My eyes opened in time with the slow tugs on my hair at the nape of my neck, one, two, three blurry blinks and I focused on Bella, hovering over me, pulling my hair in these little, arrhythmic pulls, too hard to be gentle, but too soft to be rough. Kind of like her.

"It's been hours and hours," she said, her own eyes puffed over with sleep, and there was a crease across her cheek from my sheets.

I blinked again and stretched my knuckles, suddenly acutely aware that I was balled up like a fetus and I just had a nap with a girl who should've been a stranger, but it didn't feel like having a stranger around at all.

She crawled to the edge of the bed and swung her legs over.

"I just thought I should let you know I'm going," she said, pulling her shoes on, then smiled softly over her shoulder. "I didn't take anything."

Bella got up and opened the window on the far side of the room, it had to be the middle of the night, but she acted like the sun was shining through and the temperature wasn't arctic; I didn't mind.

Bella put her hands on top of the windowsill, just for a quick second, then sighed and turned back to me.

I didn't want her to leave, it's just…I had nothing to offer if she stayed.

"There's a burrito in the freezer," I said.

"Say it," Bella whispered, then wedged her thumbnail between her teeth.

"Stay awhile?"

She nodded and walked out, I lowered my head again when I heard the whir of the freezer door opening, and was surprised, just for a second, that she heard me when I asked her to stay.

Twenty minutes later, we sat across from each other on my bed, Bella had the nuked, freezer burned burrito on a soggy paper plate in her lap, the fork at my lips.

"Do you miss her?" Bella asked. "The runaway girlfriend?"

"Not like I should. I feel like shit about that."

"That she left?" Bella asked, stabbing the fork into the burrito.

"No. That she was right to leave and that I don't miss her. How fucked up is it that I don't even miss her? That's what I feel bad about. I feel bad that I can't feel at all about it."

"Can't or don't?"

"She left me for a guy I don't ever want to be," I mused. "That's gotta mean something."

"Do you love her?"

"Not how I'm supposed to. No. Shit, I don't even think I liked her the past year. What about you? You and your guy who guides or whatever," I said, waving my hand.

"We haven't slept together in six months. I think I'm like…his obligation," Bella said, and I noticed her cheeks turn pink, and the tips of her ears when she swatted her hair back, shaking the whole thing off with a small laugh.

"Do you love him?"

"Not like I should," she repeated.

I nodded and she stuck a forkful of burrito in her mouth, swallowed hard and waved her hand around, so I caught her wrist, to keep from losing an eye on a fork tine.

"So why name the store Pull Out Kings?" Bella asked, flipping the subject. "Other than the obvious, you degenerate."

"That's all there is," I said, my lips pulling up into a smile. "Back when me and Em were kids, you know."

"Why not name it Just the Tip?" Bella asked, shoving a forkful of burrito toward my mouth.

I took the bite and swallowed.

"That would be a lie," I answered.

"The un-depressed you is lecherous flirt. I can see it under the fog," Bella said and I thought about that, then nodded, because yeah, I probably was.

"I think there's more to it, but I'll let it go in favor of letting this conversation veer more to the perversion persuasion," Bella said.

"I'm down."

"Do you remember the first time you saw boobs?"

"Of course," I said. "Madison Russo. Eighth grade, the Fall Festival Dance, in the parking lot. We made out and I asked if I could touch them."

"Oh god, did you do the whole awkward palm the boob thing?"

"No, I used my tongue to touch them. I never specified how I wanted to touch them," I grinned.

"You're a letch."

"What about you."

"I am, too."

"No, the first time you saw a dick?"

"God, it was my dads."

"Oh, shit, I'm…wow—"

"Not like that!" Bella cried, horrified, putting a hand over her face, peeking out between her fingers.

"Well!" I exclaimed.

"Well gah!"

"Well elaborate!"

"I will but just know I must think you're something special because re-living this is traumatic."

"Okay."

"Okay. I walked in on my dad while he was shaving."

"Okay."

"His…balls."

"Gah!"

"I know!"

"How old were you?"

"Like, nine and up until that point I didn't even know about differences. I totally thought he was deformed and trying to get rid of the excess with a razor. For like, an entire year. Then, the following year, when we could actually look each other in the eye again, I found his Hustler magazine stash and figured the entire thing out on my own."

She shrugged then used the edge of the fork to cut what was left of the food into two equal parts, then used her fingers to pick up her share.

"What do you do?" I asked. "I mean, when you're not stealing or checking out your dad's scrotum."

She gagged on a bite and kicked my knee.

"I have a degree in graphic design."

"Really? Where do you work?"

"Aeropostale."

"The low-rent Abercrombie and Fitch meets J Crew for pre-teens clothing store?"

"That's the one."

"Do you design their catalogues or…."

"No. I fold the sweaters."

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah, I fucking love it," she said, rolling her eyes. "It's fine. I mean, I get paid. It's obviously wasn't where I thought I'd be at twenty-six with my fancy degree, but hell. Who am I to demand the world works favorably?"

"Because you worked for it to."

"So?" she asked, blinking.

