Hum

The problem with the beehive in the walls of her closet is: noise. Noise, first, how loud the wood gets. Buzz tight on eardrum. Second, having to deal with it. Calling a strange old man up three flights of stairs in an apartment complex with an elevator that’s been broken since 1982. Watching him roll up his pants so he can unhook a complicated series of leather straps and rip off his chipped wooden leg.

He flirts with her while he works. “You ever done it with a white guy before?” he asks.

“Yeah, plenty,” she says.

His gray caterpillar mustache veils a thin upper lip, and when he talks he licks his words.

“I got a uncle who’s a quarter black. Or great uncle. Been dead a while now. He's gotta apartment down on East Poppy, nifty little shack. Ten minutes is all I'm askin’.”

He knocks his leg once, twice against a section of the wall. An agitated hum buzzes behind the wood.

“How much to get the bees out?” she asks. She looks at the clock sitting at the head of her bed. Cheap, plastic thing. Dead batteries. The minute and hour hands are long and thin and still.

“A thousand. And ten minutes.” Knock knock knock. Zzzzzzzz. Knock. Zzzzzzz.

“One-point-five, and no minutes.”

He whistles. “Think yer worth more’an you are, is what yer thinkin’. How about a Breather? Been with one a them?”

“That’s disgusting.”

“I’m warm. Solid, tried an’ true, American beef. Just a thousand, and ten minutes.”

“One-point-five, and no minutes.”

He chews on his tongue, slick sounds filling the space between them. “Shame,” he says, wetly, and puts his leg back on.

The sign out front is small, weathered. Spare Parts in cursive white, sprawling across a faded blue background.

She’s late again. Monty gives her the stink eye when she lifts up the counter flap and ducks beneath. He shuffles from the register, bent over like a fish hook. She fiddles with the red wool scarf tied around her neck.

“You’re late,” he says.

She’d like to say There are bees in the walls of my closet and I had to call a guy and I had to watch him climb the stairs with a wooden leg, I’m not even shitting you a wooden leg, and he said he’d do it cheaper if I fucked him, it was a whole thing, but it sounds like something he’ll say kids these days to, so she takes a breath, says, “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” 

He nods. Pulls the baseball cap from his head, navy blue with an N intersecting a Y. Monty is two hundred and three. Without the cap, she can see the hole in the back of his head when he turns. He doesn’t talk right all of the time. It’s an old wound, healed scar tissue wide enough to gape. It looks like a butthole. He rubs his wispy white hair and puts the hat back on.

“Lyra,” he snaps. She turns to face him. His back is to her. “You’re cl—cl—closing today.”

She imagines him speaking through the asshole in the back of his head. It puffs up around the edges like lips. She’s never successfully seen his brain. The hole is too dark on the inside.

“Sure,” she says.

‍party this weekend!!~! you gonna bitch out?

No lol.

great! wake’s friday at 9. BYOB. we’re getting lit!

Kay.

At nine, they get lit. She tightens the scarf around her neck and watches her friends sway near the bonfire. Two boys pick up sticks from the center and start a flaming sword fight. She laughs on the inside, happy and hurt, a butterfly that beats against the lining of her stomach before it kills itself from the impact.

In the house, Dolly lies in bed. Lyra barely knows her. Dolly downed an alarming number of sleeping pills earlier. She’ll wake up tomorrow. No blemishes.

Lyra leaves early. She has work in the morning.

In bed, the buzz in the wall lulls her to sleep. She dreams of Natty Ice and Pork Rinds. She dreams of all the things that could’ve killed her, alphabetically. Doesn’t get past A. 

A boy walks in. He’s tall, pale, missing a couple fingers. Slaps his hand down on the glass counter beside the register, impact muted by the long sleeve of his oversized jacket. Leans down. His elbows plant themselves like they belong there, roots in soil, claiming space.

“Howdy,” he says, with no accent. Wiggles the three fingers left on his hand and grins.

“Hello,” Lyra says with forced cheer. “How may I help you?”

The bell above the door dings. A woman with purple hair walks in. She stands to the boy’s right and lays a hand on his forearm, plucks at the sleeve of his jacket, making mountains and ravines in the thick green fabric. She smiles at Lyra and it’s very warm and painful, and she breathes, and says, “Hi, my name’s Mica.”

Lyra responds, “Okay,” and doesn’t know how to handle them. Their body language is not employee-customer, has no walls, but bridges, all bridges in man-made trenches, holes that were dug for a reason.

