Flamin’ Hot Cheetos

“Clementine? Can you come close my window? Those godforsaken frogs are being too damn loud.”

There was a creek near the house I grew up in.

“Aw, Mom. Can’t you get out of bed, and do it yourself?”

The frogs wrote symphonies during the day, and performed them at night for the whole neighborhood to hear.

“How dare you speak to me that way? Come here right now!”

It was wonderful. I used to lie in bed for hours, and listen to their songs.

I told Alice about the frogs one time when she was sad. “After this is all over, I’ll take you home with me. We’ll listen to the frogs, and everything will be okay.”

~

Alice sat cross-legged on the bed, smoking a joint. She wore mismatched socks, day-of-the-week underwear, and my ex-boyfriend’s plaid button-up shirt. Her eyes were red and puffy from the weed. Her hot-pink hair was messy from sex. We had gotten into a screaming match earlier, which — as usual — led to fucking. The sheets had gotten pulled from the corners of the bed, and were bunched up around Alice in the center of it. The mattress was old, and lumpy, and stained with pizza grease. We’d bought it off some guy on Craigslist after we moved in together.

Our apartment smelled vaguely of cigarettes and fried food from the people who’d lived there before us. The window was stuck open, just enough to feel the cold air creeping in. We could hear the sounds of the city — cars screeching on wet pavement, busses groaning in anguish. A homeless woman semi-regularly screamed into the night as we lay in bed: “I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die!” We sometimes went out to the fire escape and watched her as she meandered along the sidewalk down below.

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s okay. Of course, ‘okay’ is relative —”

“We should probably get that window fixed before it starts snowing,” I said. Either one of us could have taken care of it months ago, but neither of us did. It was like we were holding out to see who would cave and call a repairman first.

“Why waste money on some dude with a wrench when I can just fix it myself?”

“What are you waiting for, then?” I challenged her. “Have at it.”

Alice didn’t respond. She finished off her joint, and flicked it to the floor.

~

Our fight had been about dirty dishes, of all things. I asked her to do them while I was at work because they were piling up in the sink and getting really disgusting.

“I’m afraid the mess is gonna attract roaches,” I told her.

“Clem... stop worrying, okay?” She lay sprawled out on the bed like a corpse. “I’ll do the dishes. I’ll deep-clean the whole apartment if you want me to... but have mercy. It’s barely four in the morning.”

I was tucking in my Bonita’s Bakery polo shirt, and slugging too-hot black coffee out of a soup bowl. Alice had the audacity to ask me why I was drinking from said soup bowl.

“Because... ” I said slowly. “All. Of the mugs. Are dirty.”

“Alright, alright, I hear you.”

“My shift ends at two. What do you wanna do tonight?”

“Hmm…” She stretched her arms up over her head. “We should take edibles, and eat burritos, and drink a bunch of wine, and watch all three Spy Kids movies.”

“Uh... okay.”

“I know,” she said sleepily. “I’m a genius. Now go and bake some shit.”

“Oh God. Do I have to?” I hated being a baker. The hours sucked, the pay was bad, and my coworker, Josh, made me deeply uncomfortable.

Alice drew the blanket around herself, and closed her eyes. “Mmhmm. I believe in you.”

I picked up my puffer jacket from the floor and dug my mask out of the left pocket. “Will you be okay here on your own?”

“Yes. For the hundredth time, I’ll be fine. I’m just gonna work on my novel.”

“Okay,” I said. “Sorry. I just love you.”

“I know. I love you too.”

Business at Bonita’s had been awfully slow since the start of the pandemic. I spent a good chunk of my time avoiding Josh and shooting the shit with Mae — the surly goth girl who worked the register.

“I don’t even know why we’re here,” she’d said that morning. She was resting her elbows on the front counter, and watching the clock above the entrance of the bakery.

I grabbed a blueberry muffin from behind the display glass, and pulled my mask down underneath my chin so I could eat the crumble off the top. Thankfully, our manager didn’t work on Saturdays, so he wasn’t there to see me do such a thing. “I don’t know why Michael has us come in at five in the morning to bake a shit-ton of muffins and croissants if no one is even gonna buy them.”

“You can’t question anything Michael does,” Mae said. “One time, I accidentally left a carton of eggs out for half an hour and he threw the whole thing in the trash — as if thirty minutes makes a damn bit of difference. Guy’s a psycho.”

