“Fuck,” I said, my breath a cloud connecting us. “More.”

Nails ripped down my spine. I was too drunk to really feel it but my grip tightened on her neck and she scratched mercilessly and then it was a real fight. We rolled through the grass, clawing, choking. At one point I bolted her wrists to the ground but somehow she ended up on top, holding me down. I writhed and she stayed on me, viciously agile.

“God,” I panted. “Don’t stop. Please.”

I wrapped my arms around her waist. Pulled her body hard against mine.

Ellis wrenched away. I tried to drag her back but she was limp now and my bad hand twinged, fire lacing up my nerves. I slammed my palms into the grass. My hair hung in my eyes, a dark scrawl across this night, this ugliness.

“What do you want?” she rasped.

“You. Touch me. Hold me.”

“No. You just want us to hurt each other.”

I sat back on my heels, exhausted. Sad, stupid, ugly. All of this. My shoulder blades burned, the skin shredded as if someone had torn off wings. Vodka churned in my gut like a jumble of razor blades. You’re right, I thought. I want to be hurt. Because this is the closest I feel to you anymore, when you hurt me.

“Go home,” Ellis said.

“You are my home.”

She kept her face averted but I saw the hiccup before a sob.

“Don’t cry,” I whispered.

“You need to leave.” She refused to look at me. I saw the effort it took, the tense lines of her shoulders. “Please leave, Vada. And don’t come back.”

“What?”

“I can’t do this anymore. I need a clean break.”

“There’s no break. Nothing’s breaking.”

“We need to. We’ve been dragging it out for months. All we do is hurt each other. Please, just let me go.”

I stood up, teetering. “What are you saying?”

Elle didn’t move and didn’t go back to the house. She simply waited, letting me rage and burn out. Like always.

“Look at me, Ellis. Fuck you. Say it to my face.”

Nothing.

I went to my knees beside her, touched her shoulder. “Don’t do this. I’m fucked-up, okay? I’m sorry. I’ll be better.” I gripped harder. “Everything fucking hurts. I feel raw, everywhere. I’m sorry for taking it out on you. It’s depression or something. I’ll get help. But don’t do this, okay? Don’t cut me off. I need you.”

Nothing.

“Elle, please. You’re all I have.”

Tears ran down her face. She remained silent.

I let go.

My teeth gritted till it felt like they’d snap, every bone in me poised on the brink of pulverizing into white powder. There was a pain inside that I could no longer express. I couldn’t draw it anymore. I couldn’t share it with her. It lay buried, trapped, echoing off its own walls and growing louder and louder, a scream I could never voice.

How do people go through their entire life with something like this inside?

But they don’t. That’s why Ryan got behind the wheel with a 0.20 BAC.

A pain like this must become violence. Toward another, or yourself.

She was right. I needed to go, before I hurt her more.

I staggered to my feet and ran through halo after halo of streetlight.

It was a long way back, and after crying and puking myself into dehydration I collapsed on a bench near the shore. I felt like some creature out of an Ernst painting, a patchwork monster, a furious unraveling of color, grotesque and absurd. Staining everything I touched.

I curled into a ball and tried to stop shivering.

It used to be us versus the world. Fast friends from the day we met, always guarding each other’s backs. When I let my anger take control Ellis was there to soothe me, to gently pull at my reins. When someone took advantage of her naivete, her faith in the goodness of people, I shut them down without her even knowing. I’d sheltered her a little, but she deserved a little sheltering. Her heart was pure, open. Not shadowy and labyrinthine like mine.

But sometimes when you absorb all the hate and cruelty meant for someone else, it gets inside you. Feeds on your fears, your insecurities. Speaks in the voices of people you know, like your mother, and says, Two grown women should not share one bedroom, mija, and, Vada, you’ll never find a man if you keep living like this. Sometimes you end up resenting the person you’re protecting.

Somewhere along the way, it became me versus her.

The rest of the walk flickered in my head like a dream. Salt wind stung my face, white grains collecting like barnacles on my shoes. Exposing your open wounds to an ocean is pure masochism. Then the alcohol rose in me like the tide, drowning all the bad parts, and it felt so good to drown a little.

Someone was sitting on my porch steps.

My idiot heart soared and I thought, Ellis, but Max raised his head, and for a second I was so crushed it wasn’t her that I was glad he knew how this felt. The stomach plunge of never seeing the person you’re hoping to see.

“I finally did it,” I said, leaning on the fence. “Bottom of the barrel. I’m officially homeless next week.”

Max sat silently, backlit by the porch lantern.

My body kept growing heavier. I slid down to the frozen dirt. “Probably lost my job today, too. And I’m dropping out of school. And it’s my birthday and Ellis said she never wants to see me again.” My voice cracked on that last part. “Know how suicides give away all their stuff before they kill themselves? The universe did it for me. Now all I’ve got to do is find a razor.”

Max got up. A bolt of morbid excitement shot through me.

Come on, I thought. Hurt me. I deserve it.

Air trembled in his throat, like a death rattle.

He was crying.

My arms rose and we more or less fell into each other. Rigid, resistant, limbs entwining even as our faces angled away. But the contact thawed us and he stroked my hair, and I clung to him and let his sobs rock me, toss me, like waves. Fuel and woodsmoke. Fatherly smells.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered in his ear. “It was a stupid joke. I’m drunk.”

Still he didn’t speak.

“I’m a jerk. I’m seriously an asshole, Max.” I pressed my cheek to his shoulder. “I was an asshole even before the accident. A bully. Too scared to be myself, and now it’s too late. Everything’s fucked-up. I’m fucked-up.”

Because God rolled the dice and let the wrong person live.

“It should’ve been me,” I said. “I should have died instead of Ryan.”

His body went taut. Blunt fingernails dug into the back of my skull. I didn’t flinch.

“Don’t say that. Don’t you ever say that.”

“It’s true. He was better than me. Everyone’s better than me.”

Max pulled back to look into my face. The air fogged, thick with my vodka breath. “You’re a good person, Vada. You took care of me when I needed it.”

“I killed your son.”

“Not you. You didn’t do it.”

“Huh?”

He helped me stand. He wasn’t even drunk. “No more suicide talk, okay?”

“Okay.”

“That’s not you. You’re strong.”

“Okay.”

“Do I need to stay here tonight?”

“I’m fine, really. Why are you here?”

He took an envelope from his coat. “Happy birthday.”

“What is this?”

“I know you’re struggling.”

We both stared at the envelope, avoiding each other’s eyes. “Max, I can’t. I can’t take your money.”

“No strings. You don’t owe me anything. Please.”

You don’t get it, I thought. I owe you everything. I took the most precious thing from you.

“I appreciate it, but I’m okay. My mom will help me out.”

“Your mother’s struggling, too.”

“Let me worry about that.”

Max shook his head. “Stubborn girl.”

It took a while to convince him to go. Tonight I was the jumper and he was the lifeline. I smiled, lied, flirted till he felt awkward. Promised I’d text if I felt like hurting myself.

What a joke. If I felt like hurting myself.