The boy says, “Hi, I’m Finley.”

“Hi Finley, Mica,” Lyra responds, and tries again, “How may I help you?”

“Do you have a middle finger and pointer on hand?” Finley asks.

Lyra squints at him. She can’t tell if he’s making a joke. She turns around and pulls out the H drawer–H for Hand–of the body parts filing cabinet, and rifles through note card sized pictures for each subsection, 1(T) thumb, 2(P) pointer, 3(M) middle. She pulls out 2(P) and 3(M).

“We have a few, yeah,” she says, turning back around. She lays the pictures down on the countertop. “Looks like ten options for pointer, twelve for middle.” All business now. When Lyra looks up, they’re both staring at her fondly. She startles, adjusts the scarf around her neck. Does she know them? She tries to place them but she’s bad at names and worse at faces. They’re warm, generate a heat that makes Lyra’s cold more acute. She feels lonely, suddenly. Dropped out and nauseous with how open they look, like old friends have seeped into the bones of strangers.

Lyra presses on, points out a few index-card-sized pictures and slides them over. It’s quick picks and skin matches after that, and $29.99, yes, per finger, yes, thank you, and Lyra refers them to a biomech specialist who will jumpstart the nerve endings for free after the cost of attachment.

She thinks about the glass countertop, how it fogs beneath Mica’s warm hand, how she breathes.

In Dolly’s living room, the open pamphlet on the coffee table reads:

‍

‍

“Great party last week, eh?” Dolly says, patting Lyra on the back. “Thanks for dropping by. Didn’t see you when I woke up. Enough small talk.” She flings herself across the sofa, leaving no room for anyone else.

Lyra, who has opened her mouth to participate in small talk, closes it. She stands near the front door and studies Dolly. The girl is younger than her, a fresh eighteen that won’t age. Shorter than her. Thinner. Bubblegum in stasis, chewed and blown and present, very pay attention to me or I will pop and make you sticky.

“So I asked you over because Steph” (text friend) “told me Jeremiah” (boy one with flaming stick) “was giving you The Look at my wake, and I like you, okay, I invited you to my Suicide Party, didn’t I? And I heard you brought wine” (box of Merlot) “to my funeral, that was real nice of you, and I know you like me too, so I thought I’d be upfront and let you know that Jeremiah is mine. Okay? He’s mine.”

“Oh,” Lyra says. She nods, slowly. “Okay. I didn’t know you two were dating.” Her head feels fuzzy and her mouth is dry, but she’s fucked Jeremiah before and he left a hole in the core of her, a wind tunnel whooshing between her ribcage, so her fingertips tingle and lose sensation, really, just go numb, and this is okay, it’s okay, it’s surprisingly okay.

Dolly chews on her lip. Lyra notices this because she’ll have to stop doing that, soon. She’ll wear down the skin and bite it off on accident and she’ll get a replacement and it won’t fit right, it never does, and it’ll feel like she’s chewing on someone else’s lip.

“Well,” Dolly says, clipped. “Not yet.”

“Oh.” Lyra fiddles with the tattered end of her scarf. It’s thick fabric, a little too warm for it, but it’s soft. Comforting. “Okay.”

Dolly smiles wide, perfect teeth at her. Like a chimp egging on a fight.

“Back for more!” Finley yells, bursting through the shop door. Mica is at his side, grinning. Her blue hair is stripped and frizzy on the ends. She winks at Lyra and walks to the back of the store, thumbing through old Spare Parts catalogues.

The boy smiles and distorts a field of freckles planted across his cheeks. His elbows take root on the countertop.

“Hello,” he says, low and gentle.

Lyra blinks, asks, “How may I help you?” like her voice comes out of a can. It pops open and there are pinto beans inside covered in thick syrup. He has brown hair. She makes it a point not to notice the color of his eyes, the different colors. For some reason, the sight of blue hair in her periphery makes her heart pick up. She feels like they’re making space for her and she’s going to leave an empty pit. 

“Well,” he says, and wiggles a full five-fingered hand. Two fingers are slightly darker than the rest. “I was wondering if there are any toes afoot?”

Lyra pulls out F 1-5. She and Finley shuffle through pictures of dismembered limbs. Mica wanders up from the back of the store. She smiles at Lyra often. They don’t buy anything.

And it goes on like this for a handful of months. Twice, sometimes three times a week, usually on slow days. They saunter into the store and pick through body parts, window shopping.

“Any shoulder tattoos?”

“Size ten feet?”

