“Margie, come oooooover.” Lucy drawls on the other side of the phone, that green apple vodka weighing her words down and making them slide out of her mouth. I can picture her pillowy lips pressed to the edge of the lukewarm drink, her fruity breath fogging up the glass. The memories of her come spilling into my mind’s eye—Lucy on the tube flashing me with her shirt up, Lucy biting into a piece of gum and handing me the other half, Lucy with her hand down my pants behind that Chinese restaurant with the egg rolls that made her vomit.

A whole month off. I’d had a whole month off. And what had I done with it? Whittled down the time online, binge-watched reality TV, shoved Cheetos hand over fist into my mouth while lying prostrate on the couch. I only have two days left of laziness. And Lucy is calling me now? I’ve been sitting around jerking off and now she’s calling me, when I have 48 hours left of freedom? I think of her small hands, the way they find their mark every time, electricity coursing through my belly.

“You’re at home, Lucy?” I ask, plucking a loose Sour Patch kid off my pants as I sit up.

“Yes…having a…” She hiccups. “Party.”

I groan involuntarily. On principal, I avoid house parties entirely. There’s something quiet and sincerely cynical about me that people misinterpret as empathy, and I’m always getting sucked into inane conversations about lesbian breakups or rock climbing or someone’s dead mother. There’s nowhere to go, no bar to escape to for a much-needed drink, no far off basement bathroom, no space outside to smoke. Just an overcrowded kitchen with enough liquor to kill a small army and a lukewarm bottle of flat Coke.

But I’m bored, and I have work in a few days, and I miss Lucy’s small, cold hands. So I tell her I’ll head over. It takes me an hour to get ready. I shower with a glass of wine in my left hand and a razor in my right. It takes me a long time. I wish I cared more. These days I’m always wishing I cared more, but I can’t will myself to. I’m in some hazy stage of existence right now where I believe everything will be waiting for me, regardless of my timing. I’m old enough to know this isn’t all that true, and young enough to ignore it anyway.

I’ve been spending so much time alone in my flat that I narrate my activities out loud. Sometimes, I pretend I’m on a cooking show. I pretend I’m an influencer, and I make loads of cash for wearing a cropped t-shirt, being skinny, and eating peanut butter on a silver spoon. When I catch glimpses of myself in the mirror, I remember that I’ll never be an influencer. I’m far too normal-looking and gay in a below-average way. I still fuck guys. I don’t vote. I work a regular job. I don’t care about any revolutions. They never turn out quite right anyway.

When I get to Lucy’s door, it’s 12 AM. I am standing staring at the knocker and I know before I even go in that I’m not half as drunk as anyone there. It’s the price of getting invited to the party after its already started. I take a deep breath and twist the knob.

The music hits me first, blaring and jagged, and the acrid smell of too-many bodies packed into a too-small house—undertones of sweat, and piss, and vomit—all those eliminations and secretions lying underneath the blanket of cheap perfume and over-applied deodorant.

I look through the faces like a pack of cards, struggling to see individual features in the crush of bodies. I spot Lucy because of her oversized red glasses perched on top of her head. They aren’t real. She just thinks they make her look slutty. Her tongue is in the back of another girl’s throat, cleaning out her tonsils by the look of it. I turn to leave, not even an inch from the door handle, when someone grabs my wrist.

“Wait, you just got here.” A tall boy is standing on the stairs, his hair flopping over his eyes. It’s endearing because its so out of style. I wonder if his barber begs him to cut it shorter every time he goes. If I were his barber, I would.

“I don’t like house parties too much.” I pull my wrist back towards me and he lets go immediately, as if I’ve reprimanded him.

“Why’d you come? Lucy?” His eyebrows furrow.

“Yeah. But she looks a bit busy.” I nod over towards her and catch a glimpse of her hand sliding under the other girl’s shirt, caressing her underneath the thin damp fabric.

“Just have a drink. With me.” He offers me a bright smile—and I notice that two of his front teeth are missing. He leads me back into the kitchen, past the sorry table of bottom-shelf liquor and into the pantry. He roots around behind a pack of crisps and produces a dusty twist-top bottle of Merlot. “Voila.” I applaud lightly.

“Impressive. Do you live here?” I follow him outside, into a small concrete backyard.

“No, I just know where Lucy hides her wine.” He opens the wine and drinks from it directly before offering it to me.

“Fair play.” I take a long pull, wanting to catch up to the alcohol level of the environment, even though I know I should just go home. It’s quieter out here, and the air is clean, scentless. I exhale.

“What’s your name?”

“Margie. Margaret, for legal purposes.”

“Lovely. I’m John.” We awkwardly shake hands, something lightening between us as we laugh.

“Quite average, there, John.”

“A lot of things about me are quite average, I’ll have you know.” He winks and I roll my eyes.

“How’d you meet Lucy?”

“Uni.”

“Ah, old friends then.”

“Something like that.” I pull at my clothes, suddenly self conscious.

“What’s your job?” He asks, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and offering one to me. I accept.