I agreed.

Josh came up to us, his apron slung over his shoulder. “I’m going on break in a few,” he said. “Could one of you make me a decaf Americano?”

“Make it yourself,” Mae said.

“Really? You’re not even doing anything.”

“I can make it,” I volunteered, because I really just wanted him to leave us the hell alone. “Although, I find decaf coffee somewhat counterproductive.”

“Thanks, Clementine,” he said. “I knew I could count on you.”

“Uh huh.” I put the espresso shot glasses underneath the double-spigot, and pressed the button on the machine. Josh was right behind me, practically breathing down my neck. I felt his fingers graze the small of my back, and I instinctively tensed my shoulders. I glanced at Mae, but she was talking on the phone with a customer. 

“Yeah, what can I get started for you? Okay... do you want that toasted?” She rolled her eyes up at the ceiling, and twisted a curl of black hair around her finger. “Ma’am, this is a bakery. Mmhmm. Okay, well —”

“So, how’s it going with you and that girl?” Josh asked me.

I finished making the Americano, and handed it to him. “Pretty good. Kind of rough being quarantined in our shoebox of an apartment.”

“I’ll bet.” He sipped from the coffee cup, and winced. “This is shit.”

“Oh. Well, you can remake it yourself, then.”

“Nah, I’ll still drink it. I’m just saying it’s shit.”

“Okay, Josh.”

“Okay, Clementine.”

When I got home, Alice was sitting half-naked on the bed, eating Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and sipping Barefoot Moscato from the bottle. Her laptop sat open in front of her, illuminating her tired eyes and sunken cheeks. It was dim in the apartment. The sun oozed through the open window and outlined the shape of Alice’s body like chalk at a crime scene. The dishes were still piled up in the sink, and fruitflies swarmed the lone banana that lay rotting on the kitchen table.

Alice capped the wine bottle and jumped up from the bed when I walked in. “I’m doing it right now.”

“Okay…” I took my hat off and combed my fingers through my hair. “What have you been doing all day?”

“Working on my novel. I lost track of time.” She licked her fingers clean of Cheeto dust, and poured a thick rope of soap over the dirty dishes in the sink. She turned on the hot water and scrubbed the memory of buffalo wings, curly fries, and ketchup from the plate she had stolen from her dad’s house a few months back. This plate was important to Alice — although it was remarkably ugly. It was less a plate, and more a misshapen slab of ceramic, painted with blobs of sunshine and purple flowers. She had made it for her mom when she was in elementary school, so it meant a whole lot to her. Especially now.

Alice lost her mom to Covid back in June. I remember her pacing around the apartment after the funeral, her black dress dripping off of her shoulders like the night sky. “All that’s left… all that’s left...”

“Alice?”

Her jaw tightened. She looked glassy-eyed. Faraway.

“Alice?”

“What?”

“How far did you get?”

“What do you mean?”

“In your novel. Did you make a lot of progress today?”

“Um…” she rinsed the plate and set it in the dish rack. “I’m starting to feel like the story is really coming together in my head. I’m probably gonna start outlining it tomorrow.”

“Outlining?”

“Yeah…” she rinsed out my cat-themed coffee mug, and placed it carefully in the rack. “It’s a slow process.”

“Oh. So, you’ve basically just been thinking about it in your head.”

“Yeah. That’s a big part of writing.”

“I thought a big part of writing was like... actually writing.”

She turned off the sink, and wiped her hands with the mint-green tea towel that hung from the handle of the stove. Her face was hard; her eyes unfocused. “I’m trying,” she said.

I instantly felt like the worst person in the world. “I know. It’s been hard, lately. Like… exceptionally.”

“Yeah,” she gave me a small smile. “I fucking miss Xanax.”

“I know.”

“I’m about to get my sixth month chip.”

“I know.” I wrapped my arms around her. “I’m so proud of you.” That was the best thing I could say to Alice. Obviously, she wasn’t completely sober. She was okay, though — “okay” being relative. She smoked and drank a lot, but she wasn’t taking pills other than the antidepressants her doctor had prescribed for her. Not that I knew of, at least. I guess me buying her wine every other day made me somewhat of an enabler — but it wasn’t my place to control what Alice did or did not put into her body. She’d made that incredibly clear about a month back when I poured half a bottle of wine down the kitchen sink. She was cross-faded, and sick, and crying her eyes out. The alcohol was only making things worse.