“How about, ahem. You know, down there equipement. I’m asking for a friend.”

And it’s okay. She doesn’t see them outside of work. She doesn’t know them. They’re pleasant weather and clear skies in another country. She checks the miles between herself and them and they’re too far to reach, too far to drive to, she doesn’t have a good enough car, doesn’t have enough money for the gas. She can’t smile like they smile. It’s easy to accept.

Until, one day, Mica comes in waving, shy, and green hair disappears behind a bookcase and Finley approaches the counter nervous and smiling and fidgeting with his discolored fingers. He doesn’t jab his elbows against the counter.

“So,” he says, clearing his throat. “I have a question for you.”

Lyra stares at his arms, swallowed by the sleeves of that same jacket. She’s never seen what he looks like beneath it. She wants to grab his elbows, forcefully plant them onto the glass. 

“How—How may I help you?” Her voice cracks. She doesn’t want to look at his eyes, or notice Mica’s hair. She feels like she’s bottled up some bees and shoved them into her chest and now they’re buzzing.

“Well.” He pauses. Doesn’t breathe. He doesn’t need to breathe. He isn’t Mica. “My girlfriend wanted me to ask you if you’d go on a date with her?”

The glass bottle shatters. The bees start stinging, piercing up her insides and leaving pinprick holes that swell, and she thinks of her great grandma who said piss on a rag and lay it over the bump and how Little Lyra nodded and said okay so she pissed on a rag and laid it over the bump and it was warm and smelled bad and she threw the rag away and washed her leg and it didn’t help, nothing helped, she just had to wait, that’s all.

“What?” Lyra stares at the glass countertop and finds a litany of fingerprints. She traces the edge of one with her clipped nail. No tone to her voice, no accent, no surprise. Who owns this fingerprint?

Finley shoves his hands into his pockets and steps back. He’s thousands of miles away now. Too far to drive to. Mica is farther. Closer to the door, heaving. Her breath is loud in a place where people don’t normally breathe.

“Just, uh. Think about it,” Finley says. He keeps backing up. Lyra is fascinated with the fingerprint beneath her nail. She’ll have to clean the counter before she leaves.

The bell rings. The shop is now empty, quiet.

On the roof of her apartment complex, Lyra sits in old fold-out chairs with Dolly and Jeremiah. They crack open cheap beers and tap brown glass together in a poor man’s salute. Dolly leans back and spreads her legs in a short yellow dress and shows the world her neatly trimmed vulva. On the other side of the roof sits Jeremiah’s beehive, thrumming with activity. Two thick breezeblocks as a base, the whole thing made up of three compartments that look like dresser drawers (supers, Jeremiah had called them).

“That’s not normal. That’s not what normal people do, Lye,” Dolly says after her first deep swig. She lolls her head back. Airs out her genitals. Her cheeks flush lightly but she looks low-key unimpressed.

“I know,” Lyra says, taking another sip. She glances at Jeremiah. He stares across several rooftops, distant and not entirely there while he downs half his beer.

“What did you say?” Dolly asks.

“I, um. I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t say anything?”

Lyra nods.

“Okay, girl.” Dolly sits up in her seat and partially closes the wide gap between her legs. “You need to work on your communication skills. Repeat after me: No. Fucking. Way.”

Lyra doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have the words for it, isn’t a person with a vocabulary anymore. She’s a spring and a coil and a stretched rubber band, all things tight and incapable of speech. Dolly doesn’t seem to care.

“Jeremiah,” Lyra says, after she’s halfway through her second beer and the coils loosen and she remembers how to talk. “So, um. There are bees in my closet.”

“Are there?” he replies.

“Yeah. They’ve been there for a few months.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Do you, um. Do you think they came from your beehive?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh.” She finishes the beer. Goes for a third. “Okay.”

Monty tells his story again. Lyra takes this as punishment for getting there late. He starts with It was at the beginning or I was one of the first. She’s heard it enough times to recognize the slight variations. His cap sits firmly atop his head until the exact opportune moment. When he rips it off, it’s—

“Bam. Just like that. Fifty years after I should’ve died and I just kept on. Old bones aren’t fun, kid, you got off lucky.” He waves at her scarf. “I thought, well my four-oh-one-kay ran out decades ago and I didn’t wanna work no—no—no—no more so I took the old Smith & Wesson and put a bullet through my br—br—brain.”

He wipes a hand across his sweaty brow. Lyra stares when he turns around and points at his scar.

