I run a steaming-hot bath and throw my bloodstained dress in the garbage.

As I lie in the bath, I bang the back of my head softly against the hard porcelain, and magick the cold tap back and forth with a simple flick of my fingers. The power is back in full force, like it was never gone at all. But I’ll never forget what it cost.

Staring up at the ceiling, I memorize his face, knowing it’ll fade with time, just like my brother’s.

I don’t even have a picture of him, just a letter and a pair of hand-knit gloves shoved in the back of a drawer back home.

I want to picture him like he was in the woods of Forest Park with his grin and his curls and the coat that hung too large off his frame. I press my thumbs into my closed eyelids until I see spots, as if I could make the image stick forever. All I see now is the silhouette of his shoulders as he turned to face his death.

After, when my bruised skin has been scrubbed raw, I walk to Maxine’s room. Lena is already there, sprawled on her blue silk duvet.

“How are you?” they ask as I enter.

“Alive?” I joke weakly.

“That won’t be funny for at least ten more years,” Lena scolds. “I can’t believe you tried to die today.”

“The audacity, truly,” Maxine concurs.

“Ten years, all right. I’ll mark my calendar.” I settle into Maxine’s bed and stare up at her canopy. The ship back to New York is leaving in just a few days. We won’t be together like this for much longer.

“Ten years seems so far off,” I say. “I can’t imagine who I’ll be at twenty-nine.”

“Do you ever see us?” Maxine asks Lena with a jab. She never speaks much about her visions of the future, and it’s always seemed invasive to ask.

Lena purses her lips, thinking. “Sometimes. Just flashes.”

“Flashes of what?” Maxine prods.

She laughs like it’s a private joke. “You and Frances are going to cut your hair.”

This, I wasn’t expecting. “Oh?”

Lena nods. “Maxine will spend a lot of time talking you into it. You shouldn’t let her. You look terrible.”

“I’m fragile, and yet you mock me.” My laugh is still watery from all my sobbing, but it’s nice to picture a future version of myself.

“I’m saving you. It looks like a long way off. We look older. But we’re together. We look happy… happy-ish. My hair is long. I don’t let Maxine talk me into it.”

“How does Maxine look?”

“Oh, she looks magnificent. You look like a newspaper boy.”

“Where are we?” I ask.