“Wow,” Kit says. “Aren’t we having fun?” She steers Hazel toward the front door. “It’s party time.”

Hazel gathers force into her voice. “This is magnificent.”

The apartment opens into a living room with a gray couch pushed against the wall, and a threshold beyond that leads to a kitchen with a particleboard table. On the table rests a pizza box with one slice left, cheese glue sealing it to the cardboard. A girl sits on the couch, her hair bleached orange, with black roots. She holds a wineglass topped off with a brown, bubbly drink. She’s too rodenty to be Esther Meng, almost a nerd. But the couch curls around her back like it’s conformed to her body over years.

“Welcome to the best party of the nineteen hundreds,” she says, pressing the rim of the glass to Hazel’s chin.

“No thanks.” Hazel speaks as clearly as possible with the glass denting her mouth. “Where’s Melissa?”

Esther doesn’t remove the glass.

“Esther,” Kit says. “Cut it out.”

But this is Esther’s party, and Hazel can’t ignore her. She takes a sip, and her mouth burns with flavorless poison. Her feet loosen in her boots, and she sways. She grabs Esther’s shoulder to steady herself.

“You’re precious,” Esther says, pressing a blue nail into Hazel’s cheek and sliding it along the curve of her jaw. “I think I’ll eat you out.”

Esther watches Hazel in an intent way. Not like Melissa or Kit, because there’s always the other to split the energy. With Esther it’s like Hazel’s the only one in the room. Hazel holds her gaze, proud and steady, testing the feeling of being worthy. Esther tucks a chunk of hair behind her ear. She’s ragged under the eyes in an appealing way, like she knows all about adulthood and beyond: old age, disappointment, death. Like she’s sat around the table with every fear. Hazel needs her secrets. Right now. She steps closer, but Kit pulls her back.

“Hazel has her period,” Kit says. She looks as worried as she did the day Hazel stumbled off the shoulder into I-95, flashing a battered utility van.

“I don’t,” Hazel says.

Kit jerks Hazel away. “Come on, idiot.”

They settle together in the kitchen. Esther stays in the living room, but she’s visible through the threshold, picking nail polish from her thumb. Kit pinches cheese off the last slice of pizza, arranging the specks into a dotted line. Any minute a horde will burst through the door, laughing and singing New Year’s songs, Melissa at the center.

“We thought you weren’t coming,” Kit says. “Melissa was like, ‘Fuck her. She thinks she’s better than us.’”

“No, I don’t.” Hazel opens her pocket and fondles Ratty. He must look pink in there, with the light diffusing through the nylon. “I stink.”

Kit rests her head on the table. “Melissa might do it tonight. You know. Like do it. For real.”

“She means full sex,” Esther drones from across the threshold.

Hazel pictures Melissa tangled with Rob, breathing like she ran the mile at school. She shakes her head, but the image presses in, fleshy and sour.