“Fat load a good that did me,” he says, turning back. “That was back before we knew, you know, and you can’t cry for help if every—every—everybody’s ignorant about it.”

She gives the appropriate nods and yessirs because she may not like her job, but she likes having a job. He creaks toward the back room like an old rocking chair, satisfied with her minimal engagement, and she starts sorting through new pictures.

The bell rings. She turns with a fake smile on her face. Finley and Mica stand in the doorway. It’s been a month. The bees come back and tickle up her spine.

“Hi,” Mica says, waving. She has a mousy voice. She has peach hair now.

Lyra opens her mouth. Repeat after me. And keeps her mouth open, cool air hitting her teeth, this isn’t normal, this isn’t what normal people do.

“Howdy,” Finley says, waving. They’re both waving. They’re idiots. Cruel, because everyone is cruel, the weird ones especially so. They’ll tear her apart, shove a gun in her mouth and put a butthole in her skull.

“How may I help you?” she asks.

“Just, ah.” Finley rubs the back of his head. He grimaces. “Looking for an answer.”

Repeat after me:

“Why?” Lyra is a toad, croaking.

Mica widens her eyes. She’s done up her makeup to match her hair. Soft earth tones, long lashes. She’s in a wifebeater and a plaid skirt and Lyra feels itchy looking at her. Buzzing. 

“I like you,” Mica squeaks out. Her voice rises in pitch. “I, well. That’s why. We both do.” She looks up at Finley. He tilts his head in her direction, grabs her hand with his motley one. They anchor each other. The living curling fingers with the dead.

Lyra is a million miles away, a small rocky planet orbiting their sun. She is not in the goldilocks zone. She is not close enough or far enough away to sustain life.

“I don’t understand,” Lyra says, chewing on her lip.

Mica lets out a held breath. “It’s weird. It’s weird, I know,” she says, laughing like a reflex. “I mean, do you want to hang out? Like, not at work. No pressure. We could see a movie or something.”

This isn’t—

“You should have opened with that,” Lyra says.

“I know,” Mica says, rubbing the back of her head. “Yeah, I, uh. I know.”

Lyra is so far away, she’s so cold. Mica and Finley are radiators. They look like a heat death eager to ruin her. Or hands, curling. She’ll choke on warm fingers wrapped around her neck, getting freaky-intimate with her pulse.

“Okay,” Lyra says. “Okay.”

This isn’t what normal people do.

Finley comments on her smile. A dozen or more times hanging out, and they’ve got a feel for her. Lyra feels caged when he says it, I like your dimple, and she touches her face to hide the spot, unwilling to divulge features to someone who looks so close to caring. He asks how she got her job. He asks what her favorite meal is. Does she play an instrument? Does she like bubblegum?

Mica is less talk and more touch. She pinches and pokes and prods. She grins like she has a secret in her pocket at all times, and notices things. Puts two teaspoons of sugar in Lyra’s coffee, and buys Natty Ice because she knows Lyra’s acquired a taste for cheap. Paints a yellow marble with black stripes, gives it to her, says, you’re Queen Bee now, they can’t hurt you.

Lyra hides Mica and Finley. She hides the shame of them from Dolly and Jeremiah, how mortifying it is to let others make her smile.There are still rooftop meetings with Dolly’s spread legs and Jeremiah’s distance. There are still days late to work. There are still bees in the walls of her closet. The world keeps revolving. It doesn’t end.

Lyra wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, head woozy and aching. If her heart beat, it would pick up. She’s alone and the tan sheets are a bear trap gnawing on her feet. There are brick walls and a wide window with a fire escape. There is no buzz, but a hum, coming from the other side of the closed door.

No, she thinks, and fuck. Her hand flies to her neck and even though she doesn’t need to breathe, she still inhales sharp and relieved when she touches the worn fabric of her scarf. She’s clothed.

When her fingers stop shaking long enough for her to twist the handle on the bedroom door, Lyra discovers the humming is louder in the kitchen. It rolls pleasantly above a percussive sizzle. Some soft, sad melody. She walks barefoot on wood floors toward the noise and the sweet smell of batter.

Finley is sprawled on the living room couch. His head lolls back on the arm to watch Mica cook and sing in the kitchen. When he notices Lyra, he slings his legs off the sofa to make room.

“Someone had a fun night,” he comments, smiling crookedly.

Lyra freezes. Her face heats up. She doesn’t remember what happened, but she’s certain she’s fucked everything up. It’s been a month since Queen Bee. It’s too fast. They’ve come and now they’ll be gone, distant, driving farther away.

