Chapter 1: The Accusation Dance
The fluorescent light in Katie’s kitchen buzzed, a dying insect trapped in a plastic cage. It cast a sickly glare over the warzone of countertops, where something sticky had permanently bonded a pizza coupon to the laminate. A greasy box, its cardboard sagging under the weight of congealed cheese, sat next to a sink choked with dishes. One plate was cracked clean through; another had lost its handle, jutting from the murky water like a tombstone.
“You’re a liar, Amar! A scheming, little-thief liar!”
Katie’s voice hit a shrill note that made Courtney’s back teeth ache. Katie jabbed her juul toward Amar’s chest like a tiny, electronic dagger. Her ponytail, messy and lopsided, bobbed with the force of her accusation.
Amar shuffled, a cornered animal in skinny jeans. His knees bounced. His eyes, wide and darting, held the perpetual shock of a man who’d just seen something he couldn’t unsee. His gold tooth flashed as he worked his jaw. “Babe. Katie. Listen. Why would I take it? Why would I do that? I got my own. It makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense!” Katie spun, her socked feet sliding on a greasy spot on the floor. She gestured wildly toward the cluttered kitchen table, where an energy drink can sweated a ring of condensation onto an old cable bill. “You were right there. I set it down by my drink. Then you went to ‘take the trash out’ which we both know means you went to hotbox the shed, and then it was gone.”
“Coincidence!” Amar’s hands fluttered, his fingers tracing anxious patterns in the air. “A terrible, nasty coincidence. You probably knocked it into the…the…the abyss.” He pointed a trembling finger at the canyon of clutter between the refrigerator and the counter. “It’s a portal to another dimension, I’ve seen it. Socks go in there, they never come back.”
Courtney watched from her perch on a mismatched kitchen stool, the cold vinyl sticking to the backs of her thighs. She said nothing. She just pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them, her blonde hair falling like a curtain. From this angle, she could watch the drama unfold like a play. Katie’s righteous, unhinged fury. Amar’s jittery, defensive chaos. It was usually amusing, background noise to the dull thrum of a Tuesday night.
But today, it felt like static. Her mind kept drifting, pulled by an undercurrent she couldn’t name. She traced a finger through the dust on the table, drawing a faint, aimless line.
“I don’t believe in your dimensions!” Katie screamed, her face flushing. “I believe in facts! The fact is, you wanted a puff and you took mine because yours tastes like burnt hair and regret!”
“My juice is premium! It’s mango! It’s…it’s tropical!” Amar’s voice cracked. He patted his pockets frantically, a frantic tap-dance of denim and panic. Then he froze. A slow, dawning horror washed over his features. His hand emerged from his front pocket, uncurling to reveal a slender, metallic device.
Katie stopped dead. Her eyes narrowed to slits.
Amar stared at the juul in his own palm as if it had just materialized from the ether. “Oh,” he whispered. “Wow. Would you look at that. It…it was here the whole time. In my…hand. My own hand.”
“That’s mine, you tweaking weasel!” Katie launched herself across the room, not for the juul, but for his shoulders, which she began to pummel with loose fists. “I hate you! I hate your stupid face!”
“It was a mistake! A temporal mix-up! My hand, it acted on its own, it’s a separate entity with poor judgment—”
The sharp, digital blast of a ringtone cut through the noise. Katie froze, one fist still raised. She dug her phone from the depths of her leggings pocket, glanced at the screen, and her entire demeanor shifted. The anger melted, replaced by a sly, knowing smirk. She turned her back on Amar, who was now hyperventilating with relief.
“Hey,” she said into the phone, her voice suddenly sweet. “Yeah. Uh-huh. Gross. Yeah, come over.” She listened, her smirk widening into a grin. “Okay. See you in a few.”
She hung up and turned around, the storm forgotten. Her eyes sparkled with new gossip. “That was Gage,” she announced, as if announcing the arrival of a celebrity.
The name landed in the room with the weight of a stone dropped in shallow water.
Amar slumped into a chair, wiping imaginary sweat from his brow. “Cool. Cool. Does he have any…you know. Party favors?”
Katie ignored him. She was looking at Courtney, her head tilted. “He’s bringing that new game. The scary one. Said we should all play.”
Courtney didn’t move. She felt the prickle start at the base of her spine, a slow, warm creep that spread out across her skin. She kept her chin on her knees, but her breath shallowed. Gage. Katie’s older brother. His intensity wasn’t something you heard in his voice on the phone; it was something in the silence around him, a gravity that warped the room. He looked at people like he was seeing the cracks in their facade, the hidden, ugly wiring.
“Awesome,” Courtney said, and her own voice sounded faint, far away.
Katie bounced on her toes, already moving on. “I should clean up. This place is a dungeon.” She began haphazardly shoving dishes into the already-overflowing sink.
Amar, recovered, leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with a new idea. “You know what we need? A vending machine business. But, like, for blunts. Pre-rolled. In every 7-Eleven. The profit margin is, like, geometric.”
Courtney didn’t hear him. She was listening for the sound of a car door outside. The predictable rasp of his truck’s engine. Her heart was doing a slow, heavy rhythm against her ribs. She uncurled from the stool, her feet touching the cool, dirty linoleum. She pretended to examine a stain on the ceiling, then her reflection in the dark window over the sink. Her face looked back at her—wide blue eyes, a mouth that naturally turned up at the corners. Innocent. It was a useful face. It never showed the quick, hot flash of thought that just went through her: What does he see when he looks at it?
The buzz of the fluorescent light seemed to grow louder, filling her skull. She could smell the greasy pizza, Amar’s nervous sweat, the cloying sweetness of stale vape juice. And underneath it all, creeping in from the edges of her imagination, the sharp, clean scent of cold air and the hint of gasoline that always clung to Gage’s jacket.
Katie hummed tunelessly, shoving the cracked plate under the water with a splash.
Amar sketched geometric profit margins in the condensation on the table.
And Courtney stood perfectly still in the buzzing, grimy light, her skin alive with a dangerous, humming excitement, waiting for the door to open.