Outside, under the stars dimmed by streetlights from town, in a yard she knew she’d envision over years to come, she stood and looked around. It was a lazy place, this place, but she didn’t feel lazy. Everything felt heightened, as if she were being watched, which, yes, she might be. He’d seen her. He’d been watching.

Maybe right that second her phone, long gone, could be ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing with the Chime ringtone, which might as well have been called Contemporary Despair. Or any moment Leda could simply reappear. She could skip the phone call and already be lying in the hammock; Leda might be watching. The air was still, and then—as if Sarah had willed it, like those string lights last night—a gust of wind came and went. The wind was warm and reminded her of Florida, five years old and alone with her father. She remembered saying, The air is so human, again and again. She’d said it for days before he’d pointed out that what she meant to say was humid. The air is humid. The air is human.

There was a human. He was there. She noticed that after the wind died down the hammock kept moving. She knew it was Arman, but for a moment she let it be Leda. And there she was, right there, several yards away. Sarah could actually see—could she?—the blond hair spilling over the edge and down toward the earth, down into the darkness. There was the fungal stench of a girl who’d been riding a bus all night long. Sarah would approach quietly. She would wordlessly climb into the hammock and Leda would be startled. Leda would probably scream. It would be awkward at first, of course it would. But then they’d lie side by side as they always had—shoulders, arms, and thighs touching together—and eventually fall asleep.

Sarah put her fingers to her eyelids and pressed. She opened her eyes and crept toward the trees. As she grew closer, the blond hair spilling over the edge became dried-out overgrown weeds. The hammock continued to sway and her heart continued its beat and she knew she should speak up, that she could literally give Arman a heart attack (none of them—not even Arman and Kiki!—were young anymore), but somehow Sarah just couldn’t. She couldn’t call out. She stood several feet from where his head would be. He would lie facing the creek, not the house.

“Arman,” she finally said. Her voice was faint at first, even hoarse. When he didn’t pop up, she said it louder. Still he didn’t move.