“Ever wonder how we blush?” he asks, suddenly. His smile levels out a bit. He’s warm cotton and all things soft. “I mean, it’s weird, isn’t it? Dead as a doorknob and we still do things. Doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s dead as a door nail,” Mica calls from the kitchen. It’s an open layout and their apartment is small enough to pick up conversation from just about anywhere. “And you’re not dead. You’re immortal. Totally different.”

Finley pats his chest like she can see it. “Immortals who don’t breathe, or repair right, or, you know, digest really well. Why does liquor work? Or weed?”

Short pause, and then Mica again, “I don’t know. How does your car work?”

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“Like, the engine. How does your car engine work?”

Finley looks lost in thought for a minute. He brings a hand up to run through his hair. He isn’t wearing his jacket, and it’s the first time Lyra’s seen him without it. There are deep marks on his arms. Vertical gashes that are ragged and pink with age. She can’t stop looking. It’s rude, but she can’t stop.

“Explosions,” he says, finally. “Something to do with explosions, right? Like, cylinders and horsepower and shit.”

“You don’t have to know,” Mica says. She walks out of the kitchen holding a plate piled high with pancakes. “You put gas in it and it goes. That’s all that matters.” She pauses in front of the sofa, gestures with her food for Lyra to take a seat.

“Did we fuck?” Lyra blurts out.

She can’t handle the way they look at her, like it’s day one and she’s scrabbling through her brain for familiar faces. She hovers at the edge of the living room. The front door shines like the pearly gates.

“Nah,” Mica says, smiling like she’s holding secrets in her pocket. “We all got pretty drunk last night. Figured you’d be comfier in the bed, so we slept out here.”

A sharp, painful happiness stabs Lyra in the gut. She sits down next to Finley on the couch. Mica settles cross-legged on the floor next to the coffee table.

“You weigh, like, ten tons hammered, by the way,” Finley remarks, leaning over to snatch a dry pancake off Mica’s plate. She swats his hand away, laughing, as he nibbles on sweet bread.

“Don’t be a bitch, Fin,” she says. Then, turning to Lyra, “It was no trouble. You can stay over anytime. We’ll haul your ass to bed no matter how drunk you are.”

They’re good. It’s a dangerous thought. It sits heavy on Lyra’s chest. They’re good to me.

“I know you’ve fucked him,” Dolly says. She’s wearing a skirt today, salmon pink to accentuate the raw look of her aired out vagina. Jeremiah is late to their rooftop rendezvous. Lyra is four beers in.

“Yeah,” Lyra replies. She feels light. Dolly makes her angrier than usual, but it’s a low thing, a small colony of bees writhing below her skin. “It was a while ago.”

“He says I’m a better lay,” Dolly says, chugging down the last few gulps of her third beer. “I mean, no offense. That’s just what he says.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“What do you mean, ‘yeah okay’?” Dolly pokes her. It isn’t as soft as when Mica does it. Mica presses just enough to crease the dark skin of her arm, lingers only to draw her attention.

“I mean yeah, okay.” Clipped. Done with this conversation.

Dolly doesn’t take the hint. She pokes again, twice, three times in rough succession.

“You need to learn how to get angry. Stand up for yourself. I mean, this blank face shit gets old.” She pinches the frayed end of Lyra’s scarf and gives a quick tug.

Lyra snatches her by the wrist. “Don’t touch me,” she says, low, before letting go.

Dolly rubs the red mark on her pale skin. “That’s what I like to see,” she says, grinning. “I know you died like, what? Five years ago or something? But you don’t have to act all dead about it. Jeremiah told me everything, by the way.” She gestures toward the scarf. “I think his honesty has really strengthened our relationship, you know? Can I see it?”

Lyra stands up, grabs the beer right out of Dolly’s hand, and chucks it over the side of the building.

“No,” she says, and walks away.

The large drum in the corner of the living room distracts her from typical greetings.

“That’s new,” Lyra points out, waving her hand at the tall blue eyesore.

Mica shuts the door behind her while Finley bounds over the back of the couch. He’s frantic and giddy, eyes lit up.

“It’s mad. Here, come check this out.” He grabs Lyra’s hand and drags her closer. He’s wearing his jacket but she can still imagine his scars, the lines carved up his pale skin. Finley sidles up next to the drum and whacks it with the palm of his hand. It produces a low, loud note.

“It’s a conga. Pretty sweet, huh?” he asks.

