Tonight the Streets Are Ours

“What’s wrong?” she asks, still reaching out for him, and what she means to say is What’s wrong with me? but the end of the question is trapped in her throat.

Peter doesn’t respond. Within moments, his breathing grows calm and regular. He’s asleep.

Arden wants to wake him up and make him kiss her again and again. But she doesn’t.

She lies there on her sliver of bed. Between the birds chirping outside and Peter’s breathing and her own pounding heart, Arden can’t imagine ever falling asleep. But somehow, she does. She sleeps long and hard and without dreaming.




The next time Arden opens her eyes, sunlight is streaming in through the windows, and she is alone in the bed.

But there is somebody else in the room.

A girl, probably close to Arden’s age, with wavy red hair and big green eyes and a navy-and-white striped strapless dress. She is standing at the foot of the bed, and she is staring right at Arden. She needs no introduction; Arden recognizes this girl instantly.

“Who are you?” says Bianca.





The morning after

“This isn’t what it looks like,” Arden tells Bianca as she sits up in Peter’s bed, pulling the sheets around her. This feels like the ultimate in clichéd things to say, but it is, quite frankly, true.

“Really?” Bianca asks. “So you’re not some random girl sleeping in my boyfriend’s clothes in my boyfriend’s bed?”

Arden has no idea why Bianca is here or where Peter is or what’s going on, but Bianca’s assessment here seems needlessly harsh. “I thought you broke up with him?”

“Yeah, four days ago! Why don’t you at least give someone a full week before you make your move? Just try to show a little class.”

“I didn’t make a move. It’s really not like that,” Arden says. She feels like she would wield more power in this conversation if she were to stand, but she also feels like she doesn’t want to pit her boy-sized gym clothes against Bianca’s Anthropologie sundress.

“How long has this been going on for?” Bianca demands, looming over Arden.

“How long has what been going on for?”

“You and Peter.”

Arden doesn’t know what to say. She and Peter have been going on for nearly two months. Or, she and Peter have never gone on at all.

“I’m not hooking up with Peter,” Arden insists.

“I would like to believe you,” Bianca says. “Unfortunately, I can think of approximately one reason for you to be here right now. Who are you, even?”

“I’m Arden,” says Arden. “And you’re Bianca.”

Arden’s knowledge of her name momentarily silences Bianca.

“Look,” Arden says. “Can I get dressed before we continue this conversation?”

Bianca gives Arden a look that somehow conveys both pity and disgust. “Fine. I’ll wait.”

Arden crawls out of bed, feeling like a chimney sweep in comparison to Bianca, with her crisp face and put-together outfit. She checks her phone to see the time, then remembers that it lost its charge on the way to the Just Like Me Dolls Store.

She grabs her clothes from the floor and closes herself in the bathroom to change. Unfortunately, her skimpy dress looks exactly like it spent the night in a ball on the floor, meaning that she probably resembles a particularly disheveled sex worker. She leaves the bathroom without glancing in the mirror.

Bianca is standing right where Arden left her. She watches Arden emerge from the bathroom and asks, “What’s on your arms?”

Arden looks down. There’s loneliness, still, and there’s miss you miss you miss you, winding all the way up to her shoulder. “We went to a costume party,” she tries to explain. “At Jigsaw Manor.”

“A-ha,” Bianca exclaims. “So that’s where you met Peter? Jigsaw Manor?”

“No,” Arden says firmly. “I’m a fan of Peter’s writing. I read his blog. Tonight the Streets Are Ours.”