A month. JC left a month ago, and I'm buying a baguette, and the baguette is sticking out of the bag like some French film, and I like how it looks, and I think — look at me, carrying a baguette like a Parisian — and then I think — why the fuck am I thinking about a baguette when my best friend is on some island and isn't calling.

The coordinator says "no signal, it's normal." Everyone says "it's normal." I say "it's normal" too — to him, when I come over. Third time this week. First time I brought pizza and said "sorry if I'm intruding." Second — mom's chili, no apologies. Today — a baguette and something in foil, mom's recipe, I made it myself, and it's probably terrible, but the attempt counts.

He opens the door and he looks like... like he looks. I don't know how to describe it. Normal. But normal in the way a person looks normal when they've stopped trying, and the shirt is the same as yesterday, and the eyes are the same as yesterday, and the apartment behind him is quiet, and that quiet makes me want to turn on everything at once — music, TV, blender, anything.

"Hey." I smile. Wide, whole face, and it's not fake, I'm genuinely glad to see him, even like this. "I brought food. Well, sort of food. The baguette is definitely fresh, the rest is at my own risk."

I put the bag on the table. It starts to tip — I put everything on the edge, it's my talent — I catch it without looking. Sit on the couch. Pull out the sketchbook. A minute later — pencil on paper, familiar, fast, tongue clamped from concentration, and I don't need him to talk. I need him to be in the room. Nearby.

On the drying rack is her mug. Upside down. I know he doesn't touch it. I don't touch it either.

I draw. Don't show anyone. Push hair behind my ear, glance — quick, at him, checking that he's there, that he's breathing, that he's okay — and back to the paper.

"The baguette isn't going to eat itself." Without looking up.

JC is dead. Well, "presumed." "Missing, presumed dead" — long phrase, bureaucratic, and I was drawing it while he was on the phone with the university, literally — sitting on the floor drawing those words in the margins of my sketchbook, "presumed dead," and next to "dead" I drew a little flower, and it was disgusting, and I didn't erase it.

Six months. I drew JC. A lot, every day, and I closed the sketchbook when anyone came near, but once I forgot it on the washing machine, and he found it, and I don't know if he looked, and I don't ask. JC with a beer. JC asleep, mouth open, hair in her face. JC laughing — that drawing is the worst of all, because laughter is impossible to draw, I've tried twenty times, never got it right.

Right now — the couch. His apartment. Late, light from the kitchen, and I'm sitting next to him, close, shoulder to shoulder, knees pulled up, and I have nothing to say, and that's not normal, because I always have something to say, I'm Tess, I fill silence, that's my job, but right now — nothing. Empty. Words ran out.

I put my hand on his knee. Not stroking — just resting. Weight of the palm. And I sit.

Then — quiet, quieter than I can do:

"She'd say something awful right now. Like — what the hell are you two so boring for, let's go get pizza."

A smile. Small, not happy, real.

"I miss her. And I feel like shit. And I don't know what to say, and this —" hand in the air, bracelets clinked — "this is what pisses me off the most. Because I always know what to say."

I look at him. Eyes burn. Not crying. I don't cry. Well, almost.

Here's what I remember: a horror movie. Bad one, I picked it, I always pick bad horrors, it's my kink, don't judge. Blanket, laptop on his lap, my legs on his lap — and I don't remember when that started, legs on his lap, it just became that way at some point and we both pretended it had always been like that.

I'm watching the screen and covering my mouth with my hand so I don't crack up, because the monster looks like an inflatable banana, and I can feel him looking not at the screen but at me, and I have paint on my neck, and he probably thinks it's paint, but it's the shadow from the screen, and he's still looking, and there's something in that look — or maybe I'm imagining it, maybe he's just looking, people look, that's normal —

And he kisses me. Well, tries. He leans forward and I turn my head at the same moment and it lands on the corner of my mouth, and we both freeze, and the laptop starts sliding, and I catch it with one hand and put it on the floor and say:

"Finally. I thought you never would."

And I laugh — nervous, loud, and I didn't expect that sound from myself, and I kiss him properly, and our teeth clack, and I don't care.

And then — his hands, and he doesn't know where to put them, and it shows, and it's — okay, it's cute, it's really cute actually — and I take his hand and put it on my thigh and say "right here, god, is this your first time" — and he laughs, and I laugh, and the horror on the floor is screaming, and someone's dying.

Shirt. Mine. Over my head. Bracelets catch on the collar — "wait, fuck, wait" — hair everywhere — "okay, done, come here."

And here's the moment. I'm topless and he's looking, and I know what he sees — small breasts, and I spent my whole life thinking that was a minus, and I look at him and think any second now he'll look away or say something polite — and he looks. At me. At them. And in that look there's no politeness. And something inside me, something that had been clenched since I was fourteen — unclenches.

Waking up. Well, "waking up" is a strong word. More like — surfacing. Slowly, in parts. First — the smell: his pillow, his soap, and paint, teal smells different than cadmium, and I was drawing in bed last night and fell asleep with dirty hands, and on the pillow — an orange smear, cadmium, thin, like a signature. His pillow. Ours.

Light through the curtains, in stripes. His shirt on me, ridden up above my ribs, and on my ribs — yesterday's teal, and panties with strawberries, I think, I don't remember which ones I put on, and one leg under the blanket, the other on top, and he's next to me, and he's warm, and I feel good, and that word — "good" — is so simple and so accurate that I want to draw it.

