“Get dressed,” Jackie announces, leaning against her open bedroom door. “We’re going out.”

Lili glances at the time on her computer screen.

Catching the look, her roommate groans. “Come on, it’s barely nine. We haven’t seen you in days, it’s never fun without you.”

Lili fidgets with her septum piercing, calculating hours of productive work left tonight. “Kerr wants this draft soon.”

It hurts to refuse. She wants to go out; she so badly wants the familiar freedom and exhilaration of a night out: summer in the city, the rasp of mezcal, cigarette smoke on crowded sidewalks, shared laughter with her friends, relief of responsibility lifted for a few hours. She wants to step away from work, set aside her phone that she keeps checking—still no response. She’d like to take a deep inhale, push aside the restless burn of ambition and insufficiency that eats at her as she writes, the tension of striving. But she’s so close—one more good look, then it’d be done: a full first draft of her thesis, ready for her adviser’s review. The ground will be steady underneath her for a moment.

Jackie doesn’t let up. “Come on,” she insists. She’s still wearing makeup from work today, a lookbook shoot. Her bright red hair is freshly washed, and she looks beautiful. Behind her, Lili can hear their friend Amina talking on the phone, the clack of her heels in their tiny Williamsburg kitchen. “We can go out, drink, dance, and have you back by midnight—”

Lili snorts, toying with her phone. “When have you ever gotten home by midnight?”

“Look who’s talking—”

“One hour,” Amina implores, joining in. There is dried oil paint on her hands, burnt burgundy; Lili wonders what painting she was working on today. “One hour, please. Consider this an intervention—Jesus, we miss you!”

“Tell her I’m dying,” says a distant male voice, insistent on Amina’s phone. “Tell her it’s terminal.”