“Alice, please. You don’t need anymore. I’m just trying to do what’s best —”

“You don’t know what’s best for me! All you ever do is control me! I feel like I’m stuck under your thumb!” She climbed out onto the fire escape, and puked over the metal railing. I imagined her vomit hitting the homeless woman who screamed at night, but it splattered on the sidewalk instead. I figured: okay, either God is looking out for that woman, or She’s punishing her.

“Are you mad at me for forgetting to do the dishes?”

“No… I mean... you said you would do them. But it’s okay.”

Alice stepped out of my embrace. She was skinny, and had bad posture from being hunched over a computer all day. Her fingers were slender, and shaky, and stained red from the hot Cheetos. “If you’re mad, just tell me,” she said.

“I’m not mad!” I noticed the flicker of fear in her eyes, and lowered my voice. She’s afraid of me, I thought. Why is she afraid of me? “ I... I’m tired, okay? I had a long shift —”

“Don’t raise your voice at me, Clem. You know how I feel about that.”

“I know. I’m sorry —”

“And don’t apologize! For fuck’s sake. That always just makes it worse.”

“Oh, so you get to yell at me? I hate it when you tell me not to apologize! It’s really gas-lighty and mean, Alice!”

She swayed a little, and grabbed the ledge of the kitchen sink in an effort to stay upright. “You’re really gas-lighty and mean!”

“You’re drunk!”

“Yeah? So?”

“It’s three in the afternoon! Why are you drunk at three in the afternoon?”

“Why do you care? I’m home alone all day with nothing to do —”

“Okay! So do the dishes, then!”

Alice took a few steps towards me. She leaned in close, so that our noses were almost touching. I could smell the wine on her breath, and the weed in her hair. “Make me,” she said. Her mouth was wet and wanting; her eyes wild and gray. “I fucking dare you.”

~

I bent down and picked up the discarded roach from the floor. Charred bits of green flower crumbled in the palm of my hand as the rolling paper unfurled. I walked into the kitchen, tossed the roach in the trash, and opened the fridge. It was empty — save for several tupperware containers full of moldy leftovers, and a crusty bottle of honey Dijon mustard.

Alice’s voice wafted in through the doorway. “Still wanna get takeout from Tito’s?”

“Sure,” I said, figuring that was basically our only option for dinner. I traipsed back into the bedroom, and sat down at the desk in front of the stuck-open window.

Alice had her computer open in front of her again. She cradled the half-drunk wine bottle in her lap, her fingers wrapped loosely around the neck of it. “I’ll call in the order if you go pick it up.” She started dialing the number on her phone. “You want your usual?”

I nodded. “You don’t wanna come with me? Tito’s is only a few blocks away, and it’d probably be good for you to get out of the apartment —”

“No, Clem,” she said, coldly. “I’m not going out there.”

“Oh, come on. It’s just a ten minute walk. You need fresh air, Alice. I’m worried about —”

“Shh — I’m on the phone. Hello? Yes. Can I please place an order for pick up?” She took another sip from the wine bottle, and started reading off the online menu in enthusiastic, mispronounced Spanish.

I rolled my eyes, and once again picked up my puffer jacket from where I’d left it on the floor. I put on my mask, tucking the cotton straps behind my ears and pulling it up over my nose. Then I dug Alice’s Portland State beanie out from underneath the pile of dirty laundry next to the bed. “Can I borrow this? It’s starting to get cold out.”

She hung up the phone. “Yeah, that’s okay. Hey, since you’re going out anyway, can you get me more wine and hot Cheetos?”

“Sure,” I tucked my long hair into the beanie. “I’ll stop at the corner store on the way back.”

I walked along the rain-slick sidewalk, clutching my pepper spray in my fist. Although the walk to Tito’s was familiar, it was still sketchy. We happened to live in a part of the city that wasn’t very well-lit. I felt compelled to look behind me every few minutes, just to make sure no one was following. Cars with blinding headlights drove by every few minutes, splashing through the water that had gathered in the gutter. There’d be a flash of light, and I’d see the silhouettes of people loitering in front of the closed-down bars that lined the other side of the street. When the car turned the corner, the street would go dark once more, and I’d suddenly feel alone and disconnected from the world. I imagined the fragments of me floating in the gutter alongside the soggy cigarette butts and lost face masks.

