six
The cherries were warm. I liked them that way—soft and a little bruised from the sun spilling in through my window, sugar rising to the skin like sweat.
I picked one from the bowl balanced on my stomach and bit into it lazily, juice slicking my fingers.
My fan hummed in the corner, too weak to cut through the thick June heat, but enough to stir the hem of the oversized t-shirt clinging to my thigh.
On my screen, Samantha sat cross-legged on her couch, knees up and bare, laptop tilted at just the right angle to catch the soft glow of her fairy lights. She was doing that thing where she twisted her hair into a puff and then let it fall again, like her thoughts were too loud to sit still.
"Girl, you're not even listening," she said, squinting at me. "I can see it in your face—you're off somewhere weird."
"I'm not," I murmured, popping the cherry pit into my mouth and spitting it into the empty teacup on my nightstand. "I just didn't think anyone could talk about a professor's haircut for ten whole minutes."
"It was an asymmetrical bob! You know how hard it is to pull that off with a strong jawline."
I smirked, licking juice off my knuckle. "Chat I met her with a bob and all of a sudden she hates bobs."
My room was quiet except for the fan, the occasional car rolling past outside, and Samantha's voice filling the space like background music.
The sheets beneath me were crumpled, my cheetah print duvet half on the floor, my leg hooked over the side of the bed like I was trying to cool off through osmosis.
I hadn't put on pants all day—just stayed in a t-shirt I feel like I've always had, threadbare and falling off one shoulder.
My toe acrylic was still chipped from the last night I danced.
I glanced around—my windowsill cluttered with old candles and a dead lighter, my dresser half-open with a sock hanging out, a necklace tangled in the drawer handle like it gave up halfway through being worn. The bowl of cherries was the only intentional thing in the whole room.
"I declared my graduation for next May," Samantha said, pushing her laptop back to stretch. "Can you believe that? The finish line is almost here."
I smiled, eyes on the ceiling now, watching how the light moved in patterns across the plaster. "I can believe it. You'll be a good nurse."
"And you'll be a good—?" She let the sentence dangle like a dare, eyebrow raised.
I tossed a cherry pit at my laundry basket and missed. "We're not doing that right now."
"We are always doing that. You just hate the question."
"I don't hate it. I just..." I paused. The fan caught my hair and moved it across my cheek like a whisper. "I don't know how to answer it yet."
Samantha didn't say anything for a second, which told me she understood. Or at least, that she wasn't going to press it. That was one of the things I missed the most—how we could leave space between us and not rush to fill it.
"I'm just saying," she said finally, softer now, "you don't have to know. But maybe you should start looking."
I swallowed another cherry whole and nodded, not at her, but at the ceiling, as if it could confirm something for me.
"To be completely truthful, S. I don't know what I'm good at."
"What about hair? You love doing hair maybe that could be something."
I looked at the screen and smiled. Sam's voice was always soft, always kind. And from the way she said it, I could tell she really meant it. She was the only person I could say—without hesitation—truly wanted the best for me
"Hair's no different from dancing," I said, rolling onto my stomach, chin sinking into the bend of my elbow.
"Yeah, sure, I love it. I'm decent at it. But that shit's not stable either. There's always someone new—prettier, faster, with a bigger following, charging less, doing more. Just like at the club. Every week there's a fresh face trying to figure out how to walk in heels and get rich quick.
We're all temporary."
Sam let out a long, low breath. "I hear you."
Silence stretched between us. Not awkward. Just... full.
I watched the way the light on my ceiling flickered—bouncing off cars, maybe, or passing clouds. I felt the cherry bowl slipping slowly off my back and caught it with one hand before it crashed. A pit rolled down my side and hit the bedspread with a soft thunk.
"You ever feel like you're behind?" I asked.
"All the time."
"Like everybody else got the manual on how to be an adult. And I'm just flipping through blank pages."
"Every day."
Her voice was soft again, almost like she was talking to herself. I turned back toward the screen. Her face looked tired, but in that good kind of way—like she'd been working toward something that mattered. I envied that.
"I don't wanna be stuck here," I said before I could talk myself out of it. "Not Philly, not dancing, not this... halfway place I'm in all the time."
Sam nodded. "You won't be."
"How do you know?"
"Because you said it out loud. That's the first step."
I didn't respond. I just nodded again, the way people do when they want to believe something but aren't quite there yet.
Somewhere outside, a car horn blared. My fan clicked as it turned, the metal blades shifting like they were tired of spinning. I reached for another cherry but realized the bowl was almost empty.
"When you graduate," I said, "don't forget about me."
She laughed. "Please. You think I'm gonna let you go that easy?"
