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By Root 622 0

around her belly button and her mothball breath when she first wakes up. Everyone assumed you were a couple—it was that deep between you and Sasha. She would cry in her sleep, and you’d climb into her bed and hold her until her breathing got regular and slow. She felt so light in your arms. You’d fall asleep holding Sasha and wake up with a hard-on and just lie there, feeling this body you knew so well, its skin and smells, alongside your own need to fuck someone, waiting for the two to merge into one impulse. Come on, pull this all together and act like someone normal for a change, but you were scared to put your lust to the test, not wanting to ruin it with Sasha if things went wrong. It was the biggest mistake of your life, not fucking Sasha—you saw this with brutal clarity when she fell in love with Drew, and it clobbered you with remorse so extreme that you thought at first you couldn’t survive it. You might have held on to Sasha and become normal at the same time, but you didn’t even try—you gave up the one chance God threw your way, and now it’s too late.

Out in the world, Sasha would grab your hand or throw her arms around you and kiss you—that was for the detective. He could be anywhere, watching you toss snowballs in Washington Square, Sasha jumping onto your back, her fluffy mittens leaving fibers on your tongue. He was the invisible companion you saluted over bowls of steamed vegetables at Dojo (“I want him to see me eating healthy food,” she said). Occasionally you raised practical questions about the detective—Had her stepfather mentioned him again? Did she know for certain it was a man? How long did she think the surveillance would last?—but this line of thinking seemed to irritate Sasha, so you let it go. “I want him to know I’m happy,” she said. “I want him to see me well again—how I’m still normal, even after everything.” And you wanted that too.

When she met Drew, Sasha forgot about the detective. Drew is detectiveproof. Even her stepfather likes him.

It’s after ten by the time you and Sasha meet up with Drew on Third Avenue and Saint Mark’s. His eyes are bloodshot from swimming; his hair is wet. He kisses Sasha like they’ve been apart for a week. “My older woman,” he calls her sometimes, and loves the fact that she’s been on her own in the wider world. Of course, Drew knows nothing about how bad things were for Sasha in Naples, and lately you have the feeling she’s starting to forget, begin over again as the person she is to Drew. This makes you sick with envy; why couldn’t you do that for Sasha? Who’s going to do it for you?

On East Seventh you pass Bix and Lizzie’s, but the lights are off—Lizzie is out with her parents. The streets are full of people, most of whom seem to be laughing, and you wonder again about that change Sasha felt when the sun rose in Washington, D.C.—whether these people feel it, too, and their laughter comes from that.

On Avenue A, the three of you stand outside the Pyramid Club, listening. “Still the second band,” Sasha says, so you walk up the street for egg creams at the Russian newsstand and drink them on a bench in Tompkins Square Park, which just reopened last summer.

“Look,” you say, opening your hand. Three yellow pills. Sasha sighs; she’s running out of patience.

“What are they?” Drew asks.

“E.”

He has an optimist’s attraction to everything new—a faith that it will enrich him, not hurt him. Lately you’ve found yourself using this quality in Drew, scattering bread crumbs for him one by one. “I want to do it with you,” he tells Sasha, but she shakes her head. “I missed your druggy moment,” he says wistfully.

“Thank God,” Sasha says.

You pop one of the pills and put the other two back in your pocket. You start to feel the E as soon as you enter the club. The Pyramid is jammed. The Conduits have been big on college campuses for years, but Sasha is convinced their new album is pure genius and will go multiplatinum. She likes to get right up against the stage, the band in her face, but you need more distance. Drew stays close to Sasha, but when the Conduits’ nutcase