I had stopped being afraid of these dissociative states that I would sometimes fall into. In fact, I had started taking solace in them. I liked the feeling of not really being there, of fading in and out.

I would go out completely one day, like a star exploding into nothingness.

I was fading still when I went to go pick up our food from Tito’s. My hands and feet were someone else’s. I walked and talked robotic until I found myself at the corner store near our apartment complex. With the plastic bag full of Mexican food hanging from my elbow, I floated through the snack aisle. My fingers curled around the corner of a large bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, then I heard someone say my name.

“Clem! Hi!” It was Mae from work. I almost didn’t recognize her. She wore baggy sweatpants, an oversized hoodie, and a mask that looked like bloody teeth. Her hair was pulled back into a messy bun, and her eyes were made up with dramatic black liner. “Do you live around here?”

“Yeah. Just, uh... getting snacks and wine for my girlfriend. You?”

“I live in Milwaukie,” she said. “But I have a car, so I can get downtown pretty easily. My uncle works here.” She pointed at the slightly bedraggled-looking man behind the front counter. “I get a discount on cigarettes.”

“Um… okay…” Mae and I had never really interacted outside of work before, so this whole exchange felt a bit awkward.

 “Also, I was supposed to meet this guy for a socially-distanced date, but um…” She shoved her hands into the middle pocket of her hoodie. “He stood me up. So, yeah. My evening’s going great.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s cool. He’s sort of been avoiding me since I told him I was asexual. I’m not too surprised he didn’t show.”

Again, I apologized, not knowing what to say.

“What are you apologizing for?”

“Uh... just people, I guess. The way they are.”

“Oh. Well, it’s fine if he wants to be with someone who’s interested in sex. He should have just told me that, though. He’s a grown-ass adult. Anyway. What are you doing tonight?”

“Um... I’m hanging out with Alice.”

“Oh, right.” She looked down at her feet. “Well —”

“You could come with me,” I blurted out. “If you want.” She seemed lonely. I guess I felt sort of bad for her. Or maybe I was dreading going back to my apartment alone.

That’s sort of what it was like, living with Alice. There was a very real chance that I’d one day walk in on her passed out cold on the hardwood floor, her lips encrusted with vomit. Crushed up Xanax on the desk. She knew how to cut it into perfect powdery lines with a razorblade. This was a recurring nightmare of mine. I held my breath every time I turned my key in the lock. But probably, I thought, Alice is fine. She’s about to get her sixth month chip. She’s fine. She’s fine.

“Uh... okay,” Mae said. “Yeah, I’d be down. Alice won’t mind?”

“Nah, this’ll be good for her. She needs to interact with people who aren’t me.” I tucked the bag of Cheetos underneath my arm, and went to grab a bottle of white wine from the case in the back of the store.

Mae followed me. “Does she have a job?”

“Not anymore. She used to be a bartender at CC Slaughters before it got closed down.” I chose a cheap Pinot from the bottom shelf, and checked the label for the alcohol percentage.

“God, I’m still depressed over that,” Mae said. “What a good bar. And poor Alice.”

“I know.”

At the front counter, Mae bought cigarettes and introduced me to her uncle. He had thinning hair, and wrinkles around his eyes. He said it was nice to meet me — which is often the first lie human beings tell each other. “It’s nice to meet you.” It’s not anything to meet me. You don’t know me, and you won’t get to know me in the future. So then... how exactly is it “nice” to meet me? I faded, for half a second, into my childhood home: Clementine, a few years back, pacing around the living room. Clementine complaining about “it’s nice to meet you.” My mom was reading the newspaper and sipping a Jack & Coke. “Clementine…” she tilted her drink back, and sucked the ice at the bottom of the glass. “Don’t be insufferable.”

I regarded Mae’s uncle, and paid for the wine and Cheetos. “It’s nice to meet you, too,” I said.

Our shoes slapped the pavement as we made our way towards Mae’s car. She insisted on giving me a ride back to my apartment, despite the fact it was only a few blocks away from the corner store. “Besides, I have to move my car. I’m scared it’s gonna get broken into.”

“True. My mom came to visit like a year ago, and her car got broken into overnight. Of course, she blamed me for it…” Mae gave me a concerned look. “Not that that’ll happen to you,” I said quickly. “My mom drives a Mercedes Benz —”

“Oh, shit. Someone grew up rich.” She pressed a button on her car keys, which lit up the gray Honda Civic a few feet in front of us.

