We finished our beers, chatting in between sips but not really saying anything. It had been a while since I’d shared a beer with someone; I tried not to make friends in Hell. But it was nice, sitting there with her.

“Wow, it got late!” she said when we stepped outside. I could tell from that alone that Cal had had a good time. The sky doesn’t change in Hell the way it does for you. Our sky is caught forever in gray scale, hazy enough to make you feel like an intruder upon a sleeping world but bright enough to leave everyone squinting. The ending of one day or the beginning of another, just the same. So when she said it had gotten late, she didn’t mean we were so captivated that the world around us had gone on turning and we hadn’t even noticed. Rather, she meant the time we had spent together had passed quickly. They might sound like the same thing, but there’s a difference between finding something so entrancing that you are able to forget, for even just a minute, the ticking pressure of mortality, and feeling pleasantly surprised that the contents of your daily slop-bucket of time are less rotten than usual. You would’ve eaten the rot just fine, but this was . . . better.

That’s the highest compliment anyone can get here.

“Hey, listen, I want to say thank you for tonight. It’s been a weird transition, and it’s nice to know I have a—well, it’s nice to see a friendly face.”

“My friendly face is here for your enjoyment whenever you need it!” I said. I could feel the beer toasting me from the inside, and her words and my warmth combined to make me want to do something crazy. I wanted to hug her. I almost did it too. I really almost hugged her. But she started walking before I remembered how it worked: putting your arms around another person. Where would my hands go? What if her hair got in my mouth? In the end, urge lost to etiquette, and I watched her walk away.

Did humans hug in their caves? I went back into Jack’s and thought about it the rest of the night. Who was the first person to seek comfort in another? Did it work?

And if not, who was brave enough to try again?

MICKEY

MICKEY HARRISON HATED SOCCER. But she hated it less than piano or ballet, and her parents had nothing else to do with her in the afternoons. Even though she hated it, Mickey was good at soccer. She had the right kind of body: one long line, knees and elbows that looked like cartoon dog bones. No cleavage, nothing to get in the way. And she could run without getting winded. She could run for miles.