He is off her and she gulps air. He hates the boys, their bare white skin, their whoops and their strange silence in the end, but they’re gone, so it’s only the girl beside him now, silent but for her gasping, and he hates that sound, and he hates her bright reflecting skin — he can’t see his own hand at the end of his own arm.

He wants her dressed, and she knows; she’s quick. He wants to leave her or be able to love her despite everything. But he can’t escape the smell of fear, strong as piss, rising from his skin. He can’t escape the rage, a shaking too deep to stop, blood quivering in the veins. He wants to weep, thinking of his mother in the morning, walking to this girl’s house.

There’s nothing to do but let the car burn. The sky’s gone green with clouds. If the storm comes soon enough, if the rain’s hard, these flames might flicker out.

They walk together partway and then alone. They do not touch or speak. They do not look over their shoulders. They do not look up and hope.

When he disappears, he disappears completely, moving across the field, silent and invisible as the black canal. She thinks he is gone forever. She leaves no door unlocked. But that night he comes again.

He’s green sky and wind. He swirls up from the south.

He’s the wind uprooting palms, pavement that seems to melt and flow, the drone of pumps. He’s three stones hitting the glass of her window, sharper than rain. He’s all sound.

She’s afraid of him but more afraid for him, his new recklessness and what would happen if her mother woke and made one call? What would anyone see here but a dark-skinned man at a white girl’s door? So she’s opening the window, letting the rain pour in — she’s speaking his name into the wind and he hears her — she’s moving down the stairs to open the door so carefully locked.

He’s inside, he’s there, filling the doorway, dripping, dark, his clothes drenched, his skin wet, his hair full of rain. Water flows from him, puddles on the floor; muddy rivulets stream across the tile, and Dora thinks of Estrelle on her hands and knees tomorrow, Estrelle not asking, not her business what the white people do in their own house, just her business to make it right when they stop.

She’s wearing a long T-shirt, her underpants. Nothing else. She’s cold. But it’s not cold. Her shaking is a spasm now, in her chest and knees. She leans against the door so she won’t fall. She says, Why are you here? He moves close and she smells his breath and body, the burn of adrenaline, the acid rising in his throat. He grabs her wrist, pulls up his wet shirt to press her palm to his stomach. Can you feel it? he says. He means the quivering, the blood jumping under the skin — he believes she’ll know. But she doesn’t know.

He says, I have to lie down.

She thinks he wants to hurt her still. His body’s hard against her — belly, hip, hand — hard. His fingers twist her hair and pull. She remembers the weight of him in the woods. He squeezes her bare arm, says again, I have to lie down. He says, I want this to stop.

He’s following her up the stairs. He’s leaving his muddy tracks through her house but he doesn’t care — it’s the last time, he’s not coming back. So what if the doors are chained and bolted after this, what if there are big-headed dogs in the yard after this, what if the girl is slapped and questioned till she spits out a lie or the ridiculous, unbelievable truth, what does he care?

In the blue room, on the blue bed, he strokes her body through the shirt; he strokes her bare thighs. She wants him to hate her. She wants him to do this and be gone — she wants to lie on the bed alone while the wind tears the palms out of the ground, while the rain blown sideways batters the house — she wants nothing left of him but the damp place where he lay in his wet clothes. She wants him not to kiss, not to touch her face, not to put his fingers in her mouth; she wants him not naked, only unzipped — quick, hard — she wants to hate him and be hurt and be done. She wants him not to speak ever again. She wants not to feel the short blades, not to hear the hiss of air, not to smell the vinyl melting on his skin.

But he is naked. He’s pulled the T-shirt over her head. He’s pulled the panties down to her ankles. She’s small in this room, in this bed, a child in this house, herself and not herself — she’s letting him touch her, everywhere — he’s inside her, everywhere, and it’s wrong, she knows, to want him and be this scared. She thinks of the grandfather down the hall, wide-eyed and helpless in his bed. She imagines he knows everything and wants to come but can’t come. She imagines him weeping, longing to put his big hands on the smooth gun. And the man in this bed is kissing her eyelids. His long fingers are in her mouth. She’s terrified, and he knows and he holds her head in both hands and he moves so slowly, and his lips are almost touching hers when he whispers, Baby, no, and she sees she’s herself again, not blurred with the boys on the road; she’s his lover, and that’s what breaks her and breaks him, because they see the muddy tracks through this house, because they can follow those footsteps back along a muddy road to a place where a gold car exploded hours ago and is burning still — it’s a fire the rain can’t put out.

He wants to go. He’s pulling on his wet clothes. She knows how it ends here. He won’t risk this again, for her. The boys in their bright skin will dance around this bed forever. The gold flames will rise forever from the road.

He’s his own footprints wiped from the stairs. He’s the rose-splattered bedspread washed and dried. He’s the faint outline only she can find.

But it’s not over.

It’s just begun.

Hard as he tries to go, there’s no way out of her. Not long now till she’ll know. First the swelling. Then the sickness and no blood. Actions have consequences. Your grandfather can’t say it now, but it doesn’t matter: you know who can’t help you, who can’t be called. And the consequence of no action is to understand what you’ll do alone.

It’s easy to steal what you need. You don’t ask yourself what’s right. You think of boys with sticks and Max in jail, how dangerous you are, rocks thrown at your window, a wet man who flows through you: first rain, then fire. You imagine your life forever in this house.

There’s cash in Lily’s purse, wads of it, uncounted — for Estrelle and the gardener, for any shy boy who might bring wine to the back door. You know how much to take each week for four weeks. You know how soon and where to go. Seven miles. It’s not that far. You ride your bike. You don’t think what you’ll do after. After is another country, a place you can’t know.

The woman at the desk counts your money, says, Age? squints when you say Eighteen but writes it down. She says, How will you get home? And Dora says her boyfriend will come; he’s got a car and all she has to do is call, and the woman Dora won’t remember says, That’s fine, but we can’t let you go till somebody comes, and Dora nods, of course, somebody will come.

There’s the finger to be pricked and one drop of blood. There’s a movie and a clever girl who shows you the pink model of your uterus, who explains what she calls the procedure. There’s the yellow pill to calm you and seven colored birds hanging from the ceiling, twisting on their strings over the table. There’s the clever girl in green scrubs now, offering two fingers for you to grip. She says, You can’t hurt me. And the doctor comes in his white mask. He’s a face you won’t know and don’t want to know, and he says, You’re a little one; he’s already between your legs, so you’re not sure what he means, but you can squeeze too hard, and the girl says, Let go. The sound is water in a vacuum. The paper birds spin. The curved blade is quick, and the doctor says, That’s all.