AN: definitely one more chapter at least after this one.

It must've been sixth grade when Rowen threatened for the first time to kill herself, and then three more times before seventh grade, and scatterplot points on the calendar until they all graduated from the same private high school. But the occasion Ralph recalled more often than any other happened immediately following commencement, and they were still in their silver gossamer grad gowns at Bill's folks' place, because they were the only ones who were, as Sam used to say, "down with it." Or was it his brother who used to say that?

Regardless.

The other boys had dug up Bill's suede satchel of jacks and marbles from a chest in his basement, and were in the process of pasting up some game on the fly which heavily involved drinking and only marginally involved the suede satchel of jacks and marbles. Ralph declined the offer of Bill's Ma's fifty-year-old merlot, content instead to watch anxiously from over the back of Bill's leather sectional, moved piece by piece into the basement over the course of their high school years until only the matching recliner remained upstairs with his parents and their slapdash movie collection. All Criterion movies, none of which Ralph could ever recall, even though he watched huge portions of them whenever he braved the first floor for glasses of tap water or snacks. Always the sideways glances, weird light coming off the humming flatscreen in staticky bursts he felt from afar prickling through the hairs on his arms. "How are you doing, Ralph, dear?" or "They send you for errands?" and polite, adult laughter. And he'd always laugh back, maybe impolitely. He'd say: "Good." or "Yes, you know how they are." And descend just as quietly as he came.

He didn't intend to ever find out what compelled parents to ask these sorts of questions, mundane or no.

But the day of the graduation party. Oh, that day. He remembered it came as a shock to him that Bill invited Rowen at all. Of course, Bill's parents likely twisted his arm. He adopted the cowboy courtesy later, he sort of grew up into it like a pair of old jeans or boots. He ignored her for most of the night, and she ended up slinking away during their pre-gaming shots of cough syrup, right around the time Jack snuck into the backyard for his first cigarette of the evening. She knew Bill's parents wanted her around more than Bill did, and settled into The Furies on their new linen sectional. So Ralph was bound to catch the questions he did when he broke away from Drink-Jackin-Marbles to root through Bill's pantry for a clean water glass.

"Hey, hon," said Bill's Ma.

"Mhm," said Ralph.

"Have you seen Roger around? He was with us, I didn't know if he decided to rejoin you boys."

"Oh."

"Oh?"

"I didn't see him come back down. He's probably outside."

"Do you mind checking, dearie?"

"Sure, I can do that."

"Thank you, Ralphie."

Back to the status quo, parents facing comfortably away from him on the couch, their backs dark and maligned against the scene of yet another frontier shoot-out. But where was Rowen? He double-checked the pantry and the garage. He checked Jack's still-crisp cigarette butts smothered on Bill's flagstone patio. He checked the remainder of the backyard, underneath the treehouse Bill's Da built for him in middle school before getting bored with the project and abandoning it, doorless, to the rough English weather. He checked inside the treehouse, a few feet up the trunk, but the only thing inside was Bill's threadbare wool play-cloak from when they were younger, and what looked to be a half-eaten bag of honey roasted peanuts.

The hem of Ralph's graduation robe was wet and dark now with mud, grass clippings, and tree bark. He half-climbed, half-fell from the treehouse onto his knees. Fed up, he unzipped himself from the garment and balled it up in his fists. Stupid silver thing, alien cloak, tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist uniform. He left it there at the base of Bill's tree. It could still be there. He'd never know. The stars overhead glittered in brilliant, mocking patterns. Not for the first time, but alone in Bill's overlarge yard nonetheless, he felt his life lacked purpose. Utterly devastated and empty, like a water cup after it'd been drained by a dehydrated drinker. He'd been accepted to university, a good one, and didn't want to go. He ran his hands through his blonde, knotted hair. What would he do with an education?

"I could always be a trophy wife," he told the stars, and they snickered back. He turned to face the driveway. "Roger?"

"Yeah, I heard that," came a voice. "Over here. I'm in Mo's car."

Ralph double-timed it to Mo's car, lined up in the driveway with the others, a gray-as-shit beater with one empty doorframe tarped and taped over, the rear passenger one. Rowen leaned back in the front passenger seat, her feet propped on the sticky dashboard. Sticky because she and Mo simply could not refrain from driving while drinking cans of Coke. Once, Jack had asked why they did that, and Mo simply said It Was Something They Did. Cryptically infuriating.

Rowen was crying while chewing on a dried beef stick. She'd probably found it in Mo's glovebox. She glared sideways at Ralph as he drew closer, resting his arms on the lowered window glass. "Hi," she said. "I'm a fucking mess right now, dude. You tell Mo, I'll fucking kill you."

"I don't doubt it." Rowen would've killed him one thousand times over, given more opportunities, and slightly better time frames. "Can I sit with you?"

"Door's unlocked," she replied simply.

Ralph walked around and climbed into the driver's seat. He stared at the wheel and imagined what the fake leather might feel like under his palms-tacky with Mo's sweat and spit and soda and whatever else, unfortunately, spilled in his car. Rowen saw Ralph staring and rotated the beef stick in her lips.

