It takes her a while too, but the screw pops loose, and there it is: the vulnerable inside of the thing. An object she can attack and destroy.

“Hah!” she says.

“Very nice.”

Cass is smiling indulgently and Lulu looks up at her and thinks, I want to kiss you. It reminds her of thinking it and trying to swallow it all those times before; it makes her realize how silly she was to imagine that this was something she could ignore, or deny. She’s never not going to want to kiss Cass when Cass is around. There’s no just friends about this.

But she did not come over here to make that point.