Valerie came back to Tuscaloosa with four cuts along the inside of her thigh. She cooked noodles in Edith’s cluttered kitchen where there was nothing for them but butter, salt, pepper. Her sputtering coffeemaker, dragged across America, made twelve cups of half-caf. There were two months of stories to tell: an eighteen-wheeler pushing her off the road, mediating drama in the aftermath of an orgy. They cuddled on the couch, half-comatose with carbs, and Edith read her pieces of what she’d been working on.

That’s beautiful, Val said. You’re beautiful. I missed you, Judy.

I missed you too.

So irritating. Life could always be this way if only Val could be a normal person. But then her lips found Edith’s, her teeth found the skin of her neck, her hands traced the topography of her ribs. It was easy to forget.

Afterward, they lay in bed, Val’s head on Edith’s flat chest. The afternoon air was hot and bright and disguised nothing.

You know, you don’t have to miss me. The ugly walls and dusty carpet were not a compelling recommendation to visit. You can be here whenever you want.

A small nip at the back of Edith’s jaw. I sort of like missing you.

Well. That makes one of us.

You could get out of here for the summer, Valerie said. It’s not like you have class or anything.

Oh yeah, just run away. That’ll help.

It’s gotten you this far, Judy.

What’re you talking about? I don’t run.

Mmm, my mistake.

For two months her apartment had grown wretched. Two months talking Adam through his own gender shit and two months of keeping hers to herself. Two months without eating real food, without seeing daylight unless she had to. Two months of missing Val. The neatness of their bodies together, their hands the same size. Maybe she was unlovable. Maybe there was one mistake she kept making.

It’d be so much easier for you, wouldn’t it, Edith said. If I just came with you.

We’re not trying to solve my life here. I have that on lock.

Which is why you’re technically homeless.

Shut your mouth, Judy, before I shut it for you.

I’m serious, Val. She hadn’t meant to be. I want to fucking die when you’re not here. I want to fucking walk into the river and let it sweep me away.

How very Virginia Woolf of you.

Can you give me a real response, please?

This is a real response. Valerie’s hands picked at the long scabs on her legs. Edith watched them bleed. The old cross-shaped scar. She never learned if it was something Valerie had given herself, or something she’d wanted, or if it was only meant to harm. I was here for two months, I was gone for two months. There’s balance to that.

It’s not enough.

You get as much of me as anyone gets.

Is that supposed to be a comfort? That I’m no lower in your esteem?

I’m sorry, would you prefer the alternative?

Edith sat up and Val’s head fell to the pillow. Don’t tell me you’re fucking happy when you’re not here.

Who do we know who’s happy, Judy? Edith’s hands followed Val’s. She pressed a finger to the bright new blood. I’ve decided happiness is something other people get.

Don’t say that.

I don’t think there’s a place for me. The best I can do is get a bit at a time—a little here, a little there. Valerie grabbed her hand. I was having a nice time, you know.

You said you wanted a place you could stop, a place you fit. How is this not it?

What do you want me to say? Do you want me to lie to you? She tugged Edith’s hand. You call this happiness? There was blood in her fingers’ whorls. A map to the heart of them both.

Edith yanked her hand away. You make me happy. You make me not want to die. I thought that was clear.

Okay, Judy.

Stop calling me that.

How were they still lying down? It should all be so much more Edward Albee than this. They should clomp the breadth of the apartment in their anger, knocking over the furniture and staining the carpet with spit and wine.

Valerie stayed a week. It was a good week—one of the best. They played Magnetic Fields songs on repeat and played game after game of gin rummy and when the brief Alabama summer rains tore the sky, they sat cozy and dry on the porch, watching the earth churned to mud. Listening, as if to music. The fight had not meant anything. Not by itself.

Valerie left without warning and did not return for a year.