Page 9 of This Darkness Mine

I don’t like all the possibilities encapsulated after the dash, an endless stream of deaths with no definitive cutoff point.

“If she died at birth, she’ll be in here,” Jane says, finger once again slicing through columns of ink. I wonder if she has calluses on her fingertips like I do, mine from making music, hers from trailing over lives begun and ended.

“She’s not here,” Jane announces.

My hand goes back to my pocket to reassure myself that the ultrasound is still there, the only thing in the world that says I have—or had—a sister.

A sister who wasn’t born and never died.

When I see Isaac in the hallway I take an impulsive step backward, the heels of my shoes knocking against the door of the vital records office. He looks up from the bench he’s sitting on, a solid expanse of wood that belongs in a church, not a common hall with pictures of child-support nonpayers posted above it. Still, he looks comfortable, arms spread across the rolled back like he belongs here. Our eyes meet and he smiles like there’s nothing surprising about the situation.

I look away quickly, to the words on the door next to him. Parole Officer. So I guess he does belong here.

“I’m starting to think you might be following me,” Isaac says.

“You wish,” I say, anything more cutting than that lost to me. I’ve been demoted to monosyllabic words.

He smiles again, gaze traveling over me in a way I definitely don’t like . . . except I feel a subtle shift, muscles loosening or tensing ever so slightly, and somehow I’m angled toward him, like Lilly was with Cole, one shoulder dropped just enough that my shirt gapes a little. Isaac senses it, rising from the bench to cut the space between us, his body a knife that mine wants to be cut by. Because I’m moving forward too, and soon we’re indecently close, my heart hammering so hard I’ve got spots in my vision again.

“I got your text,” he says.

“I didn’t text you,” I shoot back, my mouth the only thing I still have control of. But even that feels slippery, as if it might jump the last few inches between mine and his without permission.

“Huh . . . ,” he says. “That’s funny ’cause . . .” and he holds up his phone, showing me a text that came in early this morning at three fifteen—

What r u doing?

“One”—I hold up an index finger, hoping it’s an effective barrier between us—“I was asleep at three. Two”—another finger goes up, adding a board to the wall I’m building—“I use real words when I text. And three”—last one, to hold it all in place—“that text came from someone named Lady, not me.”

He flips it back open, pulls up his contacts and shows me the entry for “Lady.” It’s my number, sure and true, a dark rendering of facts as concrete as the books in Jane’s office.

“You’re a lady, all right,” Isaac says, his voice husky in my ear as he leans closer.

“I . . .” My voice fails me, my hand trailing up to his neck to touch the tattoo there rather than push him back like I told it to.

“Something’s wrong,” I say, sidestepping away from him, my hand leaving his chest and going to mine to feel the pace of my heart. Very allegro.

“Yep,” he agrees. “And I know what it is. You like me . . . but you don’t like that you like me.”

“Based only on that sentence, you’re an idiot,” I say just as the parole officer’s door opens and a man sticks his head out.

“Sounds like she’s got your number, Harver,” he says, gesturing for Isaac to come inside.

“Uh-huh . . . ,” Isaac says. “And I’ve got hers.”

And then he winks at me.

And I like it.

five

“I asked Melanie if she knew what color the carpet was in her brother’s room, and she said green.” Brooke brings the wooden mallet down on the skull of our fetal pig, sending some cartilage onto my safety goggles.

“So taking that and the toe of the shoe I spotted in the pic, I’m guessing that is Cole’s dick. Hardly worth Instagramming.” She gives the pig another whack.

Lilly perches on a stool, elbows resting on the black countertop of the biology room. “Dammit,” she says. “It is a little dick.”

My friends have been plumbing the depths of the mysteries of the size of Cole Vance’s dick for a few days, not coming up with any solid evidence as of yet.