In the passenger seat of your car my fingers were flayed against the dashboard, I studied the ridges in my skin and the calluses of my hand, the burning and the toil. You read notebook pages, they smeared over your knees like sunscreen, all curdling and acidic and sweet. You were dating this boy and I was dating his friend but I think now that the whole time I had wanted us to ruin each other instead of them. As you read my words spread out over the tips of your fingers. I wanted them to cradle your hands like I wanted to cradle your’s, catching each other’s gaze through burnt eyelashes, summer scathing past the sides of our faces, a healing bruise the color of blood and boiling oil. My parents always tracked when he would come to my house and when he would leave and where he was going to college and what he liked to do but we’d always been invisible. Or maybe we would have been if you were less beautiful. I’d never been a religious person but sometimes I would dream about you being in church, devoted, your face twined in believing. I would want to see you pray just so I could watch you want something. I’d imagine you holding an apple, picture it on the dashboard, us sitting together long enough to watch it rot, feeling for and against the sickly sweet in the air. As you read, you laughed, you said, of course I’d named the character Eve. I’d forgotten, but two nights before, when we’d faced each other in bed sheets like intertwined manicured hands, I’d told some romantic rendition of Eve’s creation, the ribs, Eve’s extra one. I imagined that compass of cartilage and sharp edges as a mold against soft, a sculpture, like the curve of your face where I could see the corner of your lip, the place your boyfriend had left a bruise. I told you once that I was sure Eve could feel the extra bone, the lack of hollow, all boys didn’t have. You told me I was only fascinated by the Bible because I loved stories about doom. And maybe I did. Because in a month I’d never talk to you again. I’d choke on feelings that tasted like rot, feelings that felt like violence in the palm of my hand, feelings that would make me think that if I didn’t reach for you my ribs would unwind, choke me, shatter skin. Like the makeup flaking off the side of your face. Like the flesh at the bruise at my knee. Like the crisp of the apple I’d imagine the tips of your fingers shuddering into. But in the car we just smiled. You just folded up the pages. My hands softened against the fabric at my waist, I counted my ribs. You told me you were going to head home. I didn’t stop you. Every day I wish I had.