“I’m an anthropologist. I study culture. I’m getting my doctorate.” I am still proud to say this, and I blow smoke into John’s eyes. He blinks.

“Oh, that sounds interesting. Is it hard work?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Do you have a thesis or something?” He lays on his side girlishly, as if we are at a sleepover. For a brief flash, I feel immense love for him.

“Mhm.”

“What’s it on?”

“The birth rate.”

“The birth rate?” He looks incredulous, as if we’re gossiping.

“The declining birth rate in the West. Fertility issues. Cultural changes. Female evolution.” I’m starting to feel the wine, pushing my shoulders down and expanding my chest.

“Female evolution?”

“Something like that.” I shrug, stubbing out my cigarette.

“I didn’t know it was going down.” He looks genuinely concerned, sucking at the burnt end without realizing it. He spits on the ground.

“It has been for a while. Look at all of us, we’re practically thirty and no one’s had one yet. When you ride the tube, how many prams do you see?”

“Sure, well—but…we have time, don’t we?” He sits up, suddenly quite serious.

“Maybe.”

“Well, men have more time, yeah? I’ll be alright.” His tone is begging, desperate.

“Kind of a myth, but mostly true. I mean, your sperm will get worse as you age. You’re not invincible.”

“Bit of a downer.” He mumbles, shaking a second cigarette into his hand.

“Do you want kids?”

“I don’t know.” His hair falls into his eyes and I’m briefly terrified he’ll catch fire as he leans in to light up.

“Well if you don’t know, the answer’s probably no.”

“I never thought about it that way.” He sounds dismissive, as if he doesn’t believe me. It’s true, it’s only a theory. I don’t really know what it feels like, to want them. To not want them. I don’t know myself.

“People tend to change their minds, though. Once its too late.” I am thinking about all of the interviews I’ve done, with all of those women in their late 40s, their wet faces and crumpled tissues. They didn’t know, in time, they always said. It was always the fault of time. Biology as a silent but cruel clock that they didn’t pay enough attention to.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll turn fifty and wish you had them. At least that’s what my thesis is about.”

“Jesus.”

“Regret is one of the most powerful emotions on the planet. It just has nowhere to go.” I’m drunk now, so I don’t know if this is genius or completely stupid. I contemplate writing it down. John is silent for a moment, lost somewhere in his mind.

“Why do people do that? Wait so long?” He asks me, his eyes clouded with an emotion I can’t identify.

“Mm, not sure. My thesis argues that its extended adolescence that contorts our modern understanding of youth, time, and fertility.” As I’m talking, John moves on to the next cigarette.

“Complicated stuff, there.” The smoke pours between his lips. I spot Lucy in the doorway, her red frames on.

“Yeah.” Lucy’s cold hand is grabbing mine and pulling me to standing. “It was nice meeting you, John.” He looks up, deep in concentration.

“Oh, right. Well, it was nice meeting you too, Margie. Good luck, then.” He waves halfheartedly, his face drawn closed in contemplation. He doesn’t move, sitting there hunched, smoking his third cigarette with those long fingers. Lucy’s hands are electrifying me, blocking all my other senses. I’m going deaf and blind. I’m hurtling towards her with the force of a meteor. We are upstairs in sheets that smell like her green apple sweat and I am lost in the weight of her on top of me. Time is a sea that I control. I am eternally there, with her, knuckle-deep in the moment.

Afterwards, when we’re lying there—me, half asleep—Lucy is still buzzing. “Don’t you love it, Margie?” She traces the outline of my eyebrows with her fingers.

“Love what?” I roll over to face her, opening my eyes to see her face pressed close to mine.

“Being alive!” She yells, startling me, and begins laughing hysterically.

“Come off it, Lucy.” I grumble, too exhausted to handle her euphoria. Dawn pokes its head through the curtain, casting Lucy in a deep shade of blue.

“I’m serious.” She gets calm, quiet. She brings her cerulean mouth close to mine. “Let’s do this forever. Me and you.” Its the most beautiful she’ll ever look to me. I said yes.

I think of that night often, these days. Those few hours where the world felt so wide and open to me. Lucy was still alive. My thesis was still capable of making an impact, I was still writing, I was hopeful that I could be successful, walk across stages and receive awards, travel to blue-skyed conferences and drink coffee in hotel lobbies where someone would recognize me and say: Are you the keynote? That was before everything became so normal, so straight-lined and simple. Lucy died of an overdose. I graduated. I got a job. I moved out of the city. I found other people difficult to love. Nobody ever knew my name. Nobody ever read my thesis. I didn’t think much of it, just knew that my life kept moving forward.

But yesterday, when I got my infertility notice, I thought of John. I thought about our conversation and the fear in his eyes, the sincerity. I decide I’ll look him up online, painstakingly finding him through Lucy’s memorial page. I laugh out loud. He has six kids, all gap-toothed and lanky, all that hair falling into their eyes. I must’ve made a difference somewhere. I laugh so hard that I choke. I laugh until it turns into a cry, something gutted and bruised climbing out of me through the force of my sobs. Something with small cold hands.

Some sort of emotion—with nowhere to go.