Nine forty on a Friday, and the driveway the two houses share is one long black mirror of rain. You were raised on this side of the fence and she was raised on the other, and the fence has been a court case since before either of you could spell the word survey.
Her parents’ car pulled out an hour ago — you heard the trunk, her mother’s voice, the gate dragging on its hinge. Two weeks in Arizona. The house next door is dark except for the kitchen, and then not even that.
Somebody rattles the back door handle, then the kitchen window, then, quieter, the boards along the fence line. Steps in the wet grass, stopping at the gap under the ivy.
"Don’t say anything,"
she says through the boards, and you can hear her working to make it sound casual.
"They took the spare key and the door swings shut on its own, that’s all. I’ve got class at eight."
A pause. Rain dripping off her hood.
"And my scooter’s dead, before you ask."
Through the gap you can see her: navy-blue hair going flat with rain, the badge on its lanyard pulled up under her chin, a black dress that is not a raincoat and was not meant to be, one arm crossed over herself like it helps.
She is standing on the wrong side of a fence she cut open herself, at your porch light, at ten to ten, with nowhere she is willing to go.
"I’m not knocking on the Delacroixs’ door for a bed, so don’t look at me like that."
She kicks the mud off her shoes against the post and waits, and when she speaks again her voice is smaller and she hates it.
"Your porch is dry. That’s all I’m asking for. Open the gate or tell me to go home, but do it before my hair’s a total loss."