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So I shoot the next cow and try to let the impact noise jolt Alex and Branley out of my head, but they won’t go. They’re stuck there, revolving around each other while I try to sort out what’s what.

When Branley faced down Peekay I was right next to her because that’s where I’ve always been. In fifth grade it was me and Park across from Jimmy Owens when he knocked her into the gravel on the playground because she wouldn’t lift up her skirt and show him her panties. She’s got tiny white scars on her knees from that, places the gravel dug deep and turned her skin to ground meat. I look at them sometimes, and I can still hear her crying.

But I remember a time before that when she didn’t wear skirts, before she realized that she was cute as hell and it could go a long way. I remember hunting for crawdads with Branley wearing jeans rolled up to her skinny knees, mud smeared on her cheeks, sweat making her hair dark. I remember when Branley was my best friend and we didn’t understand why people smiled at us when we held hands. And now my hands have been everywhere on her, and she doesn’t dish out a smile unless she wants something.

“Goddammit,” I say to a new cow before I shoot her.

I don’t even know Alex, I remind myself. There’s no reason why I’m so fascinated by her, but I just am. I can’t get her out of my head. All my memories of Branley can’t compete against a few minutes of conversation with Alex, awkward and stilted, both of us weighing every word like we’re testing out a new language on each other. And we kind of are, I guess. We use the same consonant and vowel sounds but have never said them to each other before, and somehow that makes them all new again.

I’ve been with enough girls to know that one body is as good as another when the lights go out. Discovering women is far from a new thing to me, but the outline of Alex’s taut arm when she held back Peekay was like a damn aphrodisiac. I want to know about her. I want to know what she looks like with tousled hair. I want to know what the scar on her wrist is from. I understand now why my mom always asks me if I’m interested in any girls as opposed to if I like them.

I like Branley. I’ve always liked Branley.

I’m interested in Alex.

She’s buried in my head so deep I’m still thinking about her as I drive home, and when my headlights bounce off the same ditched car I saw yesterday, I hit the brakes. It’s pitch black but I see enough to know it’s her car, and that it hasn’t budged an inch. I take the curve slow, thumbs drumming on the steering wheel in thought.

Alex hadn’t offered me her number, and I was so focused on keeping a conversation going I didn’t think to ask. Driving to her house to tell her the car is still in the ditch seems pretty pointless, since I bet she already knows. What I’d also bet is she has no idea how to get it out and isn’t the type to ask for help. I call for Dad the second I walk in the back door, kicking off my blood-slicked boots to sit next to his in the mudroom.

“In here,” my mom calls from the living room.

They both look so comfortable I hate to ask. Mom’s curled up on the couch with a book. Dad’s hair is still wet from a shower and he’s got his recliner up, a football game on the TV.

“Hey, Dad, can I get a favor?”

“What’s that?” he asks, eyes flicking from the screen to me.

“Friend of mine went in the ditch, and her car’s still there.”

“Oh, her car,” my mom says, over the sound of Dad’s ancient recliner squealing in protest as he flips it down.

“How bad?” Dad asks.

“Barely in the ditch, right on the north side of the curve.”

“Are you interested in this girl, honey?” Mom asks, eyeing me over the pages of her book.

I take a deep breath instead of waving her off like I usually do. “Yes. I’m definitely interested.”

Mom raises her eyebrows at Dad. “I guess you better get going, then.”

It’s the work of one truck, one chain, five minutes, and then I’m in Alex’s car with Dad following me. I drive it to her place while trying to formulate the perfect thing to say when she answers the door.

Except her mom does.

She’s all poise and coolness, a drink in her hand and a question on her face when she looks at me. She’s like something out of a magazine with drawn-on eyebrows . . . one of them arching a little more severely than necessary as I continue to say nothing.

“Hi,” I finally manage. “Is, um . . . is Alex home?” She looks confused for a split second, and I wonder if I somehow drove to the wrong house in the dark.

“Mom?” Alex’s voice calls from somewhere inside. “Was that the door?”

“Yes,” her mom says cautiously, still eyeing me. “It’s for you.”

And then Alex is there, standing beside her in the doorway. They’re shoulder to shoulder and staring at me as I stand awkwardly on a welcome mat with very little wear and tear. I remember the shriek of the hinges when the front door was opened, sticking for a moment in the frame so that it had to be yanked. The long pause inside a dead house right after I rang the doorbell.

No one comes here.

Alex shakes off her bewilderment first. “Hello, Jack.”