.

not going to even get high,” Tommy said, pressing his index finger into my chest. “You’ll puss out. When it comes to it, you’ll start rubbing on your six-month coin and then you’ll run to a goddamn meeting and everyone there will say you saved yourself when you ran away from me.”

      I slapped Tommy’s finger away from my chest, but he grabbed onto my forearm. I twisted it away, but then Tommy dropped down and hooked my leg. As we wrestled, I tried to slide my arm around to the back of Tommy’s neck to knock him out, but he smacked my hand away. He shoved me down on the front lawn and tried to jump on top of me, but I stuck my foot out and kicked him square in the gut. Tommy reeled back against the truck and stood there for a second catching his breath. As he stood there, a large paw rose up from the payload and slashed across his jacket. Tommy fell forward and I watched as the tiger leapt from the truck and onto Tommy’s back. Tommy started screaming and I ran toward him and smacked the tiger in the ribs with the shovel. The tiger was stunned for a second and he rolled off Tommy. But then he charged at me. I dropped the shovel and ran, but he snagged my pant leg with his paws. I kicked at his face, but then he got a hold of my other leg. The tiger began to reel me toward his mouth.

      “Knock him out!” I yelled to Tommy, “Knock him out!” But Tommy was gone, running down the block, not looking back.

      The tiger pulled me closer, clawing its way up my body. I thought I was done for, but then the motion lights on my front porch kicked on and the entire yard lit up and then there was my father striding toward me, holding up his compound bow, and then ffffffftttt, one into the tiger’s chest, and then ffffffftttt, one splitting the tiger’s forehead, and then fffffffftttt, one last arrow into my thigh, deep, deep inside there, so I would never forget.

       SOMEDAY ALL OF THIS WILL PROBABLY BE YOURS

      My boyfriend, Atomic, is speed dating.

      A bell rings, he moves on to another woman.

      It’s a Mexican restaurant and I’m stuck outside. I press my face against the window and see Atomic sitting in a high-backed chair across from a blonde woman sipping a margarita. He’s already beautiful, but we took twenty-five bucks and got him a haircut, just in case. We went over to Men’s Wearhouse and shoplifted a shirt and a tie. He took out his nose ring and slid it into my ear.

      “It’s an investment,” he told me before he walked inside. “This night is an investment in us.”

      The bell rings again and Atomic slides over to another table, gives a big smile to a mousy-looking brunette.

      “Should I call myself William?” he asked me. “Or is Willem sexier?”

      I stand out in the cold. My name is still my name. I still look how I look. I still love Atomic the most of anyone I’ve ever loved.

      “Wait right here,” Atomic said. “This won’t take long.”

      I try to wait, but like always I’m no good at it. I rewrap my coat around my body and then do it again because it doesn’t feel right. I button and rebutton the buttons, but that doesn’t work. My coat feels crooked and even though it is freezing out, I take it off and put it back on, over and over, until it feels exactly right.

      I wipe the fog of my breath away from the window. I try to figure out which lonely woman Atomic will go home with, which woman he is going to tie up and not untie until she gives him her PIN number.

      “If you don’t fuck everything up,” Atomic told me before he went inside, “this plan will work great.”

      Another bell rings. Atomic grins at a woman with horse teeth. A bus passes and shields me from the wind for a few seconds. A show has just let out at the movie theatre down the block and I watch everyone sprint to their cars. I lean into the building, hope for a little heat to leak out of the bricks.

      Sometimes at parties or at the bar, people ask Atomic and I how we met.

      “We were high school sweethearts,” he’ll lie.

      “We worked at a mystery dinner theatre together,” he’ll say.

      “She saved me from drowning,” he’ll tell them.

      Atomic’s a good liar. He’s funny, he’s charming. He has kissable lips, good teeth. He knows that everyone would rather hear something interesting than something true.

      Here’s how we actually met: A year ago I got pissed off at my last boyfriend and I got on a Greyhound bus. When I got off, Atomic was standing in front of a building hitting a pickle bucket with some drumsticks.

      He said, “Hey you, come here,” to me.

      And that’s what I did.

      I can’t wait any longer, so I don’t. I walk inside the bar and find a table with some nametags on it. I take one that says “Ms. Rita Johnstone” and peel off the backing. I slap it on my shirt above my tit.

      The bell rings again and instead of looking around like I’m lost, I sit down across the table from a man with a nametag that says “Stephen.” He’s wearing a navy-blue sweater. His skin has a grayish tint, the color of canned meat.

      “I’m Rita,” I say. “Sorry I’m late.”

      I read somewhere that if you say something over and over again enough times to yourself you will begin to believe it. Other people have told me this is true, that if you repeat something enough your brain will finally just give up and make whatever you keep repeating your new reality.

      “Yep,” I tell Stephen. “I’m Rita, Rita, Rita.”

      Even though it is the middle of winter, Stephen’s sweating. Beads of sweat form under his wispy hair and he wipes them off with his sleeve. The sweat immediately forms again. This time he takes a paper napkin and dabs it away. Unfortunately the napkin is maroon and it leaves a burgundy stain on his forehead.

      “I work in the restaurant supply business,” he tells me. “I can get you stuff at cost.”

      “Wow,” I say. “What stuff?”

      I’ve decided to say everything in this little girl voice, high and squeaky. I notice there are little pockets of spit forming in the corners of Stephen’s mouth.

      “Industrial mixers, pots and pans,” he says. “Professional ovens, pastry racks, ramekins.”

      “That’s incredible,” I tell him.

      “What do you do?” he asks.

      I tell him I’m a pediatric nurse, even though I really work part-time at a sandwich shop. I make up a sick child for my lie too, a boy named Eric who has bad lungs. I tell Stephen all about Eric, how each breath he takes is a struggle, how inspirational he is to everyone in the ward. I tell him how Eric drew a picture of me with angel wings and how I framed it and hung it right above my bed so that each morning I’ll see it and remember how precious life really is.

      “You sound like a saint,” Stephen says.

      “Part saint,” I say, “and part sinner.” I wink at Stephen as I say the word “sinner” and he nearly chokes on his drink.

      The bell rings again and Atomic sits down next to a woman with a dark-brown bob who has a ring on each of her fingers. I flop down in front of a man named Graham. Graham is skinny and bald, with a crooked nose. He tells me he works as an urban planner. He says he has a condo with a view of the river. He takes a cloth from his pocket and wipes off his glasses and I take a tortilla chip from the basket in front of me and put it in my mouth and crunch down.

      “Do you like my mouth?” I ask him. “Some people have told me they really like my mouth. Some people say that it’s the best part of me.”

      “It’s a good mouth,” Graham says.

      Someone