I noticed the busted headlight, and the dent in the side. The bumper was being held in place by copious amounts of duct tape. I immediately felt awful, and mumbled something about how I didn’t mean it like that.

“Yes, you did. But it’s okay.” Her car was full of old Starbucks cups and grease-stained McDonald’s bags. She apologized, and started throwing trash into her backseat so that I could sit shot-gun. “I’ve been meaning to clean all this shit out,” she said. “But then, like... depression. You know?”

I did know.

My depression, of course, was what made me so insufferable. I was not ignorant to the fact that people found it difficult to be around me, but I also wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do about that. I often found it difficult to be around other people, anyway. They seemed blind to the disgusting layer of gray film that made everything look flat and colorless. The uncanny gray.

What are we supposed to do about the uncanny gray?

 In my head, I’m screaming in their faces: “Don’t you know about the uncanny gray?” In my head, their faces are eyeless, noseless mounds of flesh. Emotionless heads on ravaged bodies — they sit in fancy restaurants and mall food courts, mouths gaping. Eating, sucking, slurping. Talking. Talking.

“How dare you speak to me that way?”

Mae pulled into the parking lot, and together we walked through the darkness.

~

I turned the key in the lock, and pushed the door open. The likelihood of us finding Alice dead on the floor had been looming over me, but I didn’t know how to bring that up with Mae. “Hey, just so you know, I have a recurring nightmare about coming home to find my girlfriend passed out on the floor from an overdose, and that nightmare has potential to become reality any day now. Sure, she’s about to get her sixth month chip, but sobriety is remarkably breakable.” There was really no way to talk about it casually like that. And I didn’t want Mae to see our relationship as a hostage situation, even though it sometimes felt like one.

It was quiet in the apartment. Alice was no longer sitting on the bed.

“Where’s your girlfriend?” Mae asked me.

She had left the lights on. The ceiling fan was spinning cobwebs into cotton candy.

“Alice?” I dropped off the wine and food on the kitchen counter. Then I checked the bathroom, but she had seemingly evaporated. I found it strange before I found it especially scary. It was extremely unlike her to leave the apartment. “Alice?” I kept saying her name like an idiot. “Alice?”

“Clem?” She was out on the fire escape. Of course. Thank God. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t thought of that. She climbed in through the window, holding a half-smoked joint between her fingers. “What took you so long?” Then she noticed Mae sitting on the bed. “Um... hi? Who are you?”

“This is Mae,” I said. “We work together at Bonita’s.”

“Oh.” Her smile wavered a bit. “Are you like... showing her the apartment, or?”

“I thought she could hang with us for a bit. We ran into each other at the corner store, and um…” I swallowed my words because Alice was giving me a death glare. “Is that okay?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I guess.” Then to Mae: “just keep your distance. I’m not trying to get Covid.”

“I’m not either,” Mae said, adjusting her mask. “Um. If you want me to leave —”

“No, stay. You’re here now. If you have Covid, you’ve probably already infected the apartment.”

“Don’t be shitty, Alice,” I said. “She doesn’t have Covid. I see her every day at work. If one of us had Covid, we would probably know.”

“Okay. Well, I just think it’s really inconsiderate of you to invite your friends over during a goddamn pandemic. My mom died from this shit. I don’t know why you won’t take it seriously.”

“I do take it seriously!” My face burned with shame underneath my mask. “How can you say that? Of course I take it seriously!”

“No you don’t! Y- you…” Alice was shaking. “You should have asked me if you could bring a friend over!”

“Okay! I will next time. I promise.”

“Okay. Whatever.” She walked into the kitchen, her sock-feet slipping slightly on the linoleum floor. She twisted off the cap of the wine bottle and took a long pull.

“Hey!” I should have just let it go at that point, but I felt a familiar and uncontrollable rage building inside of me. “I don’t like it when you talk to me like that!”

“How dare you speak to me that way?”

My legs took me, robotically, to the kitchen. My hands ripped the wine bottle out of Alice’s fingers, and poured the contents down the sink. I could just barely hear Alice pleading with me, but the ringing in my ears drowned her out. I set down the empty bottle, and grabbed her mom’s plate from the dish rack.

“Put that down!” Alice cried.

“Oh,” I held the plate up in the air. “You want me to put it down?” I was acting like a dick on purpose. Of course, I wasn’t actually going to smash her mom’s plate. I’m not a monster.

