By OLIVIA LAW
Somewhere at 7:43 on a Sunday morning, two girls have collapsed into a web of limbs on a twin sized bed. Their wrists, each marked with a college grade stick-and-poke pine tree, press against each other.
It was there, ten hours earlier, that the blonde girl had sat and sobbed into the pillow— let the red-haired one stroke her hair. “I just don’t know what the fuck I’m doing” she said, “I didn’t even like the guy.”
“It’s alright” whispered the red-haired one, pulling out paper towel tissues from the bathroom. When blonde hair settled calmly in her lap, tears began to streak and stain her denim leg.
“Guys are temporary,” the red-haired girl said. “But this —” she laughed as she raised her wrist up “is forever.”
They had been here before. When the tears have dried, the blonde girl turns on a hot pink plastic speaker.
“Please Sadie,” she said. “Please let me do your makeup.”
And so the red-haired girl lies down, holding her breath as the blonde one reaches over her — traces pigment across her eyelid. Eyes shut, the red-haired one feels the blonde girl’s breath warm and slowing on her face. “Your eyes are so pretty” The red-haired girl hears and opens her eyes to reply:
“Thank you.” Her cheeks flush to match her hair. Her voice was softer and more revealing than she’d hoped.
When the girls finish tying their boots, they run out onto the sidewall. The blonde girl leads the way, holding hands in the streetlight; their evergreen etched wrists almost touch.
The house is pulsing with music, the floor adorned with silver beer cans. Green and purple lights strobe abstract patterns on the ceilings. The red-haired girl escapes into the bathroom. The blonde girl fades into the crowd. An hour has passed.
“Jesus Christ Lena” the red-haired girl says, reaching her hand down to the blonde girl stumbling against the beer-stained carpet. “What happened to you?”
“Him— Jake, he happened to me” The blonde girl says, inebriated, barely making sense as her words blur. “You” She pulls herself upwards. She draws her face closer to the red-haired girl. “You.”
The red-haired girl doesn’t respond, instead, she brushes blonde hair out of the face shining back at her, notices the smudge of her green eyeshadow and directs her to the water fountain. They leave the party, palm and palm.
There is a silence they hold as they return to the dorm — weary as they open the door slowly, collapse onto the comforter.
“Forever,” The red-haired one whispers, watching as the blonde girl’s eyes fall close — holding her hand in the darkness.
Writer | Olivia Law ’27 | olaw27@amherst.edu
Editor | Hadley Hunt ’27 | hhunt27@amherst.edu