Serena hopped off the counter where she’d been perched and approached the mirror that hung by the door. She faced her reflection and stuck a strawberry in her mouth, green end first. It looked like a tongue, protruding there, and I thought of the first night I had followed Janet and Laurel out of our dormitory, their own real tongues silhouetted in the dark.

She gestured for us to join her, and soon we were all sticking out our red tongues at the mirror, the seeds of the strawberries melting into taste buds, the shine of the ripe fruit into spit. Laurel posed, tossing her hair, winking. Janet stared herself down, suddenly serious. Serena found a sharp pair of kitchen shears. She held them in front of her face, blades open wide. She looked herself in the eye. Then, with one swift movement, she cut off the tip of her tongue. It landed, half a strawberry, on the floor. She handed over the scissors.

It was hard to go through with it, much harder than you’d think. My hand fought me. I had to push my real tongue back and forth against the strawberry’s leaves, create a little physical distinction between what I saw and what I knew to be true, in order to snip off the end. Our eyes are liars; the best.

I’d have a similar feeling years later, when trying to jump off a high ledge into the ocean. I’d seen countless people do it before me; I knew it was safe. But when I approached the edge, it didn’t matter what I knew. Again and again, my body forced me back. (Though I suppose I should be grateful for my physical cowardice. After all, it is the only reason I am here to tell you this story.)

Janet, of course, sliced through her strawberry without hesitation. She knew what was real and what wasn’t. Laurel dropped the scissors twice and had to turn on the light before she could make herself close the blades.

“We’re fighting the snake brain,” Serena said. “Intellect versus instinct. When you have power over the snake, you can do anything. We are what we think.” We ate all the remaining strawberries, except for the ones we had cut. These, Serena buried deep in the trash. “Just in case,” she said.

This is all to say: I had never had friends like these.