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In the refrigerator I found a bunch of stir-fried vegetables and rice in some tangy sauce of some sort. Even cold it was tasty. I finished off the meal with a big glass of ice water before heading back to the bedroom. Tria was out cold, so I climbed out the window for a smoke on the fire escape.
“What’s up, fruitcake?” I asked as Krazy Katie fumbled around in her bra for a lighter.
“Stings like a bitch,” she said.
“What does?” I said. She didn’t answer; she just poked her arm with the end of a jagged fingernail. The imagery made me uncomfortable, so I didn’t wait for an answer. “Did ya miss me?”
She didn’t say anything.
“We went to the place where Tria is from,” I told her. “There are people there who make you look fucking normal.”
Krazy Katie didn’t respond. She seemed fixated on something in her hand.
“What’s that?” I asked. I stuck my cigarette in my mouth and sat down beside her. When I looked over at her hands, there was a crumpled photograph clutched in her fingers. “Can I see it?”
She took her thumbs and smoothed it out a bit. It was a picture of a black haired girl with wide, dark eyes and a woman who was obviously her mother.
“Is that you?”
“They said she had to go away,” Krazy Katie whispered into the cold night air. “I knew she was dead though. They just didn’t want to tell me.”
A single tear fell from her eyelashes and rolled down her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. I wondered if it was her mom’s birthday or the anniversary of her death or something. “Were you just a kid then?”
She didn’t say anything else, and she didn’t shed any more tears. I sat with her for a while and smoked a couple more cigarettes while she looked at the picture.
“Maybe you should sleep inside tonight,” I suggested. “It’s cold out.”
Again, she didn’t say anything, but she did get up and crawl through her open window. I followed her inside the almost empty apartment with the bare twin mattress on the floor and went into her kitchen. There was exactly zero food in the refrigerator, so I grabbed a bowl from the cabinet, went back to my place, and filled it up with some of the rice and veggies.
“Eat,” I told her. I checked her garbage can and found a couple of those microwavable single servings of soup and macaroni and cheese, so she must have eaten something while we were gone.
“You don’t cook,” she said as she eyed the bowl.
“Tria made it,” I told her. “It’s good.”
She took a cautious bite and then quickly finished it all. I made a mental note to bring her some of Tria’s cooking more often. Maybe she’d stop looking like a poster child for anorexia.
While she finished up the food, I reached over and touched her greasy, stringy hair, which made her tense up. She was in serious need of some personal hygiene, but that was definitely not my department.
“Your worker come over this week?” I asked, but she wasn’t inclined to tell me. It was too late to call the office, so I’d have to remember to do it on Monday while Tria was in class. I went over to the little chart she had on the wall, which normally contained her list of doctors and medicines, but the pieces of paper that were usually hanging right above the phone were gone. I asked her about it, but she was no longer in the talking mood. I thought I had the social worker’s number at my place somewhere, but it was weird for the whole chart to be blank.
“I’m gonna call them,” I told her. “Sleep inside tonight, okay?”
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t head right back to the window either, so I thought she’d be okay. I went back to my own apartment and crawled into bed with Tria. I wrestled with the blanket a little, gave up, and then pulled her up against my chest for warmth instead.
*****
I hear the chiming of the seashells hanging from ribbons in the trees as Tria walks around the large circle. Nikki lies on a medical exam table with her feet up in stirrups in the center of the circle, and Brandon stands between her legs, fucking her with quick, rough strokes.
He grunts and withdraws as another man comes up and takes his place. Brandon comes to stand by me and smoke a cigarette.
“There she is,” he says as Tria walks up to me and smiles.
When I glance back to the center of the circle, I see Keith moving up to take his position to fuck Nikki.
“What the hell?” I ask.
