“I can’t,” I said again, weakly.

“I missed you.”

I touched her cheek. “I missed you, too. So much.”

Her bangs tumbled into her eyes, hanging above that wine-red mouth. Her eyelashes were a fringe of fire. She gave me a mournful, longing look that twisted me up inside.

“This is why we fight so much,” she said. “Because we’re fighting this.”

I kept trying to let go but my hands locked to her skin and she kissed me again, this time slow, intent, raising my chin and raking my hair back. Ellis kissed with that charming meticulousness that was so her, moving over every inch of my mouth and parting my lips and curling her tongue around mine softly and insistently till I tasted her everywhere, till I felt totally filled in, completely kissed, completely hers. Then her teeth sank into my bottom lip and I gasped and she tilted her head, watching me come undone.

This felt right. No matter how fucked-up things got, this always felt right.

Being in her hands.

“I want you back,” she breathed.

“As your friend, or this?”

“Everything. You were my everything, Vada.”

This was the problem with being so close. Friendship became codependence. Codependence consumed. When you possessed every piece of someone’s heart and soul, it was only natural to want the flesh, too. Skin, bone, blood.

I grazed my lips over her cheek. “I have to go.”

Out in the night woods I sank to my knees, hands over my mouth, holding in something wild, bestial. In The Wounded Deer, a buck with Kahlo’s face kneels on the floor of a withered forest, his body pierced with arrows. His eyes are calm, focused on something far off. In the distance the turquoise sea glistens while he bleeds.

I bit my palm. Didn’t cry out. An owl watched me with coin-bright eyes, pitilessly.

Need to avoid real life? Drown yourself in work.

I’d disappointed my regulars this week, so I made up for it with hard-core shows. No build-up, no tease. I started with the tie around my neck, face aflame with broken blood vessels, all the life in me surging to the surface of my skin. Afterward I’d check stills from the video captures and see a stranger. A necklace of bruises around her throat. A glaze in her bloodshot eyes.

But there was something else there, too. Ironically, in the pics where I looked most corpse-like there was a flash of fury, of desperation. Of life.

Blue didn’t attend those shows. I looked for his name, or a variation. Someone called cyan_of_doma lurked one night but when I googled it, I got some video game character. Ellis would’ve recognized the reference. Never heard of Final Fantasy VI? You need some culture, Vada. Staring at paintings all day will rot your brain.

She came and went to the house but I never ran into her. Mutual avoidance.

“Everything all right?” Frankie said, checking in on me.

“Yep.”

“Jasmine says you’ve been doing breath play all day. Take a break.”

“I’m fine.”

“It’s not a request, Morgan.”

So I turned off my cam and lay in lukewarm water in the bathtub, testing how long I could stay under.

The thing about not breathing is no one tells you how addictive it is. That tingling rush, the buzz in every neuron as they eat through oxygen stores and reach for more and find nothing. It feels like a billion minuscule teeth digging into your brain. A shimmering wave of needle pricks starting in your lungs and skittering up your brain stem like a silvery centipede and spreading over your whole scalp, numbing you like a drug.

Yes, I was in love with my best friend. So fucking what.

That’s all in the past.

We fell apart. Broke each other’s hearts and screwed up our friendship. Now I’m adrift, unmoored without her. I keep treading water, looking for land. All I can see is endless blue.

People knocked on the door, calling, “Morgan? Are you okay?”

But they didn’t really mean Are you okay. They meant Should we call 911. Should we find someone whose job it is to care. Who gets paid for it.

What a strange world where we pay people to listen to our problems, and pay them to fuck themselves while we watch, and pay them to save us.

Three days after the kiss, he came back. No private message. The email arrived first: SoBlue has sent you $1,000 USD. When the chat request followed I hit ACCEPT immediately, and didn’t even mind that it felt like a life preserver tossed to someone drowning.

SoBlue: hi.

I stared at the black feed on his side for a while. Then I typed, Morgan is thinking . . .

SoBlue: what is she thinking about?

Morgan: everything

Morgan: my stupid fucking life

Morgan: how I hurt everyone I love

Morgan: how I’ve wanted to talk to you again

Morgan: and how sad that is

SoBlue: why is it sad?

Morgan: you only said hi once

Morgan: you’re not as excited as me

SoBlue: you have no idea how many times i’ve jerked off to you these past three days.

SoBlue: it’s downright superheroic.

I rolled my eyes, but smiled, too.

SoBlue: i’ve thought about you. incessantly.

SoBlue: analyzed every word i said to you.

SoBlue: edited the script in my head so i sound much smoother.

SoBlue: in my version it ends with me saying i want you.

SoBlue: but i want a connection first.

SoBlue: any two people can get each other off.

SoBlue: i want it to mean something.

SoBlue: for both of us.

This guy. He wanted to know me as a person and I just wanted to use him. Like we’d flipped roles.

Morgan: sorry I got defensive last time

Morgan: I’ve been on edge these days

SoBlue: i like that you’re prickly.

SoBlue: it’s real.

Morgan: what do you want to do tonight, Blue?

SoBlue: just talk.

SoBlue: tell me why you’re on edge.

I sat back with my legs crossed. Still in shorts and a sleeveless tee. “Are you a shrink in real life?”

SoBlue: not even close.

SoBlue: but i’m a good listener.

“Okay. I’m prickly because I’ve been . . . fighting. With my best friend. Things are weird between us. They’ve always been weird, honestly, but sometimes it gets more . . . intense. This is intentionally vague.” I narrowed my eyes at the cam. “I can’t let you into my real life. You know that. It’s a safety thing.”

SoBlue: i can read it in your face.

SoBlue: you look like you’re battling something.

“Pretty observant for someone who’s not a shrink.”

SoBlue: i can’t help it when it comes to you.

SoBlue: i drink in every detail.

SoBlue: what are you and your friend fighting about?

“It’s hard to explain. She wants me to be someone I’m not sure I am. She doesn’t realize how scary that is for me.”

SoBlue: have you told her you’re scared?

“Kind of.” I frowned. “Well. Okay. No.”

SoBlue: well. okay. why not?

“It’s complicated. Her parents were horrible to her. She’s really struggled to accept herself.” Great, here I was defending Ellis to Blue. “I’m scared of facing the same thing. My mom loves me, but not this part of me. She wanted me to be something else.”

SoBlue: what did she want you to be?

“A princess. The Disney kind.”

SoBlue: but you turned out to be a rebel princess.

SoBlue: like leia.

“God, you and Elle would get along so well.” I caught my mistake too late—her real name. Idiot. Divert him. “You don’t have to do this, you know. Send me huge amounts of money. I like talking to you. You can pay the normal private rate.”

SoBlue: how romantic.

SoBlue: run away with me.

I laughed. “Why money, by the way? You’re the first rich guy who just sends me cash.”

SoBlue: various reasons.

SoBlue: for one, you deserve it.

SoBlue: you work hard.

“Taking my clothes off isn’t hard work.”