Animals Eat Each Other

looked inside, syrupy old soda crusted onto it, then sucked a line of powder into my nose. The middle of my face went harsh and dry and then burned softly as my sinuses expanded. I sniffed and waited for the emptiness to set in. I checked my phone again. It was four in the afternoon. Frankie might be making dinner right now, maybe Matt was silently fuming in the living room, if he was thinking of me at all. Sam would be at work. He hadn’t responded to my texts in days. I wondered where Jenny might be.

I had the next two days off, with enough pills and enough Robitussin to bliss out for a while.

I clicked out a message letter by letter, then stared at my phone for a few minutes, deciding whether or not I should send it out. Too fucked up to determine whether the message was vulnerable or embarrassing, I deleted and rewrote it a few times. Another bump of Vicodin melted into the membrane of my nose. I sat back and thought about it more. Decided, fuck it. I addressed the text to Jenny. Then, finally, hit send.

i need you, it read.

come over.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to Tom Spanbauer, Elizabeth Ellen, Amanda McNeil, Juliet Escoria, Rae Gouriand, Kirsten Larsen, Peter Derk, Kevin Meyer, Chelsea Laine Wells, Claire Vaye Watkins, and Asha Dore, without whom this book would not exist in its current form. To my co-editor at Witch Craft Magazine, Catch Business, who is the queen witch of proofreading. To my friends and family, who continue to support my writing even if they don’t always “get it.” Thank you to Jessica Martinez for being there through everything, to Bailey McKnight for the memories, and thank you to Kacy Dahl for being a bad Virgo bitch when I needed it most.

Lastly, thank you to my partner in life and crime, my husband.