He was right. It was New Year’s Day, the morning after of all morning afters. “I’ll figure it out.”
He started toward me then put his hands behind his back like a prisoner. “Get home safe.”
“Thanks.”
Then he said, “You could stay. I can sleep on the couch.”
I looked out the window, imagining I could see the sun. I could slip home soon. These feelings were fresh enough to forget.
We waited for me to reveal myself. Which story was I in? The one where the woman goes home to lead a life of solid love but crushing conformity? The one where she stays and inhabits the margins’ margins, wrecked by a lost love, a life of delicious, selfish freedom? Even if I went home, it wasn’t as if Jay would be there waiting to embrace me. Staying was a different sacrifice. A part of me would get left behind no matter where I went.
I crawled into Tristan’s bed like a small animal burying itself in the warm dirt. He left for the couch. But a few minutes later, unable tosleep, I went into the living room and watched his back rise and fall with his breath on the sofa.
Carefully, I laid myself flat on top of him like we were two sardines smooshed in a can. He went still. But then, reaching his arm around, he slipped his hand into my hair and left it there.
PART IIIBad Idea, Right?
GIRLFRIENDS
FADE IN:
EXT. H STREET CORRIDOR - EVENING:
Early January. The sky not yet black but blackening. Balmy for a winter’s night, wind blowing like a ragged breath.
CAT skips over cigarette butts on the sidewalk. She passes the WHOLE FOODS, its yellow lights beaming into the street, she passes SOLID STATE BOOKS. Black men haunt the street, muttering. A red streetcar circles the neighborhood like a caterpillar gone mad. The Corridor: a gentrifying purgatory with a rugged historical feel.
CAT turns down Seventh Street. FRESCA TAQUERIA sits on the corner, its cluster of red umbrellas shut for the season. She stops in front of an old apartment where…
INT. MILAN’S APARTMENT, KITCHEN - EVENING:
MILAN, 24, hears a knock on the door. She’s not expecting company. She fetches a butcher knife and holds it behind her back. Carefully cracking the front door, she finds…
CAT lingering in the hallway in a white coat, staring at her gloved hands.
MILAN
What do you want?
CAT
It’s cold out here.
MILAN
(Turning to go inside, but leaving the door ajar)
The heat’s broken in the building.
CAT follows MILAN. We find ourselves in a studio apartment. Cramped, crumbling, zoned by the city for people living paycheck to paycheck, but cozy: a secondhand love seat, tasseled pillows, an incomplete photo wall. In the corner, a full bed with a cheap lavender comforter. On the windowsill, a monstera that’s probably dead.
MILAN shuffles around the small kitchen. She slips the butcher knife into a block of wood.
MILAN
Why didn’t you just text?
CAT