“Sure,” Lyra replies, trying hard not to sound so fond.

“Okay, well, you haven’t tried the best part. Give it a hug.”

“A hug?”

Mica squeezes her shoulder gently, then takes a step back, shaking her head. “He’s been obsessed with this thing ever since he bought it last week,” she says. Then, leaning a little closer, she half-whispers, “Humor him for a sec, yeah?”

Lyra wraps both arms firmly around the large drum. Finley starts up a rhythm that vibrates through her chest. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Simple and boring.

“What do you think?” he asks, beaming.

“Uh. It’s a drum?” Lyra tries, unsure what he wants her to hear.

“No no no,” he says. “Close your eyes. What do you feel?”

She closes her eyes. She feels a lot of things. Warm, in ways she hasn’t been in a very long time. Buzzing and black-and-yellow like the marble on her nightstand. Closer. A short walk away now, instead of an impossible drive. Alive, maybe, if she thinks really hard about it.

And that’s it: the rhythm, the steady onward push.

“A heartbeat,” she says, fluttering her eyes open. “It feels like I have a heartbeat again.”

Finley beams at her. “Mad, isn’t it?”

Lyra nods. Her face aches. She can feel her dimple showing.

“Yeah,” she says. “Mad.”

When she brings Mica to the rooftop, Dolly gapes.

“Wait, since when do you have friends?” she says, cheeky, legs spread wide, her whole body lax with beer and uncaring about openly flashing a stranger.

Mica gives a little wave. Her other hand tightens around a cheap bottle of wine.

Dolly stares at Mica for a long time. Lyra can see her working through a first impression. Dark eye shadow, teal hair, a skirt and suspenders and a t-shirt, all mixed up like she usually is, like she’s never quite sure how to make the pieces match. Breathing.

“She’s cute,” Dolly says, finally, lips pursed. “Are you fucking her?”

Lyra wipes a hand down her face. “Is that the only thing that matters with you?”

“It’s the only thing that matters, period.”

Jeremiah sits in the fold-up chair beside Dolly. Their fingers are entwined. He’s switched from staring across the rooftop to staring at Mica. He takes a long draw from his bottle of beer.

“She’s a Breather,” he says, quietly. “That’s disgusting, Lye.”

“You used to fuck a Breather,” Lyra says. There’s cold in her throat, in the pit of her stomach, sheets of ice cracking and leaving cruel lines.

“Didn’t for long,” Jeremiah replies with a sing-song lilt. He waves vaguely at her scarf. Lyra can almost feel the unwanted press of his fingers against her throat.

Dolly slaps an open palm against his arm, hard. “Rude,” she bites out.

“What?” he asks, pulling his hand away. “It’s the dead fucking the living. That’s gross.”

“You’re not dead,” Mica pipes up. “You just stopped breathing.”

Jeremiah gives her a considering look, one swipe from her head to her toes and back up again. “You’re an idiot,” he says to Mica, then turns to Lye. “Your standards have really dropped since we dated. Christ.”

Dolly shoves him. He nearly falls out of his chair, but holds his balance and only ends up spilling a little bit of his beer. He glares at her, but she turns her attention back to Mica.

“Ignore him,” Dolly says, and she sounds real right now, Lyra notes, actually real. “He’s a piece of shit.”

They drink for a while, and things get better like they always do with liquor. The wine is good, even if it’s just a twist top, and Mica shares it generously with everyone, but more so with Lyra. The sun sets but the lights in the city ignite the dark like a field of stars. When the wine is gone, Dolly is inspired by camaraderie to steal Jeremiah’s case of beer and pass it around. When the beer is gone, Jeremiah gets handsy and starts touching Dolly in her breezy places, so Lyra drags Mica down the stairwell and into her apartment. She flops belly-down on her bed and buries her woozy head in a pillow. Mica is loose and soft beside her, with suspenders strewn on the floor and a sleepy face nuzzling into Lyra’s shoulder.

“You should text Fin,” Lyra says, voice slurred with sleep and booze. She flips onto her back and blinks up at the ceiling. “Tell him to come over when he gets off work.”

A phone screen lights up the room for a moment. Mica tucks it beneath the pillow. “Done,” she says, drowsy.

Lyra lifts herself just enough to unravel her scarf. She folds it neatly and lays it on the nightstand, next to her Queen Bee marble. The welt circling her neck isn’t so visible in the dark. Mica falls asleep beside her, close. The walls hum like a living thing.