The boy’s eyes inflated. “Beth’s, like, a gay lesbian?”

“Yup.” In fact, Beth’s sexuality wasn’t official. She hadn’t come out to her family or friends, though Molly had encouraged her with the gift of a T-shirt featuring a blasé-faced rainbow. Beth didn’t even know the term come out, but said “come forth” as in, “Do you think Larry Summers will ever come forth from the closet?” Her gay-dar was also abysmal. But she acted gay enough. Molly had long thought the information should be public. And she’d always known she’d have to follow through while high. She relit the joint, watching the fleshy machine of the boy’s brain kick into gear.

“You’re smoking marijuana.”

Molly wagged her eyebrows. “Sure about that, kid?”

“James,” he said. Defiantly, he reached out his knobby hand for the joint.

She let him have it. Why not? Everything was shit now.

James took a drag.

“You don’t have to hold it in for an hour.”

He let the smoke leak out his nostrils, snorting at the burn. It was nice to share with someone for once. Beth never caved to a drag, even on her most anxious nights. “Pot makes me paranoid,” she said. Or “Pot makes me stupid.” It wasn’t until she said “Pot makes me gassy” that Molly realized pot didn’t make Beth anything because she’d never tried it.

James’s eyes went pink and he slumped into the armchair, painting his pajamas with a full coat of dead dog hair. Why was he in pajamas at 6:00 p.m.? Because the Harvard students wore their pajamas all day, all over town: their genitals bouncing in sweatpants, their stomachs expanding against the forgiving pressure of elastic waists.

“So,” James said. “Tell me. Where’s the dog?”

Molly shouldn’t say. Why would she, when he could use the information against her later? He was an entitled kid who couldn’t sympathize with her position. But one of the symptoms of Molly’s high was babbling. And once she started she always told the whole story.

She described Chowder jogging down the riverbank and how she’d been almost close enough to reach his brush of tail, if she’d only reacted quickly enough. She told the boy each shade of emotion she’d experienced: How at first the tail disappearing was funny, like a cartoon where the world broke open and pulled a silly wolf under its soft surface. How her next thought was relief. She actually considered that Chowder hadn’t pooped yet, and now she wouldn’t have to touch it. But then she thought of Beth, and a fist squeezed her heart.

“I didn’t even fully step on the ice,” Molly said.

“That would’ve been stupid,” James said. “If he fell through, you obviously would have.” He said it like he was answering an exam question, some calculation of body mass divided by structural stability, without consideration for feelings.

“I should’ve walked out a few steps. At least until it cracked. At least so I had.”

James fingered his eyes until Molly couldn’t tell if the resultant tears were from grief or physical pain. “Chowder, Jesus. What a dog.”