So our quantum superposition was over. Grace Town and I were either dead or alive, no long both simultaneously.

I wasn’t sure, yet, which one it would turn out to be.

• • •

We walked home together, drunkenly, in the dark. In my semi-intoxicated state, knowing what we were going to do, I finally had the courage to do the things I wanted to do to her. I pushed her up against a tall chain-link fence covered in creeping vines and kissed her, more hungrily than I ever had before. I kissed her down her neck, across her collarbone, ran my hands over her hips, her thighs. Grace responded with gasps, ran her fingers through my hair, grabbed tufts of it, pulled herself against me. She sank her fake teeth into my neck, enough to hurt but not to break the skin.

“Take me home, Henry Page,” she said, fake blood still smudged at the edges of her lips. And then she turned and started walking into the darkness, and I followed her, of course, my hands around her waist, kissing her all the way there. We got downstairs without waking the parentals, thank God, and then it was time to have The Sex.

We sat on my bed together and wiped away all of our makeup first. I peeled off my shirt and cleaned all the dry blood from my chest, wondering if I looked anything like how he’d looked after the accident, and if that’s what she was thinking about, or if she was thinking about me. And then we sat for a minute after that, in silence, and I contemplated turning the lamp off, because maybe it would be easier in the dark.

But Grace knew what she was doing. She’d done this before. She sidled over to me and kissed me and then she was undoing the back of her corset.

“Holy shit,” I said quietly when she took it off, because she was exquisite, and all my hesitation evaporated at the sight of her bare breasts.

We kissed some more, and then I rolled down her stockings, my fingertips grazing her scar tissue. There were two large, red rectangles cut from her upper thighs.

“From where they harvested the skin grafts,” she said as I touched them. “The first one didn’t take well, so they had to come back for more.” I pulled her stockings all the way off and threw them across the room. The worst of the scarring was on her calf, where skin and muscle had been gouged away, covered with a mesh of skin that made the flesh look like a plucked bird. This leg was about half the size of the other, thin and raw and delicate looking. Fresh bruises and welts bloomed across the unmarred flesh, a keepsake from her latest expedition to East River’s track.

It was amazing that she could walk at all.

“They’ve changed the pins once already. In a few years they might even take them out. I’m not sure. Maybe they’ll eventually put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”

I leaned down and kissed the angry red skin of her calf. “You’re perfect.”

And then it began.

It wasn’t super romantic. There was no music playing or candles burning. It wasn’t like any of those rom-coms that show brief touches of skin and hands clasping crisp white sheets. It wasn’t even like the porn I’d seen. It was sweatier, quieter, more intense, more awkward. It was just me, and her, and no space in between us.

I’d spent a good part of my morning Googling “how to be good at sex,” which turned out not to be particularly helpful in the moment. I forgot everything that AskMen had informed me and instead went with what felt right.

And then it was over. The V card had expired. There were no extravagant gasps or anything like that, but it can’t have been too bad, because she said, “That was a thousand times better than I thought it would be,” and I wasn’t sure if I should be pleased because it’d been decent or offended that she’d been expecting it to be bad. Grace rested her head on my shoulder and I kissed her forehead and we lay together, naked in the dark, neither of us talking and neither of us able to fall asleep.

Eventually, when she thought I’d drifted off, Grace Town started to cry. I felt her trembling against me as she tried to control her breathing, felt her warm tears on my skin as they fell onto my chest. She sobbed only once, and then she wiped her eyes and her breathing calmed and she whispered, “I miss you,” and then, steadily, steadily, she dropped away into sleep.

I stayed awake for an hour more, staring at the ceiling as her tears evaporated from my skin, trying to decide if I wanted to vomit because I was drunk or because the girl I’d lost my virginity to had probably been thinking about her dead boyfriend the whole time.

WHEN I WOKE in the morning, Grace was already up, re-encasing her skin beneath layers of Dom’s clothes. A butterfly for a night, returned to her cocoon. I pretended to be asleep as I watched her gather her vampire costume in a plastic bag and stuff it in the trash can next to my desk. She left without saying good-bye.

That night, I messaged her.

HENRY PAGE:

Evening, Town. So, one night this week, I’m thinking I want to see the new Pixar movie. It’s rated PG for mild animated violence and crude humor—I have a feeling I’m going to love it. You down?

I sent the message at 7:58 p.m. Grace saw it immediately, started typing back, then deleted whatever she was going to say. Ten minutes passed, then ten minutes more, still with no reply. Was I not allowed to ask her out, even though we’d slept together? Had I overstepped the unspoken boundaries of our relationship (or whatever it was)?

I ate dinner. Checked my phone. No reply.

She’s changed her mind, she’s changed her mind, she’s changed her mind.

Had a shower. Checked my phone. No reply.

She’s changed her mind, she’s changed her mind, she’s changed her mind.

Attempted my math homework. Checked my phone. No reply.

Oh God, oh God, oh God. She’s changed her mind, she’s changed her mind, she’s changed her mind.

I went to bed feeling like someone had opened a black umbrella inside my chest. My lungs were pushed up under my collarbones and beneath that was a gaping hole where my insides used to be. Finally, at 11:59 p.m., right as I was slipping into unconsciousness, Grace messaged back.