“That one,” Julie says under her breath, and jerks her chin toward a guy crossing the street several yards away. It's summer time and we're waiting in the shade next to the Family Value gas station, Julie smoking a cigarette and looking older than fourteen while I squat barefoot on the warm pavement beside her. The guy looks all right, about 24 (maybe younger — definitely less than 25), but he's wearing a black jacket with the hood up so I can't really tell what he looks like. I shrug. Julie starts walking toward him, and I slip on my flip-flops, slinking after her. She stops him on the sidewalk.

“Hey, can I ask you a favor?” she asks, jutting her hip to one side. She's wearing a black mini skirt, which slides up to reveal a strip of tan thigh that immediately catches the guy's attention. She takes a drag from her cigarette and pouts her lips. I cower slightly behind.

“What's that?” the guy asks, smirking. I can tell he'll do it but being this close to him makes me nervous. He's s weirdly pale, and the end of a black tattoo curls around his right earlobe like a thorn, some horrible tribal design.

“You think you could get us some beer?” Julie asks. The guy smiles wide, exposing a chipped eyetooth.

“Buy beer for some kids, huh?” he says, and strokes a scraggle of hair on his chin.

“Whadda they want?” someone calls from above, and I look up to see a barefoot woman in cut-offs on the balcony of the house we're standing next to. All the houses in this neighborhood are built like that, with a railed platform on the second level where the people from inside come out to sit as it gets dark at night, smoking and looking miserable in between their eight hour days.

“Hold on, I'm coming up,” the guy says and waves her off. The woman turns and disappears inside. A patterned sheet serving as the door billows in her wake.

“Come up to the house,” the guy says without asking, and lopes up the driveway. I look at Julie for some sort of agreement between us, but she just drops her cigarette and follows after him without acknowledging me. I wish we could just give him the money on the street.

We follow the guy through the side door and up a steep flight of stairs to the upper apartment. The living room inside is dark and cool, nearly empty: a futon couch against one wall and a black light figurine glowing in the far corner. An old box fan that makes an angry snap with every rotation of the blade. The guy takes off his hoodie and the woman from the porch saunters into the room from the hallway. She's petite and rail thin with a thick wave of brassy blonde hair. Her face is hard and wrinkled and it's hard to tell how old she is — maybe my mother's age, but somehow she seems younger. I look at the guy, then back at her, trying to tell if they're related.

“They want me to buy them beer,” the guy says. The woman crosses her arms and narrows her eyes at us, sucking on a cigarette.

“How old'r you girls?” she asks, not even suspicious like an adult and it makes me squirm to be talking to her.

“Sixteen,” Julie lies automatically. She shoots me a fierce look.

“Sixteen, too,” I say, and my voice nearly cracks. The woman smiles to herself.

“How much ya got?” she asks. Julie opens her purse — I grub around in my pocket. She pulls out a twenty and I've got twenty-two in odd bills. Julie takes my money and hands it to the woman with hers.

“Forty-something. I don't know how much beer costs but as much as that'll buy, I guess,” she says. The woman's eyes light up as she takes the money and counts the bills the way a bank teller would.

“You can keep whatever change there is,” Julie offers. The woman gives the guy some sort of code-look and hands him the money. I wish we hadn't given it to them now, because all I want to do is leave.

“Cool,” the guy says, then spaces out for a moment, staring wide-eyed at the carpet, “Listen, you two wait here with Tina and I'll go to the store. I would have you come with me but I'm on probation and I can't get in shit.” He looks at us for approval. I look at Julie.

“Okay,” Julie says. The guy nods, picks his hoodie up and shrugs it on back on, then disappears through the door, slamming it behind him without a word. I stare at the floor — none of us move. A warm breeze lifts the curtain-sheets along the row of windows facing the balcony.

“Might as well sit while you wait,” Tina says, jerking her head toward the futon.

