“Okay, then,” I said, deciding to trust him. And Zeke pressed the blade against the tip of his finger, and I stared at the way the skin resisted it. I felt dizzy. Finally, the blade pushed through the skin, and he made this little gasp, and then there was nothing. Just a second or two or nothing, and then, like it was being conjured, like a magic trick, this little bubble of blood rose to the surface. He set the blade down and squeezed his finger until the blood started to drip down his finger.

“Now you,” he said. I hesitated. “It doesn’t hurt,” he told me, and I believed him.

I took the blade, held it up to my left middle finger, and pressed the blade into the skin. But my hand slipped a little, or maybe I got scared at the last second, because I dragged the blade down the length of my finger, opening it up, and blood came so fast that I felt like I was going to pass out.

“Oh, shit!” Zeke cried out, and I said, “I think I fucked it up,” but he grabbed the edge of his shirt and wrapped it around my finger, forgetting about his own wound. There wasn’t a lot of blood, not as much as it seemed at first, but it was enough that we got scared. We were still kids, afraid of getting into trouble. I was bleeding, but I didn’t know what to do next.

“On the paper,” he said, “like, drip it on the paper?” I could tell he didn’t know what he was doing, but I took my hand away from his grip and I shook my hand over the paper, like I was trying to dry it in the open air, and the blood went in all directions, little flecks of it on my face. Zeke really had to squeeze his finger to get anything, but eventually he got some on the paper, too. When it felt like I’d done enough, I put my finger in my mouth, that taste of iron on my tongue, and then I wrapped it up inside my shirt.

The blood, flecks and flecks of it, looked like stars in the sky, strange constellations, symbols and meanings. It looked beautiful, like we’d made a universe.

“We have to let it dry,” he said, like all of this was perfectly normal, “and then we can make copies.”

So we just sat there on the floor of the dusty, cramped garage, surrounded by things nobody wanted. I needed to get a bandage for my finger, but I didn’t want to move. And Zeke asked if he could kiss me again.

“My mouth tastes like blood,” I admitted.