It was the day after my best friend committed suicide.” My brother hangs on the front steps with Kaui’s boyfriend Andy and Andy tells him not to do heroin. I was wearing my mother’s skirt…” “I was fifteen, she was nineteen. “He put his hand between my legs at the movie theater. Everybody has an MFA so every story has a small inappropriate observation. Jackets are piled on the bed in the bedroom and people are laying on them or on the floor telling stories about losing their virginity. The house is filled with poets and short story writers. “He’s a little young to be drinking, isn’t he?” Claire asks. Bosco grabs two beers from the fridge and hands me one. We go to a party for people from the university. I just flew into San Francisco two hours earlier. And I’m realizing I’ve made a terrible mistake. We’re in a cab returning from the airport. He’s wearing pajama bottoms and my father’s green bomber jacket. He’s fourteen years old now, almost my height, 5′ 8″, creamy white skin, and a small, German nose from my stepmother’s side of the family. “Are you a masochist?” It’s the first thing Bosco asks me.
