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to be going out, just the two of us. Usually it’s always Kelly jammed in the middle of us, the filling between two pieces of bread. Except when I really need her, that is. Nicole is just one of those people who likes to help others out, who likes to try and solve everybody’s problems, including mine.
    She’s coming over because we’re supposed to be planning a welcome-home party for Kelly, who’s been away all summer at her father’s in California, but will be home in a few weeks. It was my idea to throw a party. I thought we could go to Celebrations to plan out what to buy, go back to her house for a swim, and then somewhere along the line she could finally do it.
    I wonder if she might be tied up working at the hospital. Some old geezer she delivered flowers to on her shift might have her trapped, chatting about how the good old days are now gone, gone, gone.
    I finger through the individual pins, reminiscing over each one. My ex-boyfriend James cut me twice. Once on my lower back, while we were dating, so he could tag me. The other time it was on my shoulder, just as we were breaking up, because he wanted to leave his mark.
    Then there’s Mimi from Dunkies. We used to hang out all the time when I worked there two months ago, even though Kelly always called her a ho-bag. Cutting me didn’t faze her one bit—she had burned a four-inch Celtic knot into her own upper arm—so it was really no big deal for either one of us. She didn’t so much as blink out of sequence when I told her I wanted it on my chest, right over my heart. She just did it. Sort of a waste of a pin.
    Jessie, the papergirl, was one of the first people to cut me. It was almost a year ago. She used to try and throw the rolled-up Salem News toward our front steps to avoid coming up to the door. On collection day, though, she had no choice.
    “Is it that time already?” I asked as I opened the door. She just nodded and looked down at her moccasins. “Now, let me see here.” I reached deep into my Levi’s, pretending to scrounge for a couple bucks. “I don’t think I have any money. Do you have any?”
    She didn’t answer, just kept looking down at those ridiculous beads, threaded together at the toe of her shoe in the form of an orange Indian with blue jeans.
    “You’re scared of me, aren’t you, Jessie?”
    She shook her head.
    “I don’t want you to be scared of me. I just want to be your friend. Do you want that, too?”
    She shook her head again, mouthed a tiny no.
    “That’s sad, you know that? That really hurts my feelings.”
    She shrugged.
    “So, what do you want?” I asked.
    “I want you to leave me alone.”
    “Fair enough. I’ll leave you alone. But you have to do something for me first.” She finally looked up at me as I pulled the safety pin out of my pocket. “I want you to cut me. Right here.” I pointed toward my forearm.
    “What?” she cracked out—the loudest I’d ever heard her voice. “What’s wrong with you?”
    “It’s not going to kill me or anything. I’m just doing this experiment.”
    She crinkled her eyebrows together and made a sour face. “You’re crazy!”
    To that, I grabbed at the front of her pants and pried the roll of ones and fives from her pocket. “I bet you want to cut me now.”
    “Give it back, Maria. I’ll have you arrested.”
    “And I’ll make your life hell.” I held the safely pin out to her.
    She hesitated, then took it. “Just an experiment?” she asked.
    “Exactly.”
    She held the point up to my flesh and scratched like a cat. “There.”
    “No,” I said. “The rule is, you have to make me bleed.”
    She didn’t do it right then. It took more than five full months of psyching her out, glaring at her in gym class, and throwing her impossible-to-read smiles—sometimes evil, sometimes delirious, mostly sheer cunning—as I passed her in the hallway.
    And so began my mission, making sure I was home on collection day, making sure I was the one to answer the