Chapter One

It's cold outside. Rain falling in slow thick rivulets down the window like oily water, so we're smoking inside. I shouldn't be here, but nobody knows that except me, and him. Rose has us all gathered at the rickety dining room table she inherited from her parents when she moved out on her own, all of us sitting together like the last supper, before a table of nothing but cigarettes and booze. Smoke hangs over us like a thought cloud from those old comic books. Thick and gray because none of us are thinking anything good.

Rose is at the head of the table. Fitting. Her hair is cut and dyed again, a new shape, a new color, still a mess. Sometimes I wonder how she never runs out of hair to fuck with.

It's getting hot in here. Or maybe it's just running out of clean air and I can't breathe. I want to go outside and shiver for a while. Wake up and maybe drive myself home while I still can. Dooney follows me out though and I know why but pretend I don't. Rose is inside holding court and I can hear her voice over the sound of traffic swishing through the puddles. Short whispers that almost sound like waves. I wonder where they're all going at this hour.

Dooney brushes the back of my hand, and I know I'm not supposed to be here, but nobody else knows that and I can't be where I should be so I stay. I hate being drunk. I always think it's going to be fun, but by the end of the night I feel dry and sticky and heavy with poison and just want to sleep, but I hate sleeping alone.

I won't see these people again.