You and Josie out back. You and Josie and Cynthia out back by the well, by the well you’re not supposed to go near or else. You and Josie and Cynthia with the knife, Corinne with her shut eyes swearing she’ll die if she doesn’t faint first. Corinne’s finger, fast slash, Tell me when it’s over. You don’t tell her that’s never over, that it’s over and over, the blood and the boys and their cratered faces, pale moons that rose and rose. You don’t tell her how they laughed at you, swore they’d toss you in the well if you told. You tell no one, not even Josie, not even when she cradles your face and slips you a little something she’s stolen from her mother’s medicine chest. You swear on the bible of sisterhood to her and to Cynthia and to closed-eyed Corinne, mix the blood of your fingers. The greasy feel of it, the oily love. You could love this. You could get to, you could.