CHAPTER 7

COLLIDE THE SPACES THAT DIVIDE US

The north walking path ran alongside Main Street, bordered by an iron fence on the street side and a serious of concrete posts connected by thick chains on the wood side. The sky had gotten dark while I'd been battling Tyrone, but streetlights nearby illuminated the area. Partway along the path was a sharp curve around an ancient tree, and just past the bend was a wooden bench. As arranged, Eve was waiting for me at the bench. She was carrying her backpack and smiling giddily. "Did you make the drop?," I asked.

She nodded enthusiastically. "A few here, a few there, a few quick whacks from the outside to shatter the glass, and away! They are going to smell like they crapped themselves for days! You?"

"Oh, uh… pretty good, it went well." I looked over my shoulder, but nobody was around.

"Something wrong?", Eve asked.

There was. Guilt. I'd earned Tyrone's respect during our battle, and as a result we'd actually come to a peaceful arrangement. Now that arrangement was toast. I'd known going in how this was going to go, but I hadn't expected to feel like I'd betrayed him. But what was done was done. No way to take it back now.

"It's nothing," I said. "Just… wondering if it's going to be worth it."

"Oh, it will be. But, if you're on the fence about that... turns out I picked up an unexpected bonus." She had a wicked grin on her face.

"Bonus?" I asked.

"Check this out." She opened up the front pouch of her backpack and pulled out a plastic storage bag. "Ta-da!", she said.

The bag was filled with a green, leafy substance. I'd never seen it in real life before, but had an idea what it might be. "That's weed?"

Eve nodded. "Tyrone's stash! I found it in his bag. Can you believe it?"

"Shit!", I exclaimed. "How much is that?"

She hefted it. "About a pound or so, I'd say."

"And you stole it?!" I said. I had no idea how much a pound of pot was worth, but I doubted it came cheap.

"It would've just gotten ruined by the bombs, so..." she let the sentence hang there while she grinned like the cat that ate the canary. "Oh!", she said, remembering. "And also, check this out!" She shoved the stash back into her pack, withdrawing instead a huge, bulging joint almost the size of a pen.

"What the hell is that?", I asked.

"This, my fine ignorant friend, is a party. King size joint, enough to get five people high. More, if it's quality on the inside. I can't believe our luck!" She stuck the joint in her mouth and whipped out a lighter from her pocket, twirling it in her fingers dramatically before lighting the joint.

"Whoa, whoa whoa!," I said frantically. "Eve, we..."

She didn't listen. She took a drag off the joint, then leaned back and exhaled. "Oh, yeah, this is some good shit right here!"

"Are you crazy?!", I asked. "We're along main street in full view! If someone sees..."

"Oh my god Aaron, learn to have a little fun! Nobody comes around here this time of night- the shops are closed, or else the owners don't give a fuck. People are home having dinner and watching TV. Who's going to…?"

As if on cue, a feminine voice spoke up from behind Eve. "Eve? Aaron?"

Eve whipped around, hiding the super-joint behind her back. A female silhouette lurked in the shadows. The voice was familiar, but not immediately recognizable. "Who's there?" I asked, stepping to the side to get a good view.

The figure stepped forward into the light from a nearby streetlamp. It was Roxy. Not in her usual attire- she wore jeans, sneakers, and a tee, plus an athletic jacket and a baseball hat. Same attitude, though. "What are you two losers doing out here?!", she asked.

"Nothing," we both said. A bit too fast. Roxy glared.

"We were just… uhh...", I stammered. "Hanging out."

Roxy wasn't buying it. "In the middle of a darkened path where there's nothing to do?", she said suspiciously.

"Well, uh...", I said. "We're…"

"Watching the cars go by," Eve offered.

"Yeah, carspotting!", I said. "It's like trainspotting, only…," A thought occurred. "Hey, wait a minute, what are you doing here, Roxy?"

Roxy shifted from one foot to the other. "Nothing," she said.

