“I saw pictures of her wounds,” I said. “I’m sorry you had to see her like that.”

“It’s nothing,” Lina said quickly. But there was a silence as each girl seemed to contemplate her friend, weed smoke curling in the air.

“Hey—” Carmen poked me. “Maybe you can get the patties.”

Lina gasped, “Tori?”

Tori regarded me with red eyes. “Yeah,” she said, “maybe. My grandma keeps them around, but she hates us. Can you ask? Ask for the coconut patties.”

I went softly to the living room, where the old woman sat with blue TV light playing on her face. I introduced myself as a writer from New York.

She sucked her teeth and said, “Speak up.”

“I’m a writer from New York,” I shouted. “I’m interviewing Tori and her friends for a magazine article.”

“Good god, really?”

“She said I had to try the coconut patties before I go back.”

“When do you go?”

“Tonight.”

The old woman leaned painfully over the side of the sofa and pulled up a yellow box. “Fine,” she said, “fine. And let the girls have one.”

I reached for the patties and she said, “One.”

“One,” I replied.

Carmen leapt off the bed when I came in, and all three girls bunched together on the floor. I sat down with them, cross-legged, and set the box in the center of our circle. The patties were dense coconut sandwiched in layers of chocolate. The girls took them two at a time. That’s how I spent my last night in Retreat, with three teens on the floor, munching through a box of junk until we wanted to puke.

“Maybe there’s something I should tell you,” Carmen said eventually.

“Don’t,” Tori said.

“Yeah, don’t,” said Lina.

“Look, I know,” Carmen said, “but what if I’m right?”

“You’re not.”

“Yeah, you’re not.”

“What is it?” I asked.

Carmen glanced at her friends, who looked away, jaws working through the coconut.

“I thought I saw Jules one time.”

Tori shook her head.

“It was back in January.”

“That would be after she left the hospital,” I said.

“I guess. If you say so. Anyway, it was late, and I was pretty wasted.”

“She blacks out,” Lina told me.

“Yeah, but not then. And so what? I saw what I saw.”

“Tell me,” I said.

“I was walking home, just a couple blocks from here, and saw a girl crouching on the street. I thought it was somebody shooting up, but then I saw it was Jules.”

“It couldn’t have been Jules,” Lina said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“When I spoke to her, she just ran off,” said Carmen.

“Jules wouldn’t run away from you,” Lina said.

“But I saw her face.”

“And it was Jules?” I said.

Carmen chewed a knuckle. I could see teeth marks on her finger.

“Carmen?” I said.

“Look, I don’t know. Her face, it was all messed up.”