text: I slid my clothes off and cranked the shower knob, holding an orange in my palm, toes and fingertips heating up red. Brushing dirtspace from my wet knees. Crouching in the clatter, sinking my chin lower into my chest. Silverfish climb the curtains up to the cracked ceiling. Citrus smell joins the hot steam between careful bites, and I watch little hairs suck down the drain in a dark whirlpool. Glowing red capsules churn inside me. Ten, maybe twelve. Swallowing them pill-like makes me less nauseous than the syrupy version, but sometimes that’s all the store has. Tonight is a mix of both (and the fruit hides the taste of glue). Cut the water shivering. I lay out my towel and just sit until dry. Seeing double now, two towels. I put on loose boxers and a long shirt. Limbs lag through the holes at ten frames per second. Opening the bathroom door now. A dim night light blinks in the hallway, plugged low by The Old Woman. She’s in Hawaii this week (and I must remember to pay her when she gets back). There’s two doors in my room, but it’s really true, I’m not just seeing it that way. One to the hallway and one to the backyard. I squint at the clock by my bed and think. Lover Boy should be here soon. I hear taps at the backyard door. It’s the cat. She slinks between my legs and camps in the cubby of my nightstand (only it’s not a nightstand, it’s an apple crate turned upright to look like a nightstand). I look outside for a sign of Lover Boy. I see grapefruit trees, plastic flamingos and tarped furniture. A wheelbarrow, too. No Lover Boy. The dark sky is bright, shaded misty gray by the distant stadium lights. I hear the hush of leaves and skin. It’s him. He emerges from the gap in the fence like I told him to because The Old Woman has a camera at the front door. He calls me beautiful. He asks if my name is really Mango. Of course it is. Lover Boy jumps up onto my bed. I try to do the same but I can’t feel my legs, and I fall. You’re bleeding, he says. I tell my tongue to say something but no words come out. My head wobbles down, connected to my neck like a Slinky. He’s right. A red drop made it to the surface. I wipe the blood with my thumb and lick it clean, smiling at Lover Boy. Lover Boy studies the way my boxerfabric clings to my crotch. A coin flip for him, one outcome luckier than the other, wondering if I’m more boy or girl. His hand glides under my waistband. My eyes would be shut but I notice a dead bee caught in his hair. Lover Boy seems happy. I can’t feel what he’s doing, the red slush of cough medicine in my stomach turning me ghost. He’s like a mime then. The cat watched from the floor and I wished she would leave but then she jumped on Lover Boy’s head and ate the dead bee. I tried to laugh, paralyzed below Lover Boy and the cat. The noise part of the laugh came a few seconds late, brain and body lagging still. Don’t go, Lover Boy.