Ximena comes home late. Her eyes are swollen and red and her arms have red scratches on them. She collapses on their ratty, terrible couch, and Grace presses close.

She says, “They put me with a new patient today. I was in the psychiatric ward.” She grabs Grace’s hand and one of them, maybe both of them, are shaking. “Her name is Agnes. Agnes Ivanova.” She breathes out the name like it’s important, like Agnes is important.

“Hey,” Grace says softly, pushing into the little V-crook of Ximena’s legs. “Hey, I’m here. I’m here, okay?”

“I know,” Ximena says, like it’s something that will always be true. Planets will form, and life will bloom and die, and stars will fold in on themselves, and Grace will be right here. “I knew it that first day we talked, you remember? You were so stressed and scared, and I just wanted to make you feel better. Like, some part of my brain said mine. And that was it.”

Grace presses her face into Ximena’s stomach. Soft and warm and trembling with each breath. “I know,” she says quietly. “You’re mine, too. I know. I love you so much it hurts.” That’s what they said to each other, because that’s how it felt, the connection that blossomed.

“Love you so much it hurts,” Ximena says, like the words were waiting. She takes a breath. “She tried to—I mean she has these—” She holds out her wrists, and Grace can imagine all the life that pulses blue underneath them. How easily it bleeds out. “I mean they’re bandaged, but that doesn’t mean they just go away, you know? And she has the same look on her face. The same—you know, Porter.”

They don’t talk about it. It is buried in the hollow of Grace’s ribs, in the back corners of her mind, the dark, anxious pit of her stomach. Ximena doesn’t ask why Grace claws at her skin, scratching until she is settled by the sting. Grace wonders, during school and work and the future-in-flux looming ahead, how long she can withstand the sting before it just—stops. How long she can burn before there’s nothing left. How long a thing can be buried before it combusts.

Sometimes she hears sickly sweet voices that tell her she will never make her family proud, that she’s wasted years chasing something she will never get to reach. The ones that curl and sour in her stomach when she stares at the ceiling in the middle of the night.

They ask, Why are you here? Why do you deserve good?

“Yeah,” Grace says, finally answering Ximena. “I know.”

“None of the other companions will stay with her,” Ximena says. “She’s mean, and she’s sharp, and she knows how to make you hurt, just like she does.” She looks at Grace. “She’s mine, Porter. Just like you. I just know.”

The thing is, it is Grace and Ximena against the world. Things may get very big and very dark, and they are very small in front of them. But even on the worst days, Grace likes their odds together. The way she sees it, another person, a girl with teeth and claws and hurt, can only make them stronger.

“Okay,” Grace says. “Tell me about her.”

Ximena does. Three is a good number against the world, it turns out.

Five

Grace can’t sleep.

It’s four in the morning, and she stares at the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling. She wonders if somewhere else, a girl with rosebud cheeks and a trail of spell herbs clinging to her, is staring at a ceiling, too. Unsure of her place in the world but reassured, somehow, by the weight of a warm key against her chest.

There is someone, Ximena or Agnes or both, on the balcony. Grace thinks about telling them about the secret she holds. I did more than just hang out, she could say. I danced under lights and swore solemn vows to a rosebud girl I don’t know, but I think I want to.

Her career and the gatekeepers she has to face fill her with dread, but these, a gold ring and a calling card she keeps under pillow, do not.

The balcony creaks, and she makes a decision. There is only so much you can hold until you are holding too much. Grace can let this go. This one thing.

She gets up.

The apartment is dark. Grace navigates it with no lights, not wanting to disturb the fragile peace. If she turns on the lights, it will all be real, and she will have to say it and not just whisper it under the quiet beam of streetlights.

She climbs out the small door. The balcony isn’t really a balcony. It’s a black steel contraption, just sturdy enough to hold all three of them snugly.

“Hi,” she says, climbing out and seeing Agnes. “I didn’t know who I was going to find out here.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Agnes says. She’s at the edge, legs swinging against the creaky metal. “Still want some company?”

“I guess you’ll do.” Grace sits down. Agnes smells like smoke and chamomile, and the shadowed half-moons under her eyes speak of nightmares. “Want to talk about it?”

Agnes shrugs. “Not really? My therapist would say that’s not productive, but I did actually think about sharing for a moment, so I’m counting it as a goddamn success.”

Grace laughs and moves closer. “If you count it as a success, then it’s a goddamn success.”

They bump fists, and Agnes’s face peeks out from under the comforter around her shoulders. “What about you?” she asks. “Anything you want to share with the class?”