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head and it’s as real and solid as I am. 
    The world spins on without you Willow.

 
     
     
    Crawl ‘til dawn on my hands and knees
    Goddamn these vampires for what they’ve done to me.
    ~Mountain Goats
    “Damn These Vampires”

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
    Monday is a school holiday.  It’s one of those ambiguous teacher workdays that shows up in the middle of the semester.  Normally, I love these days.  I’d sleep in late and Dustin would come over just before noon and we’d chill on my bedroom floor alternating between making out and eating junk food.  Today I wake up to a black hole the size of multiple galaxies that’s decided to take up residence in my stomach.  
    Mom and Jake are at work, and Aaron is enjoying the glue-eating and hair-pulling joys of pre-kindergarten.   As I yank on a pair of baggy shorts and a wrinkly t-shirt from the dredges of my bottom drawer, I wonder if Dustin chose this weekend in particular to end things so that I would have an extra day of no school to recover.  I think so.  In a way, that seems nice of him, but in other ways it embarrasses me even more because I wonder just how long he’s been planning this.  And how long has he been carrying on with someone else behind my back?  I think about him and the still faceless girl making out, sneaking phone calls in darkened rooms, holding hands, talking about me . 
    On a whim, I decide to reorganize my room.  Using up all my arm strength, I move the bed from under the window to the east wall and I corner the desk and bookshelf creating a sort of nook.  I hide the gold dress in the back of my closet between my winter jacket and a grey corduroy jacket that doesn’t belong to me and has a story all it’s own. 
    Underneath my bed, trapped under a stack of last year’s textbooks and the sketchbooks I stopped filling diligently my sophomore year, I find an old poster of astrological signs that my mom gave me on my twelfth birthday.  I decide to tack it up on the wall above the desk because the colors are bright and the illustrations are beautiful.  Despite myself I start to read the descriptions of the zodiac signs.
    According to the chart, Capricorn is an earth sign and generally considered compatible with other earth signs. 
    I am a Gemini—an air sign. 
    Ugh!  I sound like my mother.  Is it even remotely possible that a thing as complex as love can be simplified by a guide written by a group of star-gazing old men a thousand years ago? 
    The last thing I do is hang my silver framed Chagal print in its new location just above the bureau.  When I was little it was always on the wall by the front door—even at our old loft.  I would stare up at it and try to fathom the secrets buried beneath the dense colors.  It made me think of sunlit parks and mythological creatures and of something else… possibility .  One day when I came home from school it was just gone, replaced by a handmade paper collage that Mom bought with Brooke at an art show.  I found it in the hall closet, leaning against a deflated volleyball.  It’s been in my room ever since. 
    Ferdinand has found a spot in the new arrangement and he looks up from his paws to stare at me while I lean against the wall and study my work.  He seems satisfied and so am I.  It’s the same but different.  In a good way.
    My phone vibrates and chirps as I’m spreading cream cheese on a bagel for a late lunch.  It’s Taylor calling me.  She probably feels like a shitty friend after our last conversation.  The thought makes me slightly less sad. 
    “Hey,” I say and take a bite of my bagel. 
    Taylor launches into a tirade about how her head is still killing her and how she ruined a new pair of shoes at the party.  She explains that Roland and his girlfriend Hannah got into this huge fight over the way she was looking at some older guy that was their waiter the other night and that Hannah ended up shoving him into the pool.  I laugh imagining the look on