“Thanks,” Julie says and takes a seat. I settle down next to her, wanting to cling, but instead we just end up too close and it's hot. Sweat beads between our arms, slicking them together.

“What's your name?” Tina asks Julie. She doesn't sit down herself, just stands over us like a warden.

“Julie Bender,” she answers truthfully, sending alarm through my gut.

“Ah, you related to Matt over on Woodside?” Tina asks. Julie's into it now, dropping the sweet talk for her regular voice, short and punchy.

“That's my brother,” she says. Everyone in the neighborhood seems to know her brother somehow, this stupid baby face who's always mucking up something, somewhat of a con artist. Of course you know him, Tina.

“Good kid. He must be...what, 25 now, something like that?” Tina says. She sits down on Julie's other side and stubs out her cigarette in an ashtray sitting on the carpet, then pulls another out from behind her ear like a magician and lights it.

“28,” Julie says.

“Damn. I didn't know he had a kid sister,” Tina says, staring at the blank wall opposite the futon.

“Yep,” says Julie. My joints have gone rigid and I'm getting pins and needles in my feet. Please don't talk to me and make me pretend to enjoy it. Tina doesn't say anything else, though, and the silence gradually builds and looms. My blood rushes in my ears as I look around the room, reaching for something — anything — to fill in the emptiness.

“I like your black light,” I say stupidly. Tina doesn't respond. Julie glances at me, then sighs like a disapproving mother. I can literally hear a wall clock ticking from somewhere down the hallway. Come on, random guy. And then he suddenly appears at the door, making me jump. He plops a box of rattling bottles down in front of him.

“Got you Bud Light,” he says, bending to untie his shoes and takes them off. I stare, horrified, at his knobby big toe protruding from a bum hole in his sock. Julie stands up and walks toward him a little.

“How many is that?” she asks.

“Twenty-four pack. Here, take the change,” he says, straightening out, and thrusts a five dollar bill in her direction.

“I said you could keep it — it's for doing us the favor,” Julie says playfully. The guy raises an eyebrow at her, then winks and shoves the money into Julie's hand.

“Couldn't do that.” I creep up to Julie's side and slip the backpack I've been wearing off my shoulders, stained with my back sweat.

“We should put the whole box in,” I say to her quietly.

“Won't fit.” She rips the box open and starts pulling out bottles. I kneel beside her and we load them into the backpack, one by one.

“Careful you don't break 'em,” Tina says, chuckling, then gets up from the futon and drifts away down the hall. We get all of the bottles into the bag and just barely get it zipped back together, the necks of the bottles protruding awkwardly against the swollen canvas. I stand up and lift the backpack, surprised by its weight, then carefully pull the straps over my shoulders. There is no way I'm carrying this all the way back by myself.

“Got it?” the guy asks, looking doubtful.

“Yep!” I say. Must get out.

“Well, thanks, dude. Hey, you never told me your name,” Julie says as I sidle toward the door.

“Aaron,” he says, extending his hand. Julie takes it and shakes.

“Thanks Aaron.”

“Any time girls,” Aaron says as my fingertips brush the brass doorknob, “Hey, why don't you two hang around and we can crack a couple of those open? You know, just for the favor,” he says as I'm about to turn. My heart starts racing. I stare at Julie hard. Please no. But as if in horrifying slow motion, a flirtatious smile passes over her lips, and she sways her hip to one side.

“Sounds good to me,” she says, completely ignoring the panic signals I'm barraging her with telekinetically. Aaron leers at me from the shade of his hood.

“Whaddya say, kiddo?” he asks. He walks toward me slowly, swaggering his weight from side to side with solid steps, and I can feel the heat emanating from his sun-baked black clothes.

“I thought we needed to get back to go to Jessica's,” I say, my voice trailing off as Aaron advances then stops, too close to me. He scrutinizes my face.

