My earliest memory was my parents fighting over Aunt Mel buying me a pink bear they didn't find appropriate for a five year old boy to have. A lot of crying, a sewing kit and hours of effort ter, my best friend "Bear Bear", became a stitched frankenstein mess.

  Twenty years ter, I stare at her button eye long gone, her stringy nose barely holding on. I close the box. One st look at my past, high school clothes, a rusted bike, a vacuum-sealed prom dress. Before I leave it all behind, Mel's scrapbook. The weathered pages I've not had the courage to read, rests atop a stack of boxes. I wrap it carefully in a winter coat and embrace the winter chill.

  As the steel door rumbles shut, I return to the blocky red rusted van I call home. Repcing the back seats is a collection of pstic storage bins and a twin mattress. I turn the key and pray to nothing in particur that the deyed chugging of the ignition leads to my exit from Silver Springs Storage.

  "Alright, sweetheart," I murmur, turning the key, "if you start, I swear I'll wash you every weekend." A lie. The engine sputters, protests, then finally rumbles to life. As I drive past the chain-link fence, the town greets me like a ghost. Familiar buildings seen through unfamiliar eyes.

  My stomach growls at the time stained McDonald's with its outdated interior. I turn into the parking lot of Domingo's Auto Parts & Oil Change that's had more new owners and name changes in the past decade than I've had repcement headlights. I park and crawl to my mattress. I watch the chipped paint on my van's ceiling and discover oxidized art in abstract clouds of aged metal. The rusted shapes distract me for the briefest of moments before my emotions crash into me again.

  Aunt Mel's absence is a hole the cops stopped looking into six months ago. Nothing missing, no sign of struggle. Just a pair of reading gsses on her nightstand and a cold cup of coffee in the sink. Cops pretended to care for a couple months, but the update calls slowly became less frequent and their tone became less sympathetic and more clinical.

  Three months of searching cost me my job. Six months ter and I've sold what I can, kept what I can't stand to let go, and now I'm living in her van. At twenty five, I have no job, no idea what I'm going to do with my life. I reflect and cry as I watch the sun crawl from one side of the van to the other. I clean up to appear like I wasn't screaming out a lung. With a final touch of makeup in my rear view mirror, I escape my self made mobile prison and walk the streets of downtown beyond the auto parts store.

  Silver Springs, Georgia might not be the most gmorous town, but aside from the trains in the distance, it was quiet in the shadow of the valley. Downtown hasn't changed much since the 60's other than the stains of time and wall tags that get painted over every few months. I walk past a pawn shop, a closed down Boy Scouts supply store turned vape shop, another pawn shop, until I stop at a new age religion shop.

  The bck curtains behind gss reveal my reflection. I study myself and adjust my hair. My hair drapes just past my shoulders in dark pink yers and waves with brown roots announcing that it's time for a touch up. Round gsses take up half my pale face. A bleach stained brown tee is paired with my bck maxi skirt that unfortunately fits like a midi when you're taller than every girl in the advertisements. Despite how emotionally charged today has been, at least I can feel like if I cleaned up my smudged eyeliner, I could almost call myself pretty.

  The shop window holds my reflection, shadowed by bck sheer curtains and the dull glint of crystals beyond the gss. My fingers linger on my neckce as I debate stepping inside. That's when I feel it. Someone watching me.

  My eyes flick up, meeting a stare through the curtain. A woman, short but imposing, framed in candlelit dimness. A wide-brimmed bck sun hat, draped shawl, and dark lips curled into something between amusement and knowing. In one hand, a hand-rolled cigarette. In the other, a dead pstic lighter. She doesn't look away, even as she pushes open the door and steps outside.

  "Got a light?" she asks, voice cool and rough, like wind through dry leaves.

  "Um, sure." I dig into my bag and pull out a blue pstic lighter. "Keep it. I mostly hold it for friends. I don't smoke tobacco."

  She smirks as she takes my lighter and lights her cigarette.

  "Neither do I." A smirk pys at the edge of her lips. "What's your name? Your aura speaks volumes." She takes a drag, then holds the joint out in offering. I hesitate. My fingers twitch at my side. She's a stranger. But also, when was the st time I let myself just be? I exhale slowly and take it.

  "Hazel," I say, letting the smoke curl into my lungs. For the first time in days, my stomach isn't twisting into knots.

  "Molly." She grins, tilting her head. "Well, Hazel, you smoke. Do you party?" I pass the joint back, smirking despite myself.

  "Not typically. I could be convinced." Molly's smile is intense. Like she has a secret about the universe that only she knows.

  "I got some friends coming over for a bonfire and some drinks. Looks like you could use community. Dreary spirits follow you. Life and libation keep them away."

  This talk of auras and spirits was strange but I've known stranger from the girls I hung out with in highschool.

  "You're weird," I say, exhaling smoke. "But I'm interested. Is this tonight?"

  "Now." Molly flicks the joint into the gutter like she's casting a spell. "I'm te, actually. Had to lock up my shop. And, of course, I had to bum a light off the tall girl admiring herself in my window." I ugh, but my feet hesitate as she tugs my sleeve.