I smiled. "Didn't say I'd make it easy."
"You never do."
And just like that, the air felt lighter again.
"I should go," Samantha said, stifling a yawn. "Gotta be up at six."
I pouted. "Tragic."
"Text me if anything happens tonight."
"Nothing ever does."
"Still."
We stayed on for another few seconds, neither of us wanting to hang up first, both pretending we weren't doing exactly that. Then she gave me a sleepy smile and waved, and the screen went black.
I sighed into the quiet, the bowl wobbling on my stomach as I sat up. There were cherry stems and pits everywhere, sticky juice dried on my fingers. I carried the bowl and teacup to the kitchen, rinsed them under the weak pressure of the faucet, then let them clatter into the dish rack.
Back in my room, I scratched at the base of my neck, my fingers catching on the chain of the necklace I never took off.
A thin silver locket, oval-shaped, dulled at the edges from years of wear.
It was one of the only things I grabbed when my mom kicked me out—this, and five pieces of clothing shoved into a grocery bag. That's all I left with.
I pulled it out from under my shirt, let it rest on my chest.
It had never been inside the club. I made sure of that. Somehow, it felt like he'd know. Like if I wore it in that room—under those lights, in those clothes, with those eyes on me—he'd see me. And not in the good way.
I ran my thumb over the locket's edge, then pushed the window up. The frame stuck a little before giving way with a groan. The city breathed in—warm and damp and full of things that didn't belong to me.
I perched on the windowsill and lit a blunt I pulled from the nightstand, cupping the end to keep the flame steady. The first hit settled deep in my chest, like it wanted to live there. I held it for a beat longer than usual, like maybe I could pause the night too.
Outside, people laughed on the sidewalk. A dog barked from somewhere down the block. Somewhere, a life was happening. I just wasn't in it.
I took another drag and reached for my phone, thumb swiping through the usual apps without really looking. My inbox was dry. No texts. No plans.
I opened Tinder.
The glow of it made me feel weird—numb and hyperaware all at once. A thumb, a swipe, a yes, a no. Everyone trying to be wanted. Everyone performing.
He looked too young. Swipe. He had a fish. Swipe. This one looked like he'd call me "mami" in a way that made me roll my eyes but still say yes. Pause. Swipe.
I wasn't even horny, not really. Just... tired. Of being by myself. Of needing something and not knowing what exactly. Of waiting for something to happen.
There was a time I used to think casual meant control. That giving my body away was something I decided, a power I held. But lately, it just felt like keeping the loneliness at arm's length. A night here. A body there. Then nothing.
I stopped scrolling. Let the screen dim and fade.
Then I pulled my knees to my chest, blunt smoldering between my fingers, locket cool against my collarbone.
I didn't want love. I just didn't want to feel invisible anymore.
I tapped ash against the edge of the windowsill, watched it scatter like dust over the fire escape. My legs were starting to ache from being folded up so long, but I didn't move. The breeze was sticky and slow, more like breath than wind. I let it graze my skin.
Somewhere below, a car door slammed. Two people laughed, the kind of laugh you can only get from being drunk or in love. I wasn't sure which was worse.
My phone buzzed once—some promo from a food delivery app I never deleted. I stared at it for a second, then let it face down on the floor.
It was nights like this that made everything feel too quiet. Like my life wasn't moving forward, just looping in place. The club, the afterhours, the pretending. The girls who came and went. The small talk with strangers. The hustle that never really turned into anything more.
I used to tell myself I was stacking money until I figured it out. But lately, I wasn't even sure what "figuring it out" looked like. I didn't have a dream job. I didn't have a blueprint.
I took another drag and stared at the skyline in the distance. Not the kind of skyline they put on postcards—just rows of rooftops and flickering porch lights. The city felt different at this hour. Like it knew all your secrets and just didn't care.
I scrolled through Instagram seeing a new post from one of the baby dancers—Mickey.
I liked the picture before closing the app and locked my screen.
I thought about calling Samantha again, but it felt unfair. She had real things to wake up for in the morning. I had the night.
The blunt was burning low. I pinched it out and dropped the roach into an old mug I used as an ashtray. Then I sat there for a while longer, just letting the night wrap around me, soft and slow.
Sometimes, I wished I believed in God. Or something like Him. Something that made the aching mean something. But the only thing I believed in was survival. And even that was starting to feel like a maybe.
I rubbed the locket between my fingers.
"You watching me, old man?" I whispered, barely loud enough for the air to carry it.
And then I laughed—dry, quiet, a little mean.
I wondered what my dad looked like if he was still here. I hated that If I didn't have this locket still I probably would've forgotten what he looked like.