“Uh… I’m gonna go,” Mae stood up from the bed. I had almost forgotten she was in the room. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to cause a fight. See you at work, Clem.”

“Shit.” I set the plate back down in the rack, and followed Mae out into the stairwell — throwing Alice an apologetic look before closing the door behind me. “Wait up a minute! I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was gonna react like that.”

“You didn’t?”

“I didn’t. I swear. She’s —”

“I assumed you had an inkling of how your girlfriend would react,” she said. “Or else, why would you invite me over?”

“Alice is unpredictable! I hardly ever know what her reaction is gonna be. To like… anything!”

Mae shivered in the stairwell. She chewed her lower lip and let out an exasperated sigh. “It’s been a shitty year.”

“To say the least, yeah.”

“You and Alice seem, um... toxic for each other.”

“What makes you say that?”

 “I was in the same room with you guys for less than five minutes, and I had to leave because I felt so uncomfortable. That should tell you something.” She sat on the steps, and pulled her mask down underneath her chin. Then she cracked open her brand new pack of cigarettes, and lit one between her teeth. “Wanna smoke?”

I nodded, and sat down next to her. The metal stairs were hard and cold through my jeans. I could see my breath and the smoke from Mae’s cigarette intertwining in the black sky like lovers in some sort of intricate waltz.

She lit the cigarette for me, puffing on it a few times to get it started. “Not the most Covid-friendly activity, I guess,” she muttered.

I had smoked a handful of times before — mostly with my college ex-boyfriend, who was perpetually “trying to kick the habit,” but never did. Back home, my dad and I would climb up to the roof and share a cigar. We usually only did this on Father’s Day, or his birthday. My mom didn’t approve, so we had to do it late at night while she slept.

I stuck the cigarette between my lips and took a drag. “One of my professors in college referred to smoking as ‘slow-motion suicide,’” I said.

“Hmm.” Mae blew a ribbon of smoke down the stairwell. “That’s funny.”

“Things used to be good between Alice and me. Like, during the before-times, we were actually pretty happy.”

“I can relate. I didn’t even know I was happy, but compared to now... yeah. I was happy. I wish I’d realized it at the time.”

“Me too.” My fingers were freezing. I held the cigarette in my mouth, and tucked my hands into my jacket sleeves. “Aren’t you cold?”

“No,” she said. “I grew up in Wisconsin.”

“Oh. Okay.”

We were both quiet for a few minutes. We smoked, and shivered, and listened to the sounds of the city.

“So,” Mae said, finally. “What are you gonna do about Alice?”

“I have no idea. I can’t leave her. I’m worried she’ll kill herself.”

“Really?” She took another drag before tossing the butt of her cigarette down the stairwell, onto the grass below.

It’ll burn the whole place to the ground, I thought. But it wouldn’t. It was much too cold and wet out for something like that to happen. The grass was undoubtedly soaked. If I were home right now, I’d be lying in bed and listening to the frogs. “Yeah,” I said. “She overdosed six months ago. About a week after her mom died.”

“Oh. Um... shit.”

“That’s why she needs me. I’m like... responsible for her.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Just... if something bad happens to her, it’ll be my fault. She’s my person.” I handed Mae the last bit of my cigarette. “This is making me feel nauseous.”

“Oh… sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I always got nauseous when I smoked, but I did it anyway. “Um... sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing here. Like, on Earth. I’m not saying I wanna die, I just… have no idea why I’m here. Taking care of Alice makes me feel like I have some sort of purpose.”

“It probably also makes you feel like you have some sort of control, right?” She smiled, and flicked away the other cigarette butt. “Just kidding. Sort of. I wanna be a psychologist.”

“So you’re just here to shrink me,” I said, laughing a little. “Go right ahead. There’s a lot that’s wrong with me, so I’m quite shrinkable.”

“Nah, there’s nothing wrong with you,” she said. “You know who there’s something wrong with? Josh.”

“Well, we already knew that.”

“He’s a narcissist! And an incel. I don’t know why you’re so polite to him.”

“Because! I’m not trying to get raped in the walk-in or some shit.”

“Oh, Clem. That’s not gonna happen.”

“You don’t know that,” I said. “Crazy shit happens all the time.”

“Fair enough,” she said, flipping open the pack of Camels again. “Do you mind if I smoke one more?”

