“You’re going to kill me now, right?” I said, joking. “Now that I’m clean. Prepped,” I said. I couldn’t stop myself. I drank again and watched Bear’s eyes flash. He smiled with his mouth open, showing his perfect white teeth. His hair, in its loose bun, bobbled at the back of his head.

He put his bottle on the stone counter.

“You could just leave me in one of those basements,” I said. Truth was, I couldn’t think of a better way to die. By someone else’s doing. Giving up control in a long, delicious slide.

Bear’s laugh was open and warm.

“You’re much more use to me alive,” he said.

I ended up driving home drunk. I’d certainly been drunker, but I went home from Bear’s that night with my head spinning, from beer, from everything. He’d given me a tour of the house, all the empty rooms upstairs, bedroom after bedroom, a vast playroom with skylights that looked out on the velvet night sky. There were bathrooms in between with beautiful, deep, white tubs and gleaming tile. Everything needed painting. All the walls were just primer white. Dry and chalky.

I’d waited until the dryer buzzed with my clothes. “I should go,” I said. I had to stop myself from staring. At his clothes, his face. I wanted to bury myself in that long hair. My insides felt tight with desire. Desire that might go somewhere and not lay unresolved, wearing away at me, like it did with Baby Jane. With Baby Jane, it felt like having a crush on the teacher who would never indulge you.

Bear popped the top off another beer and stood looking at his feet. “Call me tomorrow?” he asked, and then raised his eyes to mine.

My stomach flipped.

“Can you drive me back to my car?” I asked.

He laughed. His whole body radiated warmth, like he held nothing back.

In the deserted parking lot at the Hub, I got out, shaken down to the bones. I left before I said anything, before he said anything, before there was any awkward pause where I started to look or act desperate, or tried something stupid, like to kiss him.

Bear rolled down his window to say good-night and waited until I got into my truck, until the engine turned over and was going strong, before he pulled out.

My hands trembled on the wheel. I wasn’t sure how I made it home at all, except that it was just like driving drunk, or driving a route you’d know with your eyes closed, or through a blinding snowstorm, just hoping you’ll be where you belong on the other side.

I had a secret. And a hundred and forty dollars in my pocket. I gripped the wheel and had to stop myself from driving out to the twenty-four-hour Walmart to buy clothes. I’d been wearing the same T-shirts since middle school. All at once, I wanted a haircut, new shoes. I had a hunger pang for everything to be completely new and different, and a desire I’d never felt before coiled like a snake in my gut. I couldn’t let my mother know. And I could never bring Bear home, or tell him about Birdie. I thought about the way he seemed to show his whole self when he offered something or laughed, and I thought I would only ever be able to offer a sliver. It felt like separate lives. Like a partition was going up, and I would have to navigate over the wall for different parts of every day. When I added Baby Jane to that, I thought I was a crazy person, popping up in these vastly different places, with different people. Showing each one of them something different. And never, ever the whole truth.