"Sometimes I want to run things over. Pedestrians, street signs. Sometimes I just want to drive off a bridge. Do you ever think about stuff like that?" she said slowly. Ralph leveled her with a quizzical look.

"No," he admitted.

Rowen pulled her knees against her chest. She stared at the pilled felt ceiling as if she saw beyond it, through the roof of the car, through the stars, through years and years of time. But, of course, part of her problem was that she could not see through any of those things. She couldn't even see beyond her sadness. "I took a bunch of Bill's Ma's painkillers," she said.

Ralph tried to form one syllable, but couldn't remember which one.

"I'm not the one who should've lived and come home," she said. "I know it's what everyone's thinking. I know you wish it was Simon here instead of me. Or Pigs. The only one who doesn't think that is Mo, and he just feels bad for me."

Ralph fished his cellphone from the front pocket of his dress trousers. "We should go to the hospital, Rog. You need your stomach pumped."

"No, I need to die, Ralph. I'll only keep hurting people."

"No."

"I hurt myself everyday just by being alive."

"Roger, come on, really. My car's at the end of the drive. No one else has to know about this. Let me drive you to the hospital, or I'm calling an ambulance." Ralph held his phone home screen out in a shaking hand like a threat. Rowen eyed it with a clear, undaunted face. He was worried she'd say no. He was worried she'd pass out in Mo's passenger seat and he'd have to make a scene, make himself known as the guy who couldn't save her life, as the guy who ruined a good party by breaking open a momentary bummer situation.

Then she said, "Okay, I'll go," and yanked open the passenger door and followed him back to his pre-owned sedan on the curb. He helped Rowen into the backseat with a hand on her shoulders. She shrugged him off. "Don't touch me. No one's allowed to touch me."

He jogged around to his driver's side and started the car up. "Talk to me, Rog," he said in a panic. "Tell me why not."

She lay back across all three backseats, her hands folded on her stomach. "I'm not dying yet. Stop freaking out. You're making me anxious."

"You should be anxious. You're dying."

"I hope so."

"You don't really, or you wouldn't have told me."

"That's what you think. It's sheer luck you even came around when you did."

"But you're the one who called out to me."

"And you're the one who wants to be a trophy wife."

Ralph considered this as he broke free of Bill's mini-mansion suburb and into the four-lane street toward the local hospital. He tapped his fingers against the wheel. "I guess so. Don't tell anyone I said that."

"No promises. I'll hold onto it. Might come in handy one day."

"For?"

"Blackmail. Though I don't know what I'd blackmail you about. You're a pansy. Ugh, god. Pull over."

"No way."

"Pull the fuck over, dumbass!"

"Why?"

She clambered over the center console and yanked on the wheel. The car swerved across three empty lanes onto the rumble strip, then back again as Ralph fought the wheel back. "Hey! You're gonna kill us both, dude!"

"Pull the fuck over, or I'm gonna puke in your fucking Toyota!"

"Can't this wait until we get to the hospital?"

"I don't need to go to the hospital, I just need to fucking puke!" She eked her hand into her mouth and started wiggling her finger down her throat. Ralph slammed on the breaks, throwing them both forward. Inadvertently engaging Rowen's gag reflex as her nails scratched the back of her esophagus. She puked once into his cupholders, and again under the front tire as Ralph scrambled to undo the door and push her front half out of the car. She dragged herself to her knees in the dust and gravel and continued to puke loudly as a few semis jake-braked around the bend, and Ralph at first lingered near the hood of the car, then forced himself to put some distance between them. He could hear the splashing as puke met more puke, and it was just too much.

A few minutes later, Rowen called hoarsely, "I'm fucking fine, in case you were worried. Asshole."

Ralph shamefully jogged back to the car. She was sitting on the bumper, leaning all her weight against the car, dipping it down like it was searching the earth for water. She waved with her fingers. "Hi," she glumly said. Ralph seated himself a few feet from her on the other end of the bumper.

"Hey," he said. He stared at his feet. "You okay, Rog?"

"No. I can taste stomach acid in my fucking nose."

"Well."

"I know it's my fucking fault. I'm the one who took all that fucking Ibuprofen."

"Ibuprofen." Ralph was dumbstruck. He lashed out at the license plate with his fist, coming back with a cut across his knuckles that would take weeks to close over. He sucked on the blood, paced a few feet out, came back. "Ibuprofen!" he barked. Rowen wasn't fazed. "You took fucking Ibuprofen?! Why didn't you tell me?! That won't fucking kill you, you dipshit! No wonder you felt sick! Jesus fucking Christ. I can't believe you. This was just another stunt for attention. God."

She puffed a breath out her nose, expelling leftover chunks of stomach-matter onto her shirt. She wiped her angel's bow with the back of her hand. Ralph shook out his hand.

"I'm not a whore, you know," Rowen muttered. "I don't just do this for attention. I'm not right, Ralph. I legitimately don't know whether or not I want to be alive."

"I never said you were a whore."

