Heidi saw it all, in an instant: the girl was tall and longhaired, one shoulder listing to the right, teeth blocky and prominent. The friendship must’ve closed in until Kim’s hand strayed one day to the girl’s belly, and then, under her shoulder, to the moist hollow of her armpit. When Heidi pictures Kim and the girl nowadays, she never follows the fantasy to the end: other girls finding out, the best friend ditching Kim, Nancy giving up her own life to move. She holds the story in those early days: the hand, exploring, flesh breathing against fingertips.

Nancy took Heidi’s shoulder. “Will you be careful?”

“I’ll protect her.” She already had, tonight. If it weren’t for Heidi, Kim would be in Lisa Parsons’s car now, gliding into an unlit drugstore parking lot.

“That’s not what I mean. She’s fond of you, Heidi.”

The ghost pressure of Kim’s hands pressed down on Heidi’s shoulder, like when they wrestled, holding tighter than Heidi ever held her back. The way Kim watched her glassily when they finished. Kim was at her desk right now, shoulders hunched, the computer open but her focus on the window, waiting not for Lisa Parsons but Heidi.

If only Kim’s Scituate was real. The resource room teacher with the futon in the closet, Kelly Stephanie, Rainbow Rainbow. Kim should’ve stayed in that world forever, where she was safe and popular and happy.

Nancy straightened up. “Be careful how close you get, all right?”

“Yeah.” Because hadn’t she always known, really?

Nancy wiped her hands on her sweater. “Meet you inside?”

But when Nancy went in, Heidi crossed the yard and the parking lot and headed down Mass Ave. She’d walk the two miles home. She’d give her father a fright no matter how softly she opened the door, but when he saw her, he’d know she was upset. She wouldn’t be able to hide her hot cheeks, her busy teeth that had already chewed a cut in her lip. She’d lost Kim, all those adventures and hot dogs and books read together, back-to-back, on Kim’s dusty floor. She’d curl in her bed with her quilted pig and muffle the night with heavy blankets. She’d tell herself that leaving was right, that Kim liked her too much, that she’d only get hurt. But in all the lonely years ahead, she’d never be sure if she was just being cruel. As she walked down the street she looked out as far as possible through the night, squinting until the snowflakes were smeared motion on the air.

Boy Jump

Boy Jump