“We don't have to be over there for another couple of hours. It'll be fine,” Julie says. Aaron puts his hand on my right shoulder and slides the strap of the backpack down my arm so that it drops slightly and I have to scramble to keep it from crashing to the floor. I squat and put it down, breathlessly, while he hovers over me. I unzip the backpack and pull out a couple of beers, deflect ignore deflect, then stand up with one for myself. Julie lounges on the futon picking at her nails. Aaron's gaze remains locked on me and he huffs under his breath, nostrils flaring, then grabs one of the beers and goes over to join Julie. I stand there, frozen.

“Claire, bring me a beer, would ya?” Julie asks, and I wince at the sound of my name being broadcast. I pick up a beer and hand it to her, trying to mask my spite, then sit down Indian-style at a safe distance from the two of them.

“So you do have a name,” Aaron sneers at me. I blush and nod.

“Guilty,” I say in a high, false voice.

“What's your last name?” Aaron asks.

“Wheeler,” I croak, and make a little prayer that he won't try stalking me through the phone book. Aaron nods and takes a slug from his bottle. He leans forward, watching me still, and pushes his sleeves up over his forearms to reveal a long, deep scar on his right arm. I look down and fiddle with my beer, trying and failing to open it.

“Here, give it to me,” Aaron says, reaching for it. I hand him the bottle limply. He twists the cap off in one motion and hands it back to me. I take a tiny sip of the beer and swallow hard, resisting the urge to make a face at the bitterness. I can't bear to look up but I can feel Aaron staring at me like a weight on my chest.

“So what are a couple of pretty girls like you two doing tonight?” Aaron asks me. I wish I could turn invisible for the first time since third grade.

“Just, you know. Hanging out with friends,” I manage. Julie jumps at the first opportunity to make chit-chat.

“Our friend's mom is a grave shift nurse, so she always has the house to herself at night on the weekends,” Julie brags, as if this would impress anyone.

“Are all your friends as pretty and cool as you two? Cause you know what, I've got this house to myself all the time,” Aaron replies, but doesn't look away from me.

“Is Tina your girlfriend?” I ask. I take another sip from the bottle and decide that I should stop trying, then set it down beside me and turn my attention to a burn hole in the carpet.

“Tina? Nah, we're just room mates,” Aaron says.

“I can't wait till I have my own place,” Julie prattles on, but as far as Aaron is concerned she might as well not even be in the room.

“It's nice. Especially when you have lady guests, you know what I'm sayin'? Man, you're really shy,” Aaron presses, refusing to lift his attention from me. I shrug, my skin crawling.

“I'm just quiet,” I say apologetically. Aaron nods slowly, and I catch a glimpse of the weird processing going on in his head behind his eyes before his pupils sharpen against his irises again and he grins.

“Hey, you guys want to check out my room?” he asks, looking toward Julie for the expected approval.

“That would be awesome,” she says, smiling. Aaron leaps to his feet and motions for us to follow. Julie's beer is half finished and I bring my own mostly-full bottle along begrudgingly. Aaron leads us down the hall with Julie on his heels, and I sneak along behind, overwhelmed by the impersonal nature of the whole house. Aaron ducks into the first doorway, then Julie. I pause and take a breath, hold it. A light from inside the room snaps on and throws a pale yellow square onto the floor. I exhale and go in.

Aaron's 'room' is everything I could possibly expect, which is somewhere between a jail cell and grungy motel. He sits against the wall in the middle of a bare mattress and Julie perches on the corner opposite him, beer balanced on her knee like a ballerina. Other than the mattress, there's a window shuttered with blinds, a small table in front of the bed, and a boom box with a stack of caseless CDs. Nothing else. And for the first time I notice the smell — a damp, earthy smell somewhere between beef frying and top soil. I resume my position on the floor across from Julie and Aaron and set my beer on the table. Aaron scoots over to the boom box on his knees and starts shuffling through the CDs.

“What kind of music do you girls like?” he asks, scanning the various names scrawled on the discs in black marker.

“Oh, you know. Anything that's on the radio,” Julie says casually. Aaron chuckles.