  This is reckless. A stranger. A truck. A party in the woods. But the alternative? Crawling back into my van, where the only thing waiting for me is silence.

  "Alright," I murmur, and follow her into the truck.

  As the engine rumbles to life, the radio crackles, and the opening chords of Edge of Seventeen spill through the speakers. Molly whoops, cranking the volume, and for the first time in months, I let myself just sing along.

  The gravel crunches under the tires as we turn onto a winding driveway, swallowed by trees on either side. Five cars are scattered in uneven rows, their windshields catching fshes of firelight. I don't move.

  Laughter drifts through the trees, mingling with the smell of wood smoke and something skunky. Shadows flicker beyond the bonfire. I can make out silhouettes, arms thrown over shoulders, heads tilted back in wild amusement. Out here, strangers are a gamble. My breath sticks in my throat. Maybe I made a mistake. Molly's fingers find mine. Her thumb traces something soft, rhythmic, into my palm. A slow, deliberate pattern.

  "They're not gonna bite," she murmurs. "We're all weirdos here. And if anyone does cause problems?" She winks. "I have your back." I swallow, nod, and step out into the humid night.

  The truck door groans as I push it open, spilling me into the thick, humid air. Wood smoke curls around me, heavy with something sweeter beneath it. Weed or the charred scent of something still burning.

  Music hums from somewhere beyond the trees, tinny and distant, like it's pying from a speaker half-buried in leaves. Laughter rises and falls in waves, tangled with the crackle of a bonfire and the occasional thunk of gss bottles meeting wood.

  "Come on," Molly nudges me with her hip. "First rule of the party. You gotta at least look like you belong." I scoff, but before I can argue, she tugs my arm, ruffling my hair like she's fluffing a stray cat.

  "Better," she decides. "Now let's go."

  She weaves through the parked cars, leading me past clusters of people perched on hoods and tailgates. A couple leans against the side of a van, their whispers slipping into the night as we pass. Someone else flicks a lighter, the fme briefly illuminating their face before they cup it to a cigarette. A girl with a shaved head and three nose rings lifts a bottle in greeting.

  "Molly, you made it! Thought you died or something."

  Molly snorts. "Nah, just been busy corrupting new souls."The girl flicks her gaze to me, smirks, and takes a long, slow sip. "Well, she looks green."

  My skin prickles. I shift my weight.

  "She's cool," Molly says, squeezing my wrist in reassurance. Then, leaning in close, she stage-whispers, "Don't mind Kenzie. She just likes to test people."

  "Uh-huh," Kenzie drawls, eyes glinting.

  "Well, good luck, New Girl."

  I force a breath, rolling my shoulders back. No big deal. Just a party. Just strangers. The fire flickers in the distance, and I let Molly pull me the rest of the way in.

  "Sorry about that. It would be rude to not greet my guests. Crowds bother me too. Come meet my roommates." Molly's roommates passed around a long antique gss vase that was transformed into the cssiest bong I've ever seen. The smoke was pungent and hooked my attention.

  "Hey tall girl, quit eyeballing me and sit with us!" An older guy with dark skin, maybe thirty, gestured with the dark green vase to a couple mismatched wn chairs. Molly smiled and guided me to sit between her and the older man. Immediately I was handed the barely burnt bowl of green. Molly hands me my blue lighter and I take a modest hit. The burn is mild, and I smell hints of flowers, reminding me of the first time I smoked.

  I hear Aunt Mel's ugh as she watches a fourteen-year-old me struggle with a gss pipe, and for a moment, I let the memory fill me before coming back to the present. I feel gentle hands take the vase as I lose myself in the happy memory for just a moment longer. The distant sound of ughter pulls me back, the sharp scent of the herb still on my tongue, grounding me in the moment. I focus back into reality. Molly smiles and leans on my shoulder as the vase is halfway around the circle already. Her touch sends an unexpected thrill through me. I shouldn't be feeling this, not here, not now, but I can't help it. My heart races, then steadies. I remind myself to breathe.

  "Molly, who's your new stray?" The man who invited me to the circle speaks past me.

  Molly's grin widens as she introduces me. "Mike, this is Hazel. She's got a thing for witchy shops, and she knows every single word to Edge of Seventeen." Molly ughs and traces my palm with her bck nail. A tingling energy radiates along her invisible pattern.

  "The stray can speak for herself." I shake my hand free from Molly. My brain fog sobers a bit at my annoyance.

  "Sorry Hazel. If you haven't noticed, Molly has a nasty habit of inviting people to our little club." Mike leans back as the vase approaches him.

  "I haven't even told her about it yet! We're just hanging out tonight." Molly defended. I give her an odd look as she reaches for my hand and traces her pattern again. My heart races briefly and then rests as Mike nods in approval. He cleans and packs the bowl of the vase, passing me the first hit. I light the herb and my mind falls back to the day I came out to my Aunt.