My turn to glare at her.

"I'm just taking a walk, okay?!", Roxy whined. "God, you're not my dad! I don't need to explain myself..."

Suddenly, Eve's eyes darted behind me. "Shhhhh!", she said.

Roxy continued. "Don't shush me, freak, I..."

"Roxy! Quiet!", Eve insisted. "You hear that?"

Roxy clammed up. We all listened. For a moment I thought maybe the jumbo joint was hitting her a bit too hard, then I heard it too: voices. Faint, but getting closer. After a few seconds, I could make them out. "Tyrone!", I exclaimed. He and his crew were coming down the path. The big tree blocked our line of sight, but they were definitely moving fast.

"Shit!", Eve exclaimed. "If they find us, we're dead! Quick, uh….," her eyes darted around, looking for a hiding place. "into the bushes!", she said, pointing. I ran to the chain and vaulted it. Eve turned back. "Roxy, come on!", she said.

"What are you…?", Roxy said, confused.

"No time, come on!", Eve threw her backpack over her shoulder, grabbed Roxy by the arm, jumped over the chain and dragged her in to the underbrush.

The three of us stumbled through some flowering bushes. Thankfully they weren't stickerbushes. Roxy tripped and fell to her hands and knees. "Ouch!" she said, before trying to stand up.

"Stay down, stay down!", Eve said. Eve and I crouched behind the bushes beside Roxy, who wasn't happy to be on all fours in the dirt. "What the fuck, you…"

Eve shushed her frantically. "Everybody," she said in a harsh whisper, "stay low, stay quiet. They won't find us so long as they don't know we're here."

"Think they're mad?", I asked, in the same whisper.

"Wouldn't you be?", Eve replied.

"Mad about what?!" Roxy asked in her own low whisper.

"We pranked them. Hard," I told her.

"They've gotta be hugely pissed," Eve clarified.

"If they catch us, we're in for a beatdown," I added.

"So then why am I hiding?!", Roxy asked.

"I don't know!", Eve and I said at once.

We crouched silently in the bushes, listening as the voices got louder. A truly revolting scent- like a bathroom that hadn't been cleaned in years- wafted over from the path.

"… bitches played us!", I heard Tyrone rant. "Come along playing nice, like we friends, then drop some fucking skunk-bottles in our packs! Fucking bullshit!"

"Shit ain't right," Chico agreed.

"We oughtta come down on them!", Chad said, angrily. "Both of them! I'll break that little shit into pieces, and Little Blue too!"

"You fucking crazy, shithead?!", Tyrone said. "You moved up from weed to crack rock?"

"Man, they deserve it!", Chad said. "You wanna tell me they don't?"

"Deserve or no, you never come down on a girl!", Tyrone shot back. "That shit ain't right!"

"Yeah," Chico agreed, "we just have to come down on emo kid twice as hard."

Tyrone was quiet a moment, perhaps considering. Hidden in the bushes, Eve and I exchanged a worried look.

"Nah," Tyrone said.

"We just let them get away with it?!", Chad screamed.

"Violence just gonna make things worse," Tyrone said. "We send a beating his way, he send a copper ours. Ain't worth it."

"Man, why you always gotta pussy out when shit gets real?", Chad said.

"Why you always gotta be escalating, dumbshit?!," Tyrone shot back. "Every time we get up to something, you gotta take it too far! This is my crew, not yours! We move when and how I say we do! You don't like it, there's the door!"

"Well, what about our stash?!," Chad protested. "If one drop of that shit got into the bag, it's all ruined!"

"The bag is sealed tight, fool!" Tyrone rebutted. "Besides, what's 'ours'? I know the guy, I bought it, I paid for it, you just hang around and mooch! All you've ever contributed is getting us kicked out of…"

Chico shushed frantically. "Ty! Chad! We can't be talking out in the open! Cops around!"

Silence before Tyrone spoke. "Yeah, you're right, Chico. Let's get home and wash this stink off. We can talk about getting even later."