“Not at all.”

Mae lit up, and took a drag. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, and when the smoke poured from her mouth it looked like a galaxy.

“Why do you want to be a psychologist?” I asked her.

“Because existing is hard,” she said. “And I think I can help people continue to exist when hard turns into insurmountable.” I noticed then, how pretty she was. It could have been the lighting. The way the moon and stars dripped onto her skin. “I tried to kill myself when I was sixteen. It like... completely changed my view on life.”

“Oh. Um… what happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I drove my car off the side of a cliff,” she said.

“Wow... ” I didn’t really know how to respond. “How did you survive that?”

She looked at me. “Have you ever been hit in the face by an airbag?”

“Uh... no.”

“Okay, well... that’s what I think back to whenever I’m feeling suicidal. The slap of the airbag against my skin. It broke my nose, which I hardly noticed at the time. I was just praying for the car to stop rolling.” She pressed her fingers to her lips and smoked down almost half of her cigarette. “I regretted my decision, like, the second I went off that cliff. But it was too late by that point.”

My heart was pounding in my chest. I swallowed, and took a breath. “But it wasn’t.”

She smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “I got lucky,” she said. “You know... people say dying is peaceful. But there’s nothing peaceful about suicide. It’s actually just terrifying. Once you’re gone, you’re gone. That’s it. And you’ve changed the lives of those around you forever.”

The city held its breath in that moment. Everything quiet for once. I sort of wanted to cry, but for whatever reason I couldn’t muster up any tears. And I couldn’t stop looking at Mae. The curve of her smile as she smoked. The dimples in her cheeks. Her eyes dark as soil after a heavy rain.

I did something incredibly stupid, then. Something that made the city release its breath and let out a blood-curdling scream. I leaned in close, and kissed her on the mouth. It was fast, and sloppy, and awkward. She immediately pushed me away.

“What the fuck?” She stood up in the stairwell, obviously taken aback.

“I’m sorry! I- I misread the situation!”

“Clem —”

“It seemed like you were flirting!” I was figuratively scrambling up a cliff on the brink of avalanche. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just let myself fall.

“In what world was that flirting? I told you about my goddamn suicide attempt!” She hugged herself, and looked away from me. “I don’t even like to be kissed. What is wrong with you?”

“Fuck,” I held my head in my hands. “I’m sorry. It’s like... my brain is full of concrete or something. I can’t function properly.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“Yeah, but it’s a reason. There’s a difference.”

She sighed, and dropped her half-smoked cigarette; crushing it beneath her heel. “I don’t know. I’m gonna go. But, um… I’ll see you at work, okay?”

“Okay. I’m sorry —”

“It’s fine,” she said. “We don’t have to talk about it. Good luck with Alice. And um… things are gonna be okay. You know? Maybe not now, but eventually.”

“Right,” I said. Okay is relative. “Thanks, Mae. Are you okay to drive? It’s getting kind of late.”

“Yeah, I’m wide awake,” she gave me a quick wave, then started down the stairs. “See you tomorrow, right?”

“Bright and early,” I said. God. I hate myself.

~

Alice and I lay facing each other on the bed. The sheets had been stripped from the mattress. We felt the scratchiness of it against our skin. Then the night air seeping in through the open window. It smelled like snow, and we could hear the homeless woman scuffling about on the sidewalk outside, just like usual.

“I don’t wanna die!” she sobbed. “Please! I don’t wanna die!”

“Do you think someone is actually trying to kill her?”

“No,” Alice said. “No one real.” She was crying softly into her pillow. I had told her about what happened with Mae because it seemed like the right thing to do. But, I wondered, if it makes her sad, how can it be the right thing? It was, though. I knew it. She knew it. I had expected the news to make her angry, but she was just really sad, and that tore me in two. And I completely deserved it. “Can you tell me a story, Clementine?”

“Sure. What do you wanna hear a story about?”

“Tell me about the frogs again.” She closed her eyes, blinking hot tears down her cheeks. “I love it when you talk about the frogs.”

Vera Heidmann is a graduate student at Mills College. She is currently working towards an MFA in Creative Writing with a specialization in fiction. In her spare time, you can usually find her writing, playing video games, or looking at pictures of frogs and/or snails on the internet. She also hopes that when she dies, she'll be reincarnated as a frog or a cow because frogs and cows don't have to stress out about student loans. Just ribbit and moo.