Jillian

want to . . . I’m sorry to say this, but I don’t really think I can talk to her right now, but I think she might be under the porch crying. I’m sorry, I know this is shitty.”
“Uh, really, Amanda, this isn’t your fault. She’s been kind of nasty lately. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, she’s not your responsibility.”
Randy wince-smiled.
Back under the porch, Megan was grinning and crying. Oh my god, someone’s coming down here, she thought. But this is infinity’s moment, don’t they know that? Ha ha ha, go away, go away, go away. Don’t you know this is a special moment and that I can’t talk right now, not even to tell you to go away, so just go away, go away?
She looks scary, thought Randy. Why is she smiling like that?
If I don’t look at them? She stared ahead. Please go away, you know I don’t really like social situations, ha ha ha. You know I don’t do well in social situations, ha ha ha.
She’s just really drunk.
Oh, it’s Randy, my poor little Randy!
Randy scooted down next to her and said, “Hey, baby. Amanda told me you two got in a fight.”
“Uuuoooohhhhh,” said Megan. “Uuuuuhoohh.”
He covered her with his torso and put his arms around her.
“My poor mama hen, my poor Randy.”
“What?” said Randy. “I can’t hear you.”
“My poor mama hen.”
“I can’t—”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
God, what a relief to just be able to cry like a normal person, without smiling. What a fucking relief.
“Honey, what’s going on with you?”
Megan sobbed and said “sorry” while she thought thank you, thank you, oh, thank you.
He pulled away slightly and her arms tightened around him. She imagined being a python and coiling around him so she could kill him and eat him and keep him with her all the time.
“I’m going to go inside and get our stuff and say good night to some people, okay?”
Megan nodded. Randy left. Megan thought about Randy saying goodbye to some people while he gathered their stuff, and she cringed.
“I have a few more minutes left,” she whispered. “A few more minutes in infinity’s moment, ha ha ha ha. Oh, fuck, I’m such an idiot, that’s so gross, I’m a disgusting piece of shit.”
He came back down the stairs and crawled down to meet her.
“Here you go, sweetie.” Her handed her some tissues, which she used to blow her nose and wipe the gooey tear bullshit off her face.
“Drink this.”
She drank a sip of the glass of water.
“The whole thing, it’s good for you.”
She frowned at him, but then drank it.
“Where are you going to put it all?”
He took her tissues and put them in his pocket, then put the cup on the stairs.
•   •   •
The next day was a bad one.
The morning shower went something like this: Oh my god, I just don’t want to be wrong about everything I’ve ever thought or to feel like I’m in some kind of dysfunctional state because of my personality, because if my personality is toxic, what am I supposed to do? Hey, what am I supposed to do about anything? I don’t have anything at all in my life, I don’t have anything that’s only mine except this feeling, which isn’t even something that’s only mine or something to be proud of but, uuhhhhh, oh my god, what am I doing, there’s nothing I can do, I’m just going to keep working at worse and worse jobs and I’m going to get sicker and sicker, my hair is going to fall out and my skin is going to get shitty, why am I even thinking about that right now, but I have to because it’s just what I’m thinking, it’s not like I’m making myself think this, it’s just what I’m thinking. Oh god, oh god, oh my god.
All this was thought while sobbing silently and not washing, except for a little bit every few minutes because she had to (she was showering, after all) and then feeling totally ridiculous sudsing her buttcrack with the teal plastic bath poof while crying and thinking about the future. The horrible, empty future.
When she wasn’t hiding around the apartment crying, she sat on the couch and felt physically hollow. Like she was resigned, but she didn’t know to what. Randy was being careful around her in a way that really stung, but maybe she was imagining it and he wasn’t acting differently. But if he wasn’t acting differently after her display last night, wasn’t that bad, too? She got back into bed and he sat at his computer quietly.
“Honey?” she said. He didn’t hear her, but she didn’t want to say it any louder, so she just said, “Honey,” over and over again in the same quiet voice until he said, “Yeah?” and walked into the bedroom.
“I was calling you,” she said.
“I didn’t hear you,” he said. “What’s up?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I feel really bad today.”
He took her hand and she started crying, but a little cry, not those freaky silent sobs.
“What can I do? I don’t know what to do,” he said.
“I don’t know what to do, either, I just don’t know what to do with my life. I have no idea what to do and I feel so awful for putting you through this. I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” and as she continued to apologize, her phone buzzed on the nightstand.
They both looked at it.
“Who is it?”
“Oh my god.”
“Who is it?
“Oh my god.”
She handed it to him.
It was a text message. It read “heres the cutie her name is crispy adams choice lol,” and there was a picture of a Labrador attached to the text.

6
Jillian’s Saturday had been way different. She called Pups of Love at eight in the morning and the woman on the line was a lot nicer than the woman from the Humane Society. This new woman said they had tons of young dogs as well as puppies, too, who needed a