I heard footsteps, and the voices started receding into the distance.

"If the stash is ruined...", Chad said.

"We talk about that when it happens," Tyrone answered.

"We can't let them get away with it!", Chad said.

"Whatever, man….", Tyrone replied tiredly.

More footsteps, eventually receding into silence. We all breathed sighs of relief.

"I don't think they saw us," I said.

"Safe," Eve said, relieved.

"For now at least," I noted. We all got to our feet. My knees were aching from crouching.

"Oh my god, did you smell that?" Roxy said. "Ugh, it's like they shit their pants or something!"

"Stink bombs," I clarified. "That was our prank."

"What?!" Roxy asked. "Oh my god, that's so junior-high, you… you..." she was trying to avoid smiling. She failed. "Well… actually it is still kinda awesome. Was it your idea, Aaron?"

"Nah, it was all Eve. I was just the diversion," I answered.

"Oh," Roxy frowned. "Well, fine! I suppose I can give you some grudging admiration for that, freak."

"Oh, Roxy, you're so sweet..." Eve said sarcastically.

"Hey, if it were my friends, you'd be getting clobbered right now, but Tyrone's gang are no friends of mine! Every time I come around, they're catcalling and whooping and asking to see..." Roxy pulled up short, realizing what she had said.

"Oh, so you come around here often, then?" Eve said knowingly.

"Yeah, what for?", I asked. "You never said."

Roxy crossed her arms and dodged my gaze. "Ugh, I told you, I'm just out for a walk."

"Oh, that's too bad...", Eve said, putting the jumbo joint to her lips. "And here I thought I was gonna be able to share this. Now I'll have to smoke it allllll up alllllll by myself..."

Roxy's jaw dropped. I buried my face in my hands. Now Roxy had dirt on us. I had no idea how marijuana worked, other than that it made you temporarily stupid. Better get Eve home before things went sideways. "Eve, maybe we'd better get go..."

"Holy shit!", Roxy exclaimed. "Where'd you get that?!"

"Around," Eve said. She took a hit and blew the smoke out. "Ohhh, yeah, this is good shit, Roxy, you oughta try it..."

I took Eve's hand. "Come on, let's go..."

Eve shook loose from my grasp. "Aaron, stop being a buzzkill. Look, Roxy, have some. Serious." She held the joint out to Roxy.

Roxy blinked disbelievingly. "Uh… we're not friends, Eve."

"No, but pot is everyone's friend, and friends of friends get along around friends of friends... of friends? … Of..." Eve looked confused for a bit, then shook her head. "Look, it's too much for me to smoke by my lonesome, and Aaron's no help, so come on, we can be civil for as long as it takes to smoke it all up."

I leaned in to whisper. "Eve, I don't think she's interested. Let's get going before she decides to..."

Before I could finish, Roxy snatched the joint and took a drag.

Roxy exhaled. "We're still not friends, alright Eve? But just this once, we can..." She blinked. "Oh, wow, this is good shit!"

"Hits you fast, doesn't it," Eve noted.

"Wooo, yeah." Roxy answered. She giggled. "Shit, I'm getting lightheaded," she handed the joint back to Eve.

I stared in disbelief. "Uh... what?"

Eve giggled. "Come on, Aaron, why else would she be around at this time of night? She was looking to score."

"Yeah, but I can't find Tucker," Roxy said. "He's never around anymore."

"He's laying low," Eve said. "You know how it is; every once in a while, the cops need to make a show like they're actually doing their job."

"Wait, wait, wait…," I cut in. "Since when does Roxy smoke pot?"

Eve laughed. "Aaron, you're so innocent! Where do you think all Tucker's business comes from?"

"From Roxy?", I said, disbelieving.

They both laughed. "This isn't the 80's, Aaron," Roxy said. "There's no shame in smoking pot anymore. It's like jaywalking. It's like our parents used to smoke cigarettes in the school bathroom. Even the cops don't care enough to make a big deal about it.", Roxy said.