"So, if you make a plan and work hard and put your heart into it, it's okay to be disappointed if—"

"The one thing you should put most of your effort into is to learn how to be happy. If you can do that, it won't matter what life shits on you. You have a back-up plan: happy. And remember, sometimes, it's okay to just be….fucked. That's all there is."

"Who pays your bills?"

"It's not always easy and sometimes, they go unpaid."

"Doesn't that upset you, I mean, while you're working on being happy? What if being happy to you just means being able to support yourself while doing something you love? What if there was only one thing and it's just fucking gone? What if—"

"You have anxiety issues."

"Yeah. Today, I do."

"But maybe not tomorrow."

"Maybe not. But that's the exact problem."

"What?"

"I'm terrified that…" I squinted my eyes, trying to find the right words, trying to make at least one person understand this particular brand of lost, "I'm going to wake up in five days for five months or five years or hell, fifty years and I'll still have no idea what comes next or what I'm doing. I hate not knowing how my life is supposed to be. I have no idea who I'm supposed to be or what I'm doing or what I'm going to do. I'm here, in this spot and I have no idea where I'm supposed to go next or if I do make a move, where it will land me or even how I'm going to pay the electric bill next month and no one…no one ever just tells you; like, there is no sign from above telling you what is the right thing or the wrong thing or just reminding you to breathe. And that is so fucking exhausting, it's so just draining to have this whole entire life and not know what to do with it or how to deal with it. I'm tired."

I blew out a breath and licked my lips, then shook my head like a fool while she stared at me.

"I think that sounds pretty fucking exciting."

"What?"

"It sounds full of possibility."

"That's so cliché, Bella."

"So what? You could move to a mountain top or in a hut near the ocean. You could be a…a…fire place builder or an author or a movie critic or one of those people who puts letters on billboards or a barber, you could go anywhere or do anything—"

"I did what I wanted and it didn't work."

"So move on."

"To what? Fucking Aeropostale?"

She flinched back and her knees curled in a fraction.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"Right. Fuck off. At least I'm not crying into my pillow with a yellow bracelet on my wrist because I can't get over my entitlement issues. The world doesn't owe you shit."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I'm…you work. You have a job. I'm actually jealous."

"I'm a damn good folder of sweaters."

"I bet you are."

"I am."

"Good."
"That was hurtful."

"I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention. You have to forgive me, you stole from me."

"Get over that already!"

"You get over the Aeropostale thing."

"It's too fresh."

"I didn't mean it."

"Yes you did, you judgmental, pretentious prick with your cool indie music store and your Cobain sweater with your designer brooding and your too-hip-to care beard."

"Ouch."

"Yeah."

She tucked her hair behind her ears again and stared up at the ceiling, I lay back down in the bed.

"You're way too easily defeated," Bella said, and I lifted my arm again, and she fit right back in there, right up against me again.

"I'm sorry," I whispered again, desperate not to break or hurt one more thing.

"It's funny almost. I'm sick of being told how to fix it and you're looking for someone to tell you how to fix it," Bella said, then turned over, so she was the little spoon. "What are the chances?"

"Of what?" I asked with a yawn.

"Of us."

"Us?"

"Us. For tonight, anyway. I'll stay by you, you stay by me and tonight, it'll be okay."

"Okay," I told her, because it was.

"Can I try something?"

"What?"

She turned over again, lifting my arm, then brushing away a thick lock of hair that had caught between her lips.

"What?" I whispered again, my eyes flickering from her eyes to her lips.

"You know what," she whispered, then leaned down, to where my head lay against the pillow, my body in the perfect bed notch, and kissed me.

It was a soft kiss, softer than I would've expected, more familiar to me than any other kiss, but at the same time, foreign, because I cannot recall ever kissing someone who I'd bared so much of myself to.

I let her in my mouth because she was already in my head; because I shared with her all of that, we ought to share a kiss like this; because she was really so pretty and because she was good to waste time with; because she didn't get me, she didn't understand at all, but she stayed anyway.

When she pulled away, she didn't look me in the eye, rather pressed her cheek against mine, I could hear her swallow and then shift her hips on mine, against where I was hard.

"I'd like to," she said. "I mean, I want to. If you do."

I nodded against her cheek; not quite recalling the last time I felt so human or motivated to do anything, but this, I really wanted to do.

"I know you're a king at pulling out, but I like to use something—"

"I don't have anything," I said, but wrapped my arms around her waist, holding her down to me.

"I do. Don't judge."

"Just a little," I said, with a laugh, then, "no, seriously. It's good. It's a good thing."

And it was.

There is this faint but definitive line between fucking and love making, I can't define it, I don't know that anyone can, but as certain I am as the grass is green, I know this sentiment is real. This line that Bella and I writhed on was made of undeniable but unknowing meaning. But it was meaningful despite the fact that I didn't know what it meant, other than this act, this girl, this wet and ridiculous dance on this bed in this notch are not just another big empty. Even when she left, even if I never saw her again, even if I didn't know her birthday or her favorite color or where she would go next or where she came from, this meant something.