Jennifer--s Body -2009- [2025]

The cops ruled it a gas leak. The town buried her on a Tuesday. I stood at the grave until everyone left, then I carved into her headstone with the same scissors:

I flinched. She’d always called me “Needy” as a joke—because my name was Nidia, and I clung to her like a life raft. But now it sounded like a diagnosis. Jennifer--s Body -2009-

I smiled.

She touched it, looked at the red on her fingertip, and licked it clean. “Am I?” That night, she showed up at my window. I didn’t hear the glass slide open. I just felt the cold. The cops ruled it a gas leak

“Go to the kitchen,” I said, pulling my comforter to my chin. She’d always called me “Needy” as a joke—because

The night the fire department pulled two rabbit hunters out of a ravine, no one in Devil’s Kettle talked about the smell on their breath. The hunters said they’d been chasing a buck, lost their footing, and blacked out. But the nurses noted the way their chests caved in—like something had sat on them and gotten bored.

“Not that kind of hungry, Needy.”