"I wouldn't be surprised if half the school has tried it," Eve said.

"I haven't!", I said.

Eve held the big joint out to me. She and Roxy wore identical devilish grins.

"Uh, no," I said, "Not my style."

Eve just kept smiling. She waved the joint back and forth between her fingertips.

"Fuck it," I said. "Gimme."

I took the joint, sucked in a mouthful of smoke and, predictably, coughed it all back up along with a full lungful of perfectly good oxygen. And then some more for good measure. Eve and Roxy giggled up a storm.

"Oh my," Eve said. "Somebody's got virgin lungs."

"Yeah," I said, catching my breath. I handed the joint back to Eve. "You know, for my first time I think I'll just stick with the contact high."

"More for me," Eve said, taking another hit.

So we sat around, among the bushes and trees, watching the stars through the gaps in the canopy. Roxy splayed supine on the grass, I propped myself up against a tree, and Eve propped herself up against me, her body nestled in the crook of my shoulder. Eve and Roxy passed the joint back and forth, until the air was thick with hazy white smoke with tinges of purple (is that's where that song got its name, I thought?). I'd never been high before. It was a strange sensation- hyperaware, yet paradoxically relaxed. Like being wide awake and in a deep sleep at the same time. Like laying half-asleep under a warm blanket, feeling half-controlled dreams run through your head. Like some other vague metaphor involving sleep. We lounged like that for some time- I don't how long, the smoke affects your sense of time. After a while, I became aware that Eve had slipped down almost to the point that her head was in my lap. I idly scratched at her hood's ears, as if she were a real cat.

Roxy stretched out and sighed contentedly. "Man, I am so stoned."

"This is good shit, all right," Eve added.

"Maybe save the rest for next time?" Roxy suggested.

"Might not be a next time," Eve said, taking another drag.

"Maybe you should slow it down a bit, Eve," I suggested. "Can you OD on pot?"

"Not without smoking, like, a warehouse full," Eve answered. "Though usually it's a good idea to stop when you start seeing unicorns and shit. How do my eyes look?", she asked, tilting her head back to look me in the eyes. Her blue irises were a lot brighter than usual- as if they were glowing in the starlight.

"Like… pools of blue water, fresh and clean from a mountain spring, sparkling with fairy magic like a wishing well," I said.

Roxy laughed. Eve reached up to bop me on the nose, like I was an amusingly stupid child. "The whites, silly," she said. "Are they bloodshot?"

I checked again. "Oh, yeah. Really bad, now that I look. Red all over. Is that a bad sign?"

"No, but it does mean we need to divide this more than two ways," Eve said. "Sure you don't want some?"

"I'd rather keep my lungs in my chest, thanks," I said.

"Well, hang on..." Eve took a drag on the joint, then grabbed me by the chin, looked up and gently blew the smoke into my face. I snickered, and she giggled back at me. "Less harsh?"

"A bit, yeah," I replied.

Roxy rolled over onto her stomach and propped herself up on one elbow to look at us. "You know, you two make an adorable couple."

The comment caught us both off-guard. "Oh, we're uh… just friends," I said.

Roxy laughed. "Right, Aaron. Give me another?" Eve passed the joint to Roxy, who took a long drag then flopped or her back again, smoking joint still in her mouth. It stuck straight up and waved back and forth like a reed in the wind.

"Are you tonguing it?" Eve said. "'Cuz I'm gonna want it back in a few."

"I'm not," Roxy said.

"Y'know, I think you are," Eve said. "You just love having things in your mouth, don't you?"

"Oh, don't get pervy with me," Roxy retorted.

"I think she meant your lollipops," I offered.

"I like those because they're sweet," Roxy said.

"I've tasted them, they're really not…," I reminded her.

"You've got an oral fetish, don't you?" Eve teased.

"I don't! And it's called a fixation," Roxy said.

"No it's not," Eve said.

