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hers. Stubble on his lips like pimentos in a salad. Sour saliva and rough and clumsy and all a waste of her time.
    Oh shit, she said. I …
    He kissed her again, and that was when she should have stopped, but he pulled off her tank top and she let him; her baggy camo pants fell off; he let her keep her socks on. He hooked his fingers under the hem of her gray cotton underwear and she clamped her fingers over the bracelet at his wrist.
    Wait, she breathed.
    She let go of his wrist. He glared at her, breathing heavily. She tugged off her underwear, reached between her legs, and pulled out a tiny white something on a string and tossed it aside. She hoped it hadn’t fallen on the carpet until she realized that she didn’t fucking care.
    But now here she was. She knew what she looked like to him. Small, smooth breasts with pale, drooping areolas and large gumdrop nipples. Thick thighs under thin hips, braced up by knotty calves. Pale, slight roll at her belly, wisps of brown rising from her thighs, her cunt , all of it spread beneath him. Her body had turned into Tabitha’s. She stared breathing, suddenly, hard. The sitars sped up; the notes fell in domino crescendos around her ears. He was staring at her.
    I d-don’t want to pressure you, he said.
    You’re not, she said, wincing and feeling her thigh goosepimple; him talking ruined it. —You’re not. Just like, go for it, okay?
    And as good as his encouragement, he did: he plunged right in, inch by dry inch, and her bitten nails closed on his back. He must have thought this was a good sign because he closed his eyes tight and went further.
    She lay in the bed she’d stolen and gritted her teeth. She squeezed her eyes tighter, squeezed them into a fuschia kaleidoscope, squeezed him out. She was Tabitha—getting it fucking right this time. He was ejaculating. She pulsed as he pulsed. This time, survive, she thought. Survive. Survive.



1
    It was June; in August she would go back for her senior year of high school. She had to read Crime and Punishment , and she had to narrow down her five top choices for college, and she had to say goodbye to everything. It was June, and she was digging around in the bedroom mess of a teenage boy she didn’t like so well, hunting her socks so she could sneak out the front door. It was June, and in August everything would start moving again.
    Her mother’s boyfriend Michael was waiting by the drooping maple tree in the yard when Julie came home wearing Robbie’s backpack. Something about the way he was shorter than her bothered her; something about the way his hair never seemed to get longer, how well he must know about the fishing careers of the men who cut his hair; something about the rust-red polo shirts he wore with blue jeans; something about the long candlewax-drip of his nose. He’d built her a swing. It hung unevenly from a branch, swaying on two cannibalized jump ropes.
    I thought you might like this, he said.
    Thanks, said Julie. She parked her bike against the garage and limped across the lawn to the patch of longer grass growing in the shade of the tree. How long were you working on this?
    All day, said Michael. Did you sleep at this house last night?
    Did you sleep at this house last night? asked Julie.
    Michael smiled. He was young by Linda’s standards: someone that Tabitha could have become given five more years and a totally different attitude toward computer/network courses at the local community college.
    Try it out, he said.
    How’s Mom doing? Julie asked.
    Try it out, and I’ll tell you, said Michael.
    She lowered herself slowly onto the swing. The maple branch cracked quietly above her.
    I’m too fat for your swing, she said.
    You’re too substantial, you mean, he said. Would you do me a favor? Would you stick around in the evenings more? She could use it, your mom.
    She kicked her feet against the overgrown grass and rocked back and forth, catching herself before she could take off.
    Did she say if maybe she