“Ha, you probably won't like most of the stuff I've got, then. But we'll see, here, let's give this one a try —” he says, and puts one of the discs into the player. He creeps back on to the mattress as the sound of heavy guitar starts to roar out of the boom box and bobs his head with the beat enthusiastically.

“Disturbed, man, they're the best,” he says. Julie perks up and swings her body toward him.

“I know, right? My brother digs them,” she says, and nods along in imitation of Aaron. I'm starting to feel nauseous because this is starting to turn out exactly like the last time I got stuck playing third wheel to Julie's boy-craziness. That one ended in me being stranded in an empty parking lot for two hours while she was busy with the guy who had been driving us home in the backseat of his car.

“You girls smoke?” Aaron asks. Julie looks indignant.

“I was smoking when I came up to you on the street,” she says. I am stoic, I am not here: I am a ghost, I am a gargoyle. Aaron snickers.

“I mean, do you smoke weed,” he says. A glimmer of concern finally clouds Julie's face, but passes like a shadow.

“I mean, I haven't, ever, but I wouldn't mind trying. Claire has before, though, right Claire?” Julie announces abruptly. I look at her bewilderedly, maybe she's making a bad joke, but her expression is serious so I just move my head up and down without a clue how to corroborate this lie. Aaron looks surprised.

“Yeah? You wanna smoke, baptize her?” he asks. I might be as curious as Julie, but I'm not as stupid. I imagine the sinister plot playing out in Aaron's mind, the range of ill intentions behind his offer. My mouth stays stuck shut — my stomach muscles clench.

“Whatever you guys want to do,” I say. I start blinking fiercely at Julie, hoping she'll get the memo. But a peculiar, hazy smile drifts over her face, and I can feel the transmission of my pleas being blocked out.

“I've been waiting for the chance,” Julie says. She actually looks excited, nodding her head at Aaron. The tiny amount of beer in my stomach swells threateningly. Abort, abort, abort. I can feel my protests itching on my tongue, trapped behind my locked jaw.

“Hey, come on — I want to show you guys something,” Aaron says. Julie and I get up as he sweeps out of the room and follow him deeper into the recesses of the house. At the end of the hallway, past two more closed doors, Aaron stops at one with light streaming out of the crack at the bottom into the dim hallway. The weird smell of the house thickens as we stand there, and I start to wonder if there's toxic mold growing in the walls. Aaron reaches into his pocket and takes out a small metal hoop with just one key on it, then unlocks the door.

“Top secret?” Julie kids. Aaron opens the door and the immense brightness of the room blinds me.

“When you're in my business, you gotta be,” Aaron says from somewhere ahead. I shield my eyes, trying to get used to the light. I look down at the ground and see the wood floor come into focus, and then — the lush green fronds of shrubby plants, the symmetry of them, row after row filling the room. Julie squeals with delight.

“Are you serious?” she says, and I squint to see her expression of wonder. I look up at the huge fluorescent lights overhead, suspended from thin chains anchored in the ceiling. I look back down at the rows of potted plants. My heart drops. I am now a felon, just for standing here.

“Do I look like I'm serious?” Aaron says. He's standing at the far side of the room, his back turned, doing something at a card table with two folding chairs at either side. He turns around and proudly holds up a neon-green plastic cup resembling an alien, the super-sized kind that they sell at the fair, mutilated into a bong. He sits down on one of the chairs and sets the bong down in front of him, then gestures for us to join him. I am still hoping for a portal to open up, but Julie trots over and plops down in the seat across from Aaron and ogles him. I edge over to the table and stand there, tapping one of my feet neurotically — Aaron glances up, then reaches behind him and flips over an empty pot on the ground for me to sit on. I sit on the edge of the pot and my chin just makes it over the tabletop so that I have to look up to talk to Julie and Aaron. I feel like a little kid sitting at the dining room table, except instead I'm watching Aaron crumble up chunks of weed into the metal piece of the bong. He finishes what he's doing quickly and pushes the bong across the table to Julie. Julie stares back at him, doe-eyed.