"Actually, I think it is called an oral fixation," I cut in.

Eve scoffed. "Ah, whatever. I'm too stoned to really care. Just stop tonguing it, okay?"

"I'm not!", Roxy protested.

"Then why does it keep swaying back and forth lack that?", Eve asked.

"Because my tongue keeps hitting it!", Roxy said. A pause of about three seconds. "Oh."

Eve and I both bust out laughing.

"Alright, I'm sorry...", Roxy said. "Here, take it back." She handed the joint back to Eve. "God, I don't even know that I'm doing it anymore. How embarrassing."

"Beats having to do your own homework..." I quipped.

Roxy sighed. "No, Aaron. No, it doesn't. It's cool for a while, sure, but then you get to test day and you don't know anything. I've failed or barely passed every test I've taken as long as I can remember. I'm like, lowest in the class."

"Have you tried studying?" I asked. "You, know, like those of us who don't have giant boobs to seduce lonely nerds into doing the work for us?"

Unexpectedly, Eve cut in. "Oh, come off it, Aaron. We're getting along for once, don't spoil it."

We were all silent for a moment. We stared past the tree canopy and into starry night sky beyond. The stars seemed more twinkly tonight than usual. Everything seemed more intense, in fact; the glimmering of the stars, the hooting of the owls and crickets, the shining of the moon, even the softness of Eve's hoodie. The colors of the flowers in the bush were brighter, too. I impulsively picked one and tried to place it in Eve's hair, but since she still had her hood on, I placed it atop that instead. Roxy started humming a tune low under her breath.

"You know, Roxy," Eve said, "sometimes I wish I could be like you."

"Huh?", Roxy asked, surprised.

Eve adjusted her position against me, causing the flower to fall to the ground. "You know… pretty. Feminine. Curves and bulges in the right places, not just flat all over."

Roxy was suddenly very quiet. "Eve, do you know what these giant things on my chest are? Big bags full of other people's expectations. People look at them and think, 'Oh, what a bimbo", or 'Oh, she must be a slut", or 'What a shameless tease.'"

"You are a shameless tease," I noted.

"Of course I am, because that's what a blonde girl with big tits is supposed to be! So as soon as you start walking around in a triple-D cup, everybody just assumes, and there's no use convincing them otherwise. So you figure you might as well play along and get the benefit. And people think it's a privilege. They think you have the whole world at your feet because you can just jiggle them and people obey. But the truth is, it becomes a crutch. You hit the point where you can't do anything for yourself, because your bra is doing everything for you." She heaved a heavy sigh. "Do you know why I was looking to get high today? Because I had to study to have a chance of passing finals. But I haven't studied since junior high. I haven't needed to, because I always had someone else to do the work for me. And when I opened up the book and tried to get to it, I couldn't remember how. I didn't know what I was doing. And if I can't graduate in June, I don't know what to do. I mean… what prospects does a girl without a diploma who gets by through her bust have in life? Stripper? Waitress? Gold-digging trophy wife…?" Her tone was increasing frantic, almost panicked, and Eve cut her off.

"Whoa! Chill, Roxy, take a deep breath and calm down. You're on the edge of a freakout," Eve said.

Roxy buried her face in her hands. "God, I wish I could go back to before I grew these things. I see old pictures of myself and I don't even know that girl."

Silence.

After a while, I spoke. "Everyone changes. None of us are the people we used to be. We have to be who we are."

"Who I am sucks," Roxy said bitterly.

"Then be something else," I said. She turned to look at me. "Once upon a time," I continued, "you decided you were going to stop being little Roxanne and be Roxy instead. If Roxy isn't who you want to be, be something else. Nobody ever said you can't change your mind."

Roxy scoffed. "You say that like it's easy."

I chuckled. "Of course it's not easy. If it was easy, it wouldn't be worth doing. But if you're not happy with who you are, you can't expect to be happy, period."

