* * *

—

I didn’t want to barge into the girls’ locker room, but if it was just Bunny and Coach Eric in there, it seemed like my only chance to talk to her. I hesitated at the door, my fingers just touching the metal curve of the push-bar, listening. Did I hear voices? I heard something, but it sounded like a machine, rhythmic and low, like a pump system or a vacuum being pushed in a repetitive pattern. I pushed the door open a crack, and I could see down the hallway of lockers that led to the showers.

I saw Coach Eric. I saw Bunny. She was in her bra and panties, and she had blood on her chest and on her stomach. She was sitting right next to Coach Eric on a bench. There was a puddle of puke on the floor between her feet. She was barefoot, and her feet were spread far apart to keep from getting in the puddle of puke. He was rubbing her bare back, up and down, up and down, with his big hand, and murmuring to her, like they were lovers. Bunny was the one making the noise I had heard, a kind of labored breathing in between sobbing and hyperventilation. Havroom, havroom. Like she was scraping something clean inside herself.

Coach Eric was the one who saw me. “Hey, kid, get out of here!” he shouted. Bunny didn’t even look up, just puked again between her legs, her knees and ankles splaying dramatically, almost balletically, to get out of the way of her own bile. I jerked away from the door and ran down the hall, my shoes squeaking on the tile, as though I had been caught at something truly shameful.

* * *

—

I called Ray Lampert and left a message, telling him what I knew of the situation. I called Bunny’s cell phone and left a message, begging her to call me. As I left the voicemails, my legs continued to carry me, walking on autopilot through our town, past houses where boats and RVs blocked the driveway, where giant trampolines took over the front yard, where happiness was a garage full of camping equipment and bins of children’s cleats in every size. Before I knew it, I was in front of Rite Aid, though I still wasn’t sure if I should go in, or if I should call in sick somehow in case Bunny needed me.

I remember there was a massive magnolia tree across the street, like this was some other place, Georgia maybe, and not Southern California at all. That’s when I realized something odd. There were no palm trees in North Shore. The newer city plantings were slightly more adapted to the climate: orchid trees and succulent beds. But most of the plants and flowers were East Coast transplants. Deciduous trees providing the illusion of autumn. The thick almost-painted-looking leaves of cannas borrowing the humidity of southern summers left behind. And that’s when I started to feel really creepy. Because North Shore was a fake place, a manufactured town. I had always liked that about it, thought I accepted it. But now it was creepy the way a stage set is creepy after the show has ended. The way an empty costume is creepy. And I kept thinking of Bunny puking between her naked legs, Ann Marie’s blood drying brown on her belly, and about Naomi spitting on the floor, and about the mosaic of bone Luke had made out of Donna Morse’s head.

I texted Anthony. I typed: I’m in love with you. Please say you love me too. Please just say those words because I need them.

I saw that the message was read almost immediately. And there were three dots, which meant he was typing, and then they went away, and then the message came:

I am wildly, passionately, truly, and deliriously in love with you, Michael.

I texted: Oh fuck, thank god.

He texted back a smiley face.

And then I went to work.

* * *

—

The first sexual fantasy I ever had, I developed when I was maybe eleven years old. I had known I was gay for some time by then, and I had crushes on boys, but I could not fantasize about them, and I had not yet figured out masturbation. I would just try to go to bed and develop a hard-on and sort of roll around, squirming, for hours. I did not dare to picture kissing one of the boys I liked at school. When I tried to imagine kissing one of them, they inevitably shoved me away or laughed at me. Instead, I imagined some kind of alternate reality wherein all men were gay and used other men as sex objects, almost in the same way that men use women in this world, only, for whatever reason, in my childish brain, I imagined the men being used as sex objects as being inside furniture. We were inside chairs and desks and tables and bookshelves, and there would just be holes cut out so that men could have sex with us while we were inside the furniture.

That was the most I could picture for myself.

* * *

—

Halfway through my shift, I got a text from Bunny. It said: At home now. I’m so sorry. I made everything worse. I know you can never forgive me.

My first reaction was almost to laugh. Of course I would forgive her. I mean, wouldn’t I? How could I not forgive her? She was my best and only friend. We had made ourselves sick eating Funyuns and doing impressions of Johnny Depp together. We had written extended ode-like text messages about our favorite drag queens. I had let her meet Gabby and my mother. Just once, and for about twenty minutes, but it had occurred, locking us together in an overlap of worlds that could not be easily undone.

Don’t be silly, I texted, hiding in the bathroom at work. I will come by after my shift.

You really want to see me?

I was baffled by this, but I knew I couldn’t keep hiding out in the bathroom forever, I wasn’t even on break, and so I didn’t respond, and just slipped my phone into my pocket. Toward the end of my shift, a kid I didn’t recognize, who was older, maybe in his early twenties, hissed “Faggot” at me as he left the store. I hadn’t even been the one to ring him up, I’d just been standing there, organizing my cash drawer so that when I had to count out it would go faster. Truthfully, I had never been called “faggot” in that kind of menacing fashion, though I had imagined being called “faggot” in such a way many times. It seemed almost like it was a common occurrence, so often had I mentally prepared for it to happen, but for it to actually happen seemed purely bizarre and theatrical to me. Like seeing someone dressed up for Halloween on a regular day.

Terrence came up behind me.

“Did that kid say something to you?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

* * *

—

At Bunny’s house, it was a bit like being let into the control room. They had their supplies and they were hunkered down. Ray had a glass of scotch going and seemed to be eating an entire pizza by himself. Bunny had an array of ice cream and chips around her on the coffee table, and there was an empty liter bottle of Mountain Dew next to the couch. The news was on at full volume, CNN, so national news, and its purpose seemed to be either to distract or else to just project an air of gravitas. They couldn’t watch a sitcom and accidentally laugh or have a moment of pleasure. On her stomach was a heating pad, and on her hand was an ice pack. Her hand was already swollen to almost twice its normal size and a weird magenta color. “I’ll go to the doctor in the morning,” she said.