“Oprah invited you for tea.”

“Again?” I roll down my waistband. “That’s four invites this month.” 

Kendra places the syringe horizontal between her teeth so her hands are free to heat the cooker. “Five if you count Montecito.” She takes the syringe out of her mouth and digs around my groin for a vein. “Stop wriggling, Liv.” I go still, and she injects.

The pleasure-rush pours over me like hot honey. “Tell Oprah no.”

“What’s your excuse this time?” She strokes my cheek.

I draw her hand to my mouth and kiss her fingertips. “I have to prioritize tennis with Venus Williams.”

“Of course,” she says. “How could I forget your date with Venus?”

It’s a game we played. She made-believe I was someone important, and I made-believe we weren’t junkies. The last time I saw Kendra was the night she dropped me on a curb in front of a rehab clinic deep inside of Queens, New York. New Beginnings. So why did it feel like my life was looped; every day a copy of the one before?

###

Between the morning I crawled off that gurney and now, there are eight months of sobriety and savings. Enough for a deposit and first month’s rent on a studio apartment. My face is no longer skeletal. My chips are lined up like tin soldiers on my just-for-looks fireplace mantle. Dating anyone isn’t top or bottom of mind. But Kendra isn’t anyone.

I’m avoiding her, and she knows it. So I’m surprised when I get a normal-sounding message from her. Like I never went blue on her bedroom floor. Like the last time she touched me wasn’t to blast narcan up my nose. She doesn’t talk about using, but she doesn’t talk about not using, either.

Then last night she’s in my DMs. Come out with me, Liv. One dance. One.

Some other time.

I think the conversation was over. What more is there to say? But she keeps it up.

Does that mean you’re staying in for another birthday?

I’d completely forgotten. I was turning twenty-eight on Sunday. I have plans.

Liv. You have no plans.

I wait for a clever response to come; it doesn’t. I don’t like to make birthdays into a big thing.

Which is why we’re going to make it into a small thing and binge watch crap TV and eat too many carbs. See you Sunday.

###

On my last birthday, Kendra and I biked the metal-slatted bridge to Roosevelt Island. Our tires went fwap fwap fwap in the rain. We saw straight down to the East River foaming underneath. Soon, we were biking on a sheet of ice–our tires skidding out of control and us wrangling them in. Kendra and I were the only two out there, our sports bras soaked through while we squealed and kissed like some cliché montage.

There’s a perfume, like wine turned to vinegar, then she steps into my place. Did I leave the door unlocked? Well, her taking liberties is nothing new. 

“You’re here,” I say, but she blazes right through me. Why is it called the road to recovery? Nothing about this felt linear. Seeing her again. I was going in circles.

“Oh,” she says and does an easy 360, taking in the high-ceilings and new furniture. As she turns, her skirt drifts up. “Oh, oh,” she says. At least she’s wearing underwear. I can’t get a good look at her pupils. Are they pinned to the back of her head?

She drops her purse and strokes a tiny cactus. “It’s very you.”

“It is.” I pick up her purse. My hand hovers on its zipper pull. For a moment, I’m overcome with hunger. What’s inside doesn’t matter, I decide. I decide twice. I drop the purse and press my palm into the crook of my elbow.

She plops on my couch and tucks her feet under her like a cat. Her energy is leaching into the place, and I wasn’t sure I liked that.

“You want popcorn?” I ask.

“Is that even a question?”

I toss a bag in the microwave and read the shit I taped on my fridge.

grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot—

“Liv?”

There’s a pop, and I startle. The kernels are going off. I turn around. “Yeah?”

She fingers a pink lighter. “Ready to make some bad decisions?” 

I cut my eyes at her. “What?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” She waves at a round, rainbow cake that has magically appeared on the coffee table. There’s even a candle in it. “Eat cake with reckless abandon, binge watch desperate people doing stupid things. You know, bad decisions.”

“Carbs, right,” I say. “Sure. Thanks for the cake.”

She was being sweet but something was off. I hoped seeing her again would be more…what? Joy-soaked? Like it used to be?

Again, that craving. I’m sweating with want for the rush, the pleasure waves. I go into my bathroom and splash water on my face. My sponsor said this would be hard. That in my head Kendra and smack were tethered.

When I step out, the lights are off and the candle is lit. “Nope, no birthday song. Small thing. You promised.”

“No song,” she says. “Just blow out the flame.”

So I blow it out, and we bite into red velvet with pink cream filling.

Kendra tugs on her hair. “I got a call this morning.”

“Oh?” I respond before I can stop myself.

“The President,” she says.

My eyes fill, so I squeeze them shut. “What did he say?”

“He said he was tired of you dodging him, so he booked you a flight on Air Force One. It’ll be just the two of you–30,000 feet in the air.”

I pretend to consider my options. “Just the two of us?”

After a beat, she says, “Yeah, just the two of us.”

I reach for her then. To hell with the no relationships rule. But my arms pass through nothing. I open my eyes. No Kendra. Of course she left when I made a move. I’m so stupid. The cake with the candle is gone, too. No lingering red velvet taste in my mouth, even. It’s like she was never here.

She needs to know that she can’t keep doing this to me. I punch out the bitter message but, before I send, I drop my phone face down on the couch. It slips over the corduroy curve and disappears, eaten by the cushion.

Why do I do this to myself?

But I know why.

It’s our game.

Kendra makes believe I’m someone important, and I make believe she’s alive.