“That’s such a tragedy,” he kept saying. Was that the name for what it was?

“I wish I could teleport and just be in our house. I know what things mean in our house.”

“Hotel rooms are terrible,” he said.

“They really are,” I said.

After we got off the phone, I turned off all the lights, but I couldn’t sleep. The air conditioner kept clicking on and off, on and off. You could have run, she said. You could have screamed. You could have done something, but you did nothing, you let it happen to you.

I tried to think about a paper I was writing, to think about how I wanted to frame the abstract, and perhaps I was half asleep already because I realized I was explaining the paper to Anthony of all people. He was sitting right there before me, eight months dead, a newly minted ghost wearing a white hotel-style robe. “Essentially, the perceived risk of predation can affect melanin production and thus feather coloration in the nuthatch.”

“Break it down for me,” Anthony said, smiling.

“I played predator calls constantly to baby birds and their feathers turned out funny.”

“A little more,” he said.

“Fear can change you. It can change you on a physical level. It’s not just feelings, it’s chemical cascades.”

“That’s right,” he said. And then I understood that he was going to give me a lot of money, it was like a prize that ghosts gave out to those who sincerely quested for knowledge, and he had been part of the selection committee even back when he was alive.

I became aware of a pounding on my door and I staggered through the dark, confused a little as to where I was. I wasn’t entirely aware I was in a hotel room and that there was probably a peephole, so I just opened the door.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Bunny said. “Can I come in?”

“Of course,” I said, because it is what I would have said when we were seventeen, even though now of course I did not want her in my room in the middle of the night. I did not think to turn on the light and she made no move to turn on the light, so we both just got into the bed in the dark. She smelled like liquor, like whiskey or something.

For a moment she said nothing, then she said, “Man, I really took her apart, didn’t I?”

“Sure did,” I said, terse and pissy, suddenly more awake.

“Do you hate me?” she asked.

“What? No, I mean, no. Why would you ask that?” Of course I hated her. She symbolized everything I most feared in the world.

“I don’t know,” she said. Her nose sounded even more stuffed than usual, and I wondered if it was from the swelling in her face. In the reflected light from the street, I could see that her cheekbone was still warped and shiny, like half an apple had been inserted under the skin.

“I can’t believe you said I let those boys beat me up,” I said. “I just can’t believe you fucking said that.” My heart was beating fast with how angry I was, and now I was entirely awake, scrutinizing her blue outlines in the dark.

“When did I say that?” she asked.

“At dinner.”

“I’m sorry I said that,” she said. “I don’t remember saying that. But I know I’ve thought it before. I mean, couldn’t you have run? Couldn’t you have screamed?”

“Maybe I did,” I said. “Maybe I did both those things.”

“Did you?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t think so. It just wasn’t—it wasn’t like that.”

“I don’t get it,” she said.

“You just don’t know,” I said. “You don’t know what it is to be weak. You don’t know how to be afraid. You can’t even understand it.”

“But you can’t let things like that happen to you,” she said. “You can’t let things like that—those people, there are people, Michael, who are bad and who will hurt you and who will kill you, and you can’t just let them because you are innocent and they are bad. You have to try to get away. You have to fight with everything you have.” She was almost in tears, and I realized she was saying all of this because she wanted there to be some way to undo the beating, to avert it, to go back and make it not take place, to never let it take place ever again, and she felt that way because she loved me.

“Are you one of those people?” I asked.

“What people?”

“The people who will hurt and kill.”

“People choose to fight me,” she said. “They decide to get in the ring with me. It’s different.”

I didn’t say it, but I think we were both thinking of Ann Marie, who had not chosen, who had not entered any ring at all, who had merely made the mistake of gossiping, of running that glossy little pink mouth of hers.

“What do you want me to say, Michael?” she asked. “Do you want me to hate myself? Do you need to hear that? I’m cold, can I get closer? You have the AC up really high.”

“Yes,” I said, and she scooted closer to me under the covers and then I could feel the heat of her breath and the warmth of her body.

“I want to put my arms around you, but my hands,” she said.

“Here,” I said, and lifted my head off the pillow so she could snake an arm under me without crushing her hand.

“Sometimes I do hate myself,” she said. “Sometimes I do.”

“I don’t want you to hate yourself,” I said.

“Sometimes I forget to hate myself. Or I hate myself for all the wrong reasons.”

“You don’t have to be good,” I said.

“Is it okay that I’m in here? I forget how we got here, how I got in your bed, but I am so, so happy to be here,” she said, nuzzling her face into my hair.

“It’s okay,” I said. “That you’re here.”

I loved her body so much. I loved her so much. She was exactly as good and exactly as evil, I thought, as a panther. As any of us animals. As me.

“Everything hurts,” she whispered.

“Everything hurts,” I agreed.

And then we fell asleep.