"You basically did. You didn't have to help me."

"I kind of did."

"You didn't. You just wanted something to do."

"I don't know if that's true, Rog. If I wanted something to do, I could've..." He shrugged and sighed. Rowen's stare pierced a little sensitive spot between his eyes. "I could've found something to do. I wanted to help." He sighed again. "I don't know what I want, actually. Outside of solving immediate problems, I don't really see the point anymore either, if I'm being quite honest with you. I don't see why I continue to try and live a normal life."

"Your problem," said Rowen.

"My problem?" Ralph parroted.

"Yes, your problem. Let me clue you into something, you blonde bimbo. You gave up control of your own life when Jack took you down on that island, and you've got to get it back. You've got to making your own decisions again. Or die."

Ralph scoffed. "I make my own decisions."

"Sure, trophy-wife." Rowen rolled her eyes dramatically, blowing a razored-off section of bangs from her face with a single breath. Huff. She let him go, rolling to the side, sitting up on her knees. "I mean, I get you. I really do. This sucks. Being alive, not feeling right in your body. But your solution sucks worse. Seriously, Ralph, grow a pair."

"You-you! Your solution sucks!"

"Uh-huh."

"You lied about trying to kill yourself!"

"I didn't lie. I just exaggerated a bit. No harm done."

"Jesus Christ, Roger, I want to hit you right now."

"I wish you would, but you won't."

"Why do you want me to hit you?"

"Because I want to hit you back."

Ralph pulled himself into a sitting position. He pressed his forehead against his knees. Rowen watched him, the scleras of her eyes glinting in the night. She seemed to be contemplating something. She scratched the front of her neck along the tense line of her carotid artery, a tic she'd developed in the last year or so.

"I can take it, you know. Nobody else could. But I can," she insisted.

Ralph raised a brow. "Take what?"

"Being the scapegoat."

"That's not the way we think of you."

"Bullshit, Ralph. I'm the bad guy, and you're the guy who rolled over, and now there's nothing for us to do but live with the consequences until we're useless again."

"Okay."

"Don't patronize me. If our friends care so much about us, why haven't they called to ask where we are? And why do we spend every single fucking one of these parties with Bill's fatass parents?"

"That's you, not me."

"Yeah, I forgot. You're just the one who drinks fifty fucking glasses of water in the span of a single hour. I'm sure that's not an excuse to get away or anything. Absolutely normal teenage boy thing to do. My bad."

"You're bad."

"It's all I'm good at. What are you good at?"

Ralph didn't know. In the beat it took him to scan his brain for a decent answer, Rowen rolled to her feet and walked back to the car. She pulled three times on the door handle. "Unlock your fucking shit, Ralph. Come on. Night's a-wastin."

Ralph pushed slowly off the ground. He dusted bits of gravel and dust from his pantlegs. "You're right," he admitted. Rowen half-turned to make a quizzical face at him. "I'm not good at anything. I don't know why anyone puts up with me."

"You and me both, but about me." When he got close enough, she put her arm around him and drew him into an awkward, boney hug. Ralph froze against her chest, the warm apparence of her skeleton near the surface of her clothes. He heard her breath rasp against his neck and shivered.

More than the faked suicide or the party or even commencement, Ralph revisited and remembered Rowen's hug, the only one he'd seen her give throughout his years of knowing her, and he remembered her kiss, because it came right after and tasted slightly sour, rank and tangy like the orange vomit pooling underneath his car's tires, with an undercurrent of Rowen's cologne at the time, the cheap off-brand axe Ralph often saw and sampled at convenience stores along the roadways. It was a cursory kiss, kind of teasing really, and either because of her recent vomit experience or because she was trying to be polite, however unlikely, didn't push farther than the surface of his lips.

And then she broke away with Ralph's keys dangling from her pointer finger. She'd pickpocketed him. "Ha," she said, just once, and let herself into the passenger seat. She rolled down the window. "You're not bad at everything. You're a decent kisser. And I'm putting all my money on you being good at keeping secrets."

He didn't need to test his talents or Rowen's bet. He didn't see her again after dropping her off at Bill's driveway. She asked if he planned on going back in, and he said he didn't think so, and waited for her to wave from the garage door before turning tail for the nearest Steak House, where he sat in the otherwise empty dining room at a table that stank like fry grease, dipping french fries into a milkshake that arrived at his table too soggy to drink.

When he started seeing Jack, he never told. He never told at any of their scattershot reunions. He occasionally recalled its existence in his life with something like nostalgia or longing, often laying in bed.

Or toasting to life. He wondered how Rowen managed to stay alive all these years. Ralph knew how he managed himself. It was knowing Rowen kept going. It was that kiss that seemed to clue him into the otherwise secret fact: there might be something beyond what he could see and touch, something worth figuring out, worth fighting for.

And they touched their glasses to their lips, drained what they had, and rattled the table as each one descended at once. Bill and Maurice and Sam laughed. Rowen was finishing up her rounds and Jack was nowhere to be seen and the night was almost perfect, Ralph thought, it was almost fun.