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about me, or some unusual talent.” She shrugged. “I’m game for random Qs.”

“I’ve got one,” said Ruben. “How did you get that posture? It’s like, android straight, with your heels close and feet pointed out. You do it a lot when you’re thinking. I mean, I like it—not like it like it. It’s just, you know, different—”

“ You’re different.”

Ruben’s brown ears went burgundy, betraying him yet again.

A few months ago John was minding his own business. Now he was craving Krispy Kremes with these two. His... friends?

“Since we’re doing personal questions,” Persephone said to Ruben, “the robe?”

“Robe?” Ruben asked.

“Long, silk. Beautifully tasseled. The one you’re not wearing now only because, I’m guessing, you’re at work.”

“Dude, I don’t wear it that much.”

Persephone leaned forward. “What’s the story?”

“The story is that it’s at home.” Ruben smiled at his poor deflection.

Persephone whipped out an imaginary notepad. “I’ve been around enough journalists to know there’s more to it than that.”

“If they’d let me wear it to work,” Ruben said, shifting, “I bet the donuts would taste even better.”

Persephone mimed scribbling. “So it’s got magical powers.”

Ruben shifted again before turning away. “Hey, Anna, you want to come grab a donut, before you buff away that last layer of

countertop?”

Anna, blushing, walked over to grab a donut before hip-checking Ruben on her way to the kitchen.

Persephone smirked. “OK, we can change the subject if you want.”

Ruben turned to John and his smile faltered. “Hey, what’s up?” John shook his head, and Ruben said to Persephone, “I don’t

know if you’ve noticed, but your boyfriend is a chronic oversharer.”

She turned to John. “You do look grumpy. More than usual, I mean.”

John didn’t know how to feel or what to hope for regarding Ruben and Persephone, regarding the donut.

Did he want to be capable of biting into it?

There were no other patrons in the shop, the photographers had disappeared, and Ruben’s coworker was in the kitchen; no one would see.

But if he managed it, would biting into the donut be thanks to his proximity to Persephone?

And what would that mean for his future—How? Where? What?

“Go on, dude, try it,” Ruben whispered. “No one’s around.”

John stared down at the donut. Circular. No beginning, no end. Weightless. Like life. It smelled glorious. And to taste, didn’t

he remember how wonderful that was? John reached forward.

They all three froze. Stared.

John held the donut, not even an inch above the tray. The thin glaze cracked beneath his fingertips.

John gazed at the broken bits of glaze and thought of life’s imperfections, things he’d forgotten about when he’d been in

the Grey House. He ran a fingertip over the curve of the donut. How had life circled him back to this world, with them? Was

it by design? A part of him wanted to believe. No, he needed to believe it. Because food was pleasurable and nourishing and

good, and even if he couldn’t literally digest it, if he could imbibe it, what purpose would there be but pleasure? And if

he were capable of this very human pleasure, didn’t it mean that something, possibly someone, was watching all of this, had

known all this would happen—his ousting, his search? Surely it wasn’t a stretch to believe then that things would work out

so that he could return home? Hope, hope, hope. No matter how he tried, he just couldn’t quit it.

He brought the donut to his mouth, felt the fluffy dough compress between his lips and his fingers.

The bite of sugar, overpoweringly sweet .

It was wondrous and it was frightening. He supposed he never wanted to give this world a chance, but... donuts... He

took three bites more before placing the donut gently onto the tray. He didn’t look up, didn’t dare communicate with his eyes

whatever hope and fear might lie there. He stared down at the donut as a declarative resounded through his mind:

Because of her. Because of her.

9

Persephone sat on her patio, stomach in knots, staring into the thick foliage beyond the guesthouse, frightened yet drawn

to the dark, moonlit ivy. From the corner of her eye, her phone sat facedown, lighting up the surface of the garden table.

It was the third time today, and Persephone felt cornered in her own home. Parker had called earlier, when she was in Trader

Joe’s, and she scanned the aisles around her with the wild thought that he had somehow made it to LA and was hiding behind

boxes of gluten-free cereal, watching her ignore his call.

She tried to quell her panic. Things were finally beginning to come together, and she needed her career—her life—to lock in

before things changed too much with John. Because certainly things were changing. Every day, she was terrified that this was

when John would realize he didn’t need her anymore. She ran her hands down her thighs in a vain attempt to dull the prickly

sensation, her fingers itchy with the Urge. Grabbing the thing that called for her made the tension slide from her muscles,

her bones, and it was hard to break the habit when she first arrived in LA, but she did, one Urge at a time, because the alternative

was being caught and setting fire to her career prospects. Not that it was easy. She’d walk into Wilshire Beauty Supply or

Rite Aid with every intention of just taking a look, but the rejections she’d experienced the past week or month would bear

down and it was like being forced underwater until her lungs burned and really she was just stretching an arm up, reaching

out with a splayed hand for something that might save her.

The first time was in eighth grade, when she got two Ds on her report card and she was trying to figure out a way to break

it to Mama. Right after she lifted her first Wet n Wild lip gloss from Target, she sprinted home, hip still hurting like hell,

her heart pounding as she thought, This is what it’s like to be on speed.

She hurtled up the trailer steps and into her and Parker’s shared bedroom and leaned against the door.

For those few moments in the store, she’d forgotten what it was to be stupid, messed-up, Could’ve Been Persephone.

She flopped onto her pink and green bedspread and turned over the iridescent lip gloss.

What happened in the store was maybe one of the realest things that had happened to her since she stopped dancing, and she wanted to live in that feeling.

But already she was just herself again.

And now she sat in the darkness, watching her old life crash into her new one.

10

Two days later, the Esquire shoot and Q eager, scared to death, ready to be molded. The woman fixed a shoulder here, a foot there,

lifted a girl’s leg and pointed to her toes while making some note to the class. Stern-faced but pleasant. There was something

pure about what was happening in that room. Life hadn’t gotten its hands on their dreams yet so there was only possibility,

undiluted desire. Persephone remembered what it was to feel that, even if most of the time she wished she didn’t.

Whatever was happening to John right now—becoming more real? becoming almost alive?—she felt like a jerk for feeling less than glad about it, but maybe she could be happy for him if it didn’t mean saying goodbye to yet another dream, and the only one she had left, at that.

Her phone rang, and when she saw the screen her body clenched. “Parker,” she whispered into the night.

It went silent before lighting up again, this time with a text: In big trouble. Pls come home.