Roxy sighed. "I don't know." After a pause, she added, "What do you think, Eve?"

"Me?", Eve said, "I think problems are for the sober." She passed the joint back to Roxy. "Have some more. And don't worry about the tongue."

Roxy waved the joint off. "It's okay. I don't need that." After a pause, she added: "What I need is what you've got."

Eve looked confused. "Uhh… what do I have?"

Roxy sat up and turned to look Eve in the eyes. "A body that doesn't get you judged. The courage to not care what people think of you. Something to do with your life that doesn't rely on being pretty." She nodded towards me. "A boyfriend who actually cares about you."

Eve dropped her gaze and brushed her hair out of her eyes. "He's… he's not my boyfriend."

Roxy gave Eve a doubtful look. "Come on, Eve, everybody can see it. You're always so moody and emo, both of you. Always by yourselves, never talking to anybody. But then you get together, and it's like a total 180. You talk, you smile, you laugh. If you two don't know you're a couple, you're the only ones."

Eve pulled her hood closer to her face. "Yeah, well… people aren't always what they seem. I speak from experience."

"Well, that's the truth," Roxy said. "Your totally-not-boyfriend Aaron wants to talk about how people change? You only got here this year, you didn't know him before. When he first started high school, he was witty, talkative, always friendly… kind of a charmer, actually. But then last year, he just got all dour and depressing."

"My dad was dying," I said, numbly.

"Well, we know that now," Roxy continued, "but at the time, we all just thought, 'What's up with Aaron? He's so moody all the time.' You should have told somebody."

"Like who? You?" I asked doubtfully.

"I wouldn't have cared. I wasn't your friend," Roxy said bluntly. "But maybe those people you were always playing Frisbee with at lunchtime. They could have helped."

I shook my head. "They would have just gossiped about it. Or pitied me. I had to handle it myself."

Roxy laid back down again. "Nobody gets by alone, Aaron. We all need somebody to talk to when things get heavy."

"Things are always heavy," I said snippily.

"Yeah, I guess," Roxy said. "That's why you two are really lucky to have each other."

Were we? I looked at Eve, who pulled her hood back a little to look back at me. Smiles flashed across our faces briefly. She said nothing, but after turning back to the stars, she snuggled a little further into the crook of my arm.

"Hey Eve?" Roxy said. "I'm sorry for calling you a dyke."

"Hmm?" Eve said.

"My aunt Beatrice, she's a lesbian. But not a masculine one, she's really feminine. There was this one time, some drunk idiot at a bar thought she was flirting with him. She told him she wasn't into men, and… he didn't take it well. After she left the bar, he ambushed her on the street with two other guys backing him up, they hit her, tore her clothes, she said she thought they were going to… well… anyway, she got lucky. Some Good Samaritan happened by, ran at those thugs swinging an Arizona bottle and yelling for the cops, and they ran off. Aunt Bea would kill me if she knew I had called you a dyke as an insult. So… I'm sorry."

Eve looked at Roxy for a long moment before speaking. "When did you call me a dyke?"

Roxy blinked. "You don't remember?"

"When I'm this high, I barely remember ten seconds ago!," Eve said.

Roxy laughed first, then me, then Eve joined in. We laughed for a good long time, then Eve sputtered to a stop. "Okay, okay, enough of this serious talk. A pot party is supposed to be relaxing and fun, so lets just lay here and listen to the music."

We listened. "I don't hear any music," I said.

"That's because you're not high enough," Eve said. "If you were, you could hear the stars twinkling."

"Oh," I deadpanned.

"What do they sound like?", Roxy asked.

"Like... tiny glass bells," Eve said. "And the wind blowing through the trees is like an upbeat flute."

"Well, they are woodwinds," I quipped, to laughter from the other two.

"Hey, how about a guitar?" Roxy asked.

"The guitar is all in my head." Eve took a small hit of the joint, which was now down to about half it's original size. Then she waved it about like a conductors baton, swaying and humming along with a psychedelic tune only she could hear. Suddenly, she stood up and ran back to the footpath, dragging her backpack along with her.