In the kitchen there's Phyllis. The monstera. My only organized project — sticker: "Phyllis: MON, THU," in serious handwriting, like a contract. Next to it — my toothbrush in a glass, bristles already splayed because I brush my teeth like I'm going to war, and he told me about it, and I said "teeth are my enemies, and I'm winning" — and that was three weeks ago, and the brush still sticks out of the glass next to his.

I crawl to him. Literally crawl — horizontally, like a seal, bury my face in his shoulder. Hair in his mouth. It smells like him, and me, and paint, and all of it together — our smell, and we have a smell, and that thought makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.

"Coffee." Into his shoulder, barely audible. "Please. I'm dying."

"You're not dying."

"I am. Slowly. From caffeine deprivation. This will be on your conscience."

Not moving. Not a millimeter. His hand on my back, on bare skin under the ridden-up shirt, and his fingers are probably already covered in teal, and I don't care, and he doesn't care, and we're in no rush.

Saturday. I'm on the floor in the living room, sketchbook, pencils fanned out, drawing CG for a client — complicated pose, the leg's wrong, redrawing for the third time — tip of my tongue clamped, earbud in one ear, from the other I hear the world, and the world is him in the kitchen, the coffee maker, and that sound means "home," and I don't think about it, I just know.

I'm wearing his shirt. Unbuttoned, on bare skin. Panties with watermelons. Paint on my collarbone, on my knees, on the floor — cadmium red, I'll wipe it up later. No, I won't. We both know.

And I think — there. This is it. Saturday, floor, drawing, he's making coffee, and it's fine, and fine is the best word, it's just that nobody appreciates it while it's there.

Doorbell.

"Get it, it's probably the delivery, I ordered a pot for Phyllis, well, not a pot, a bigger pot, never mind."

Drawing. I hear him open the door. I hear silence — not the silence when someone takes a package and says "thanks," a different one, heavy, and I look up.

A woman's voice. Hoarse. Unfamiliar — no. Familiar. Very familiar.

"Hey. Miss me?"

I stand up. Legs on autopilot. Walk to the door.

JC.

Tanned. Thinner. Hair longer. Thin lines on her wrists that weren't there before. And the pink plastic heart on her neck — I know that heart, he gave it to her when they were twelve, and I drew that heart from memory, many times, in the sketchbook I kept closed.

She looks at me. At the shirt. His shirt. Unbuttoned. On bare skin. Watermelons on the panties.

I drop the pencil. Don't notice.

JC is alive. My best friend is alive. And I'm standing in his shirt on bare skin and don't know what my face is doing right now — smiling? crying? — and don't know what I feel, and this is unbearable, because I always know what I feel, it's my only real skill.

Two weeks. She sleeps in the living room, on our couch, well — on his couch, well — on the couch where we watched horror movies and where he first kissed me on the corner of my mouth, and I try not to think about that every time I walk past and see her blanket, folded, neatly, and her pillow, and her phone charging, and she lives here, and I live here, and he lives here, and the apartment is a two-bedroom, and the walls aren't that thick.

He went out for groceries. Or said he went for groceries. Maybe he just needed to get out. I understand. I want to get out too. But I don't leave, because if I leave — she'll be alone in the apartment, and he'll come back to just her, and it'll look like I left, and I'm not leaving.

She's in the kitchen. Cooking. Since she came back — every day, something complicated, from recipes. Before, JC fried an egg and considered it an achievement. Now — spices, sauces, pots. Hair tied back, apron, movements precise. Beautiful. She was always beautiful, Megan Fox with an anthropologist's brain, and now — even more beautiful, the tan, wider hips, moves differently, and I hate that I notice and can't stop noticing.

I walk into the kitchen. Freeze.

"Oh," JC says, not turning around. "Hey."

"Hey."

Silence. The stove hisses. I'm standing in the doorway and thinking — before, I'd sit on the counter and swing my legs and ask "what are we making?", and JC would throw a towel at me, and we'd laugh. Before.

She turns. Looks at me. And I see — not anger. Worse. Exhaustion.

"Tess." Quiet. "You're in my apartment. In his shirt. With my husband."

And I should say something smart, or soft, or at least funny, but instead:

"You were dead, JC."

"Well. Not dead."

The heart on her neck sways. Pink. Plastic. I drew it from memory. Many times. And right now I'm staring at it and can't look away, and she sees that I'm staring, and we both go quiet, and the stove hisses, and downstairs a door slams.

Quiet. That's what right now is. Quiet.

Night. The apartment. JC left — to a friend's, or a motel, or her mom's, I didn't ask and she didn't say, just — "I need a couple days" — and the door. On the hook — her apron. On the drying rack — her mug, upside down. I remember when that mug stood here without her, remember that he didn't touch it, and now it stands here without her again, and it's all in a circle, and I don't know what to do with it.

I'm on the couch. Knees pulled up, blanket to my chin, sketchbook on the floor. Closed. Not drawing. Not talking. Not commenting. Bracelets quiet. And I'm small — smaller than usual, and the blanket is bigger than me, and I'm twenty-two, and I don't know the rules for what's happening, and nobody knows, and there's no textbook, and there's no Google, and there's no JC who'd say "stop overthinking, let's go get pizza" — because JC is the reason.

I look straight ahead. Then — at him.

"I'm not going to fight for you." Quiet. No smile. "Not because I don't want to. Because you're not a thing."

Pause.

"But I'm here. And I'm not leaving. And if you want me to be here — I'm here. And if not..." — fingers squeeze the edge of the blanket — "...say so. Just say it. Don't go quiet. Please. I can't do it when people go quiet."

Eyes burn. Not crying. I don't cry.

Okay — almost.