“What do I do?” she asks, eyeing the alien device. Aaron smiles his sly, joker smile and retracts the bong, fitting his mouth over the opening, then flicks the lighter and the flame is magically drawn down into the metal bowl with the water bubbling and the green hissing as it burns. Aaron fills the bong with a hurricane looking cloud, then quickly puts it down on the table and covers the opening with the palm of his hand. A whisper of smoke escapes his lips. He winks at Julie.

“Simple as that, kiddo — all you have to do is breath it in,” he says. Julie rocks forward on her knees and exchanges her pink mouth for Aaron's palm, then looks up at him with fluttering eyelashes, trying to be cute.

“Just inhale,” he says. Julie closes her eyes and looks like she's swooning in a way that makes me hope she doesn't drop dead.

“More,” he says, and the smoke is suddenly poof! gone as it shoots down Julie's windpipe, and her face turns bright red and her eyes bug out. Before she can even pull her mouth away from the bong she erupts with a roar from her chest, spewing plumes of smoke into the air and ash flying.

“Careful,” Aaron says, laughing at her, not with her.

“Everyone takes a tough one the first time, that's a champ!” he says, grinning while Julie doubles over in her chair and holds her sides as she hacks. It's the kind of coughing that sounds like dying.

“Are you okay?” I ask. I can feel my eyebrows sitting high on my forehead. Julie nods through her miserable rasping and lifts her head to look at me, eyes bleary and tearing. Aaron stifles his laughter. I'm starting to feel a little light headed and wonder if I'm breathing in the smoke, just sitting here.

“Your turn,” Aaron says. I look at him, totally blank.

“What?” he asks.

“I actually don't think I want to. . .” I say. There's no point in trying to save face anymore.

“Come on, Claire, don't be a wimp,” Julie manages between her incessant coughing, struggling to control the noise.

“Well, if she's chicken,” Aaron says, ostensibly to Julie though he's staring at me. He reaches his hand toward the bong and lets it hover in mid-grab dramatically.

“I'm not chicken, I just — ”

“Good. Here,” Aaron says, cutting me off by shoving the bong into my hands. He and Julie watch me expectantly, ready for me to make an idiot of myself.

“Will you light it for me?” I ask.

“I thought this wasn't your first time?” Aaron says, nevertheless flicking the lighter and bringing the flame to life. I stare at him without anything to say, trying to form an excuse.

“It's hot, c'mon,” Aaron says, waving his hand, and I bury my mouth in the opening of the bong gratefully. He passes the flame over the top of the bowl and I suck in hard, no thinking.

A rush of burning pine bombs my throat and I pull my mouth away from the harsh cloud. My diaphragm forces all the smoke back out of me and I watch the plume roll out of my mouth like a dragon. I feel my chest start sputtering, and then it's like the coughing starts egging itself on and it tortures my burnt throat, heaving so hard it's like puking. My head rises higher and higher, and I don't think you can really die from coughing too hard but I'm terrified because if it's possible then this is it. I can't see — I think my eyes are shut — and my head feels like it's starting to separate from my body. But I'm not afraid at all, and the tendrils of a pleasing ache reach slowly down my limbs so that I'm wrapped in a womb of myself, drifting. I can feel all of my organs working in perfect harmony. Let me stay here, away from them.

I figure out how to open my eyes and and find myself slowly materializing back into the room against the harsh light. I locate the faces of Aaron and Julie, watching me through red-rimmed slits. Faces look so strange.

“We thought you were gonna keel over, so we finished it ourselves kiddo,” Aaron says. His voice sounds ragged and aged. I am unaware that any time has passed.

