I nod.

“Your first time?”

I nod.

“It is a permanent procedure and we cannot be held liable for any side effects or other repercussions.”

“I understand.”

“Well, here’s the paperwork. We do it cheap out here. Gonna cost $110, gonna need your ID.”

I scrawl out my name and my answers, then fish my license out of my purse, pass it all over.

“If you’re ready, I’m ready,” the old man says.

The room is white-walled with a white table in the center. There are silver countertops and cabinets. I sit in an open-backed paper gown.

“Now, let’s see what we’re dealing with here.”

He steps closer to the table, and passes a hand under the gown, over the bare skin of my back. He runs his fingers between my shoulder blades until he finds the thick lump on the left.

“It’s a big one,” he mutters. “Jesus.”

He shifts his fingers over the lump again.

“Now, we won’t need to knock you out for this, just a topical painkiller,” he says. “It’s going to hurt a bit, but it’ll be worth it in the end.”

He gives me two injections near the bulge. Then, he moves a scalpel expertly over the lump. I cry out in pain as the skin splits and air rushes into the new wound.

“Hold still now,” he says.

I feel his hands on either side of the fresh wound. He applies pressure and the mouth splits. I can feel the lump sliding out of me.

“There it is,” he says.

He brings his hand forward to show me. All of my jealousy has crystallized into a disgusting gem, slick with my blood, shining its evil in the fluorescent light.

He stitches me back up, puts my skin back together.

I put my clothes back on, moving slow, wincing at the pain. I move down the long white hallway to the front counter. He’s waiting there, and in his hand is the black gem, clean and shining, sparkling less without the blood.

“It’s yours to keep,” he says. “We don’t want all of your baggage.”

“What do I do with this?” I ask.

“Most people toss it in the pit up the street,” he says. “Follow the signs.”

The signs are small and wooden. They spell out JEALOUSY PIT in sloppy black script with jutting arrows pointing the way.

I park and get out of the car, walking up to the edge of the pit.

Below, a quarry in the earth is full of them, jealousy gems, all black, removed from everyone in town and left here.

I picture the whole town split open like me, their incisions like smiles. I stare down into my stone again, into that dark, awful crystal. Then I throw it down with the rest.

“I’M IN LOVE,” I SAY OVER THE PHONE to Sophia.

“In love? What’s his deal? Who is this now?”