“I guess. I think that’s what he said. I don’t know, maybe Jacob just thinks there is. I can’t even figure this stuff out, and I haven’t seen any of them for ages. He looks like a wreck, that’s all I know.” I hear the doorbell from the basement door. “Oops,” Mom says, “I gotta go. Bye, hon. I’ll be downstairs if you need me!”

I sigh for years and lower my mouth to the water and make bubbles with my lips. It is deliciously silent. A deep quiet, where you can hear the hum of all the whirring things in the house, everything waiting to be used. And I feel in that moment that I could sink down, down, below the surface, into the hot center of the earth. Raising my arms in surrender, my body buzzing like an engine, like another thing to be turned on and up and into something else. I could just melt into the silence and loneliness.

I lie like this for a long time. A song runs through my head and I nod to the rhythm, and eventually the water feels cold and a chill runs across my arms, making the skin rise in tiny goose bumps. I pull the plug and stand, shivering, grabbing a towel that smells faintly of mildew.

In my mom’s room, there is a long full-length mirror that swings on a frame. I stand in front of it in the buff. I’m not hairless like most of the girls I know. You’re going full bush, Lottie said once. She shaves herself, but I’m afraid of putting the razor down there and have no intention of waxing. I’m just getting the hang of shaving my pits without cutting myself; I’m not risking any injuries to my nether regions. It’s not like anyone is seeing them anyway, despite what anyone says.

I think about how earlier today, Luke was all over Matthew for answering a question about black holes in Science.

“Yeah, you know that, but could you find a real hole?” he muttered, loud enough for a few of us to hear. Would I have laughed at that a few months ago?

“What?” asked Matthew. Luke and his buddies scoffed.

Then I heard Dee, who sits beside me, say under her breath, “Why doesn’t anyone ever stop these guys?”

Without thinking, I grabbed an eraser and threw it at Luke. It hit him squarely in the head and he whipped around, his eyes angry as hell.

“What the fuck?” he snarled.

“Stevie!” our teacher called, surprised. “Settle down, please.”

Luke rubbed his head and leaned toward Matthew, whispering, “You could find Skeevie’s hole, because it’s all stretched out and overused. But it probably has teeth. It’d probably bite your hand off.”

“Shut up,” said Matthew quietly, looking back at me apologetically.