“Okay,” I say. My voice sounds the same way my reflection looks in a funhouse mirror. I start laughing at how ridiculous this is, and then the laughing is funny so I laugh more. But it's not happy laughter, it just comes out in a frightening way that doesn't want to stop. Julie glares at me and rolls her eyes, and I'm aware that Aaron is staring at me in that odd way again. I force myself to quiet down with some difficulty, taking deep breathes. Oh. This is being high. I don't think it's too different, but then my mind seems to keep snagging in strange places, so it's not the same either, just denser and lighter at once. Julie sits still in her chair, staring at a circle in the middle of the card table like a blank computer screen. I can't imagine what her mind looks like.

“Hey, can I show you something? Come on, come to my room with me for just a minute- this is something special,” Aaron says. I realize that he is talking to me. Not Julie, just me.

“I think I have to go to the bathroom,” I say, and find myself standing up.

“Down the hall on the left — don't fall in,” Aaron says, never looking away. I walk across the room on sea legs and stumble over the threshold of the door into the hallway, not caring if they see me. This is not going to stop. I lean against the wall in the cool darkness, trying to breathe, but every inhale is met with an unbearable exhale, so I settle on a shallow half-breaths that make me feel like I'm hyperventilating. I am high. Aaron is a creep. Julie is useless. I rest my temple against the wall and try to block out the pounding in my head. When I open my eyes the floor tilts, so I close them again. Don't throw up, don't pass out. Find the bathroom and get yourself together. Come on, pull through. I take a step forward and stop. I think I see a mound of cat puke on the carpet in front of me. Maybe something worse. I have to get out of here. Everything will be okay if I get out of here.

Aaron? a voice says. I look back and forth across the empty hallway. I'm hearing things. I take another step.

“Aaron, is that you? Can you help me in here for a minute?” I hear from the doorway ahead. I squint: there's no way to avoid walking past and being seen. Playing dead seems like the only good option.

“Hello?” the voice calls again, after a second. I glance at the cat puke — maybe it's chip dip — then give in and go to the door.

The room floats in the light of the sun slanting through an open window and I have the surreal feeling I'm somewhere else entirely, like I've walked into a painting through the door. The room is, inexplicably, fully furnished. An aged wooden dresser sits beside the door with a collection of jewelry and perfume bottles on a tray that I can see my reflection in, and my mind becomes absorbed in the glassy surface of it, trying to comprehend my own image.

“Oh, it's you,” says the voice. A wireframe canopy bed with chipped white paint sits right in the middle of the room and Tina is lying in it, half-buried in an enormously fluffy pink comforter that makes her look tiny, luxurious pillows all around like in a daytime soap opera.

“Do you think you could grab me my cigarettes? I left them out in the living room,” Tina says. It is Tina. This is real. Okay. She coughs and covers her mouth with her hand and there's an IV attached to her wrist, a long thin tube extending from her arm. I blink. I'm not where I think I am, or something. The IV line is connected to a hospital machine sitting next to the bed, the screen blinking statically. And it can't be real but the machine goes on blinking with a steady rhythm, as certain as a heartbeat.

“Honey, it's just my dialysis machine — you look like you're gonna faint, girl, you got a fear of needles?” Tina asks. A doll in a pink dress sits in an armchair in the corner and I feel sick at Tina's little girl bedroom, all this atrocious, garish pink. She sits up a little, staring at me, and something moves too close to me — a monster, someone lurking, her reflection in the tray on the dresser — and I shudder all over, making a short noise, and then I'm lurching away from the doorframe and Tina and everything because I can't deal with it. I shouldn't have to deal with it. Tina is saying something but I'm not listening, just going for the door, walking fast and then starting to run. The space between my ears rings the same way acidic bile tastes. The hallway seems to stretch into a nightmare length and my legs move like they're in dream molasses. Tina yelling, Aaron's voice. My thoughts are erased, gone from me. I plow my body through the living room and reach the door, flinging it open wide. That's when the arms close in around me, wrapping my waist, pulling me back. And I know that I deserve it as my knees drag across the shag carpet, burning open, burning so bright.