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money. What you have to do is steal a little out of your parents’ wallets every day, not too much or they’ll notice.”
    â€œWhat’ll we do for money when we get there?”
    â€œI don’t know. My brother makes a lot of money. I could help him.”
    â€œWhat does he do?”
    â€œSells drugs.”
    â€œOh,” I say. She keeps pulling my hair tighter.
    â€œHe has a friend who could get you a job.”
    â€œDoing what?”
    â€œGiving blow jobs.”
    I don’t tell her I still don’t know exactly what that is.
    â€œYou don’t have to have sex with them,” she explains.
    â€œThat way, you keep your self-respect.”
    â€œWhat if I’m not good at it?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter. Old guys would pay a fortune to have you just look at their dick.”
    I don’t want to look at an old guy’s dick. I don’t want to look at anyone’s dick.
    â€œI’m a genius,” Alex says, and she takes her hands off my head. I look in the mirror. My hair is pulled back and gelledflat on my scalp. My face is a flat, uniform white, my eyes lined in thick black, my eyelids a dark purple. My lips are slimy, wet, and red.
    There’s a knock and I can smell my mom’s cigarette even though there’s a door between us. “Girls, are you ready for dinner?” she says.
    â€œYeah, Mom.” I hear her feet shuffling away. “Do you want to stay for dinner?” I ask Alex. She looks at me like I’m an idiot.
    â€œWhat do you think?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I say. “My mom made spaghetti. Her spaghetti’s pretty good.”
    â€œ
My mom made spaghetti
,” Alex mimics.
    â€œShe’s making us have family night.”
    â€œHave fun with that,” she says, and starts packing up her things.
    â€œWe could rent a movie and get some ice cream or something.”
    â€œHell no,” she says. “I want to get fucked up. I don’t want to hang out with your parents in your shitty-ass apartment like a fucking baby. And neither should you.”
    â€œI have to.”
    â€œYou don’t
have
to do anything.”
    She throws her backpack over her shoulder and walksout of the bathroom. I follow her to the front door. “Call me later,” I say.
    â€œMaybe,” she says, and I would do anything to make her stay, to take back my stupid “I have to.” I would walk out the door and go with her but my mom’s standing in the living room and can see me, would follow me, would ask me where I’m going and why, and I wouldn’t be able to tell her. I can’t go. I have to stay, and my chest feels pulled apart so tight that there’s nothing left in the middle. There’s a hollow place where my heart should be, gutted and scraped and thrown out the door. I cannot breathe to fill it up. The emptiness feels like lead, like the heaviest thing in the world.
    Alex doesn’t look at me, just walks out the door without saying good-bye. I stand there looking at the door and trying to not pound my head against it, to not smash my fists into the hard wood until I bleed, until I crush my knuckles and the pain in my chest goes away.
    â€œShe’s not staying for dinner?” Mom says from the living room.
    I must act normal. I must pretend like everything’s okay. “She had to go home and have dinner with her parents,” I lie, even though all I know about her parents is that one of them is dead.
    â€œWell, come on,” says my mother, and I turn around. Shehas changed out of the sweatpants she always wears. We’re just eating at home tonight, but she’s wearing makeup and a skirt and a ruffly blouse that’s too small. Seeing her standing there like that, all dressed up in clothes that don’t fit, makes me want to cry.
    â€œDo you want help setting the table?” I say for some reason. She looks at me like I just gave her diamonds