"Eve?", I said. "Where…?" I stumbled to my feet and chased her, Roxy clambering along behind me. Eve stepped over the chain and left her backpack on a concrete pillar behind the bench, then continued to the center of the path, right by the streetlight. She motioned me over and I followed. "What is it?", I asked.

"Dance with me," Eve said.

"What?", I asked. "Why?"

"Because I feel like dancing. Come on." She started swaying and moving her body, moving in time with music only she could hear. I watched. "Come on," Eve said again. "You don't have to be good, just move with the music."

I gave it my best shot, but it was pretty weak. After a minute or so, I gave up. "I'm sorry, I can't hear the music you can."

Eve clicked her tongue in disappointment.

"Hey, no worries!", Roxy called out. "DJ Roxy's got you covered!" Roxy took out her phone, turned the volume up to the max, and started up a fast but mellow dance song. I started dancing along, and this time it went better. "Yeah, okay, this I can do," I said.

"It's not star-bells, but I can dig it," Eve added.

So we danced together. There was an electric energy in the air. Eve was high as a kite, and I was kissing the sky, too. Not deep-kissing, maybe just a chaste peck on the cheek, but still. I knew the song Roxy was playing, but somehow it sounded louder and more complex than usual. We matched our bodies to the rhythm, first of the music and then of each other, and danced. I remembered that night I had seen Eve dancing by herself, and how beautiful she was when nothing held her back. Now, again, she danced, and I had the privilege of being a part of it. It was wonderful.

My attention was eventually diverted by a blur of motion over Eve's shoulder. Roxy was dancing along too, albeit in a different style. Hers was a hard, clubby, bust-and-booty-shaking dance. I laughed. So did Eve. So did Roxy. She licked her lips and gave a come-hither gesture. It may have been directed at me, but it was Eve who responded, stepping over and pressing her hands against Roxy's, holding the joint between her fingers. They shimmied up and down while pushing each other's hands in circles like a bicycle. Then Roxy did a move where she would lean forward and bop her large chest against Eve's more modest one. Meanwhile, I danced by myself, watching and snickering.

After a few bops, Eve broke from Roxy's grip and stumbled backwards. Laughing, Eve took a puff on the joint. Roxy spun over my way and started dancing alongside me. Her rhythm was more difficult to match than Eve's, but I managed to keep up with her hard, demanding steps. Eve watched with a wry look- until Roxy started grinding her rear against my pants with a misbehaving grin. Moments later, Roxy found her partner yanked away so that Eve could take another turn. Roxy gave her a mock-offended look with her hands on her hips. Holding my hand, Eve leaned back and passed the joint to Roxy in compensation. Roxy took it and took a drag. She was smiling. So were we. There was no drama tonight. We were just getting along.

Eve and I stepped back and forth, forth and back, then I lifted our held hands over her head and spun her around. I was going for a dip, but instead I stumbled, which caused her to stumble. We didn't fall, but wound up face to face, with my hand on her waist to steady myself. This... was not bad. Before I knew it, we were dancing together, in a slow groove that didn't match the music, but a slower, deeper beat pounding in our hearts. Her arms rested on my shoulders. My hands held her waist. We swayed back and forth, looking into each others' eyes. Hers sparkled. Did they always do that, and I only just now noticed? Or did it only happen when her eyes were looking into mine? It didn't matter. It was a lovely feeling, to see them shining. The red lines cutting through her whites didn't make it any worse. In fact, they made the blue of her pupils even more radiant. The contact high must have really been getting to me, I thought, because Eve's eyes flashed their colors at me so brightly they washed out the whole scene. Blue from the pupils, then red from the veins. Blue again, red again. Blue and red, blue and red, blue and red…

I froze. Those lights were not from Eve's eyes. A siren blared once and all three of us turned to see a police cruiser across the street.

Oh, shit.