A red and yellow sunset hung painted behind the dilapidated and drooping Super ThemePark building. The front doors were shut and a tall, skinny boy stood outside taking dollar bills as an entrance fee. The horizon was blurry in front of Jacqueline. It waved up and down with her steps, the smell of wet gravel and weed overpowering her new perfume: the perfume her father had given her as an apology for missing her final high school tennis match the week before. The thud of heavy bass music rattled the doors and the unlocked chain that was carelessly slid between its handles.

The paint on the front looked almost messy enough to be graffiti, but the detail and the placement indicated that more time was taken in the building’s decoration. There were no windows that Jacqueline could see, which didn’t surprise her from what she knew occurred inside. Fear rose in her throat; it replaced the excitement which had been there when her new friend April had texted and asked if she wanted to go. Jacqueline pictured the two of them strolling up, arm in arm, laughing and standing against the wall watching the musician, who was some DJ from a suburb on the outskirts of Houston. Jacqueline was eighteen and she felt ready to feel eighteen, to feel young and reckless and mature. But instead, Jacqueline was stumbling through the parking lot, picking nervously at her nails, and trying to hide behind the hair that she so meticulously straightened and pinned and straightened again. 

A sign above the door read “Super ThemePark: Art, Performance, Theater” and looked as if it had been drawn with marker and simply laminated, then stuck up on the building. The tall boy at the door, who had the name “Shawn” drawn on his neck with some sort of Sharpie, greeted Jacqueline with a smile.

“Girls are free tonight, but if you want to tip I’ll buy you a drink,” he said. Jacqueline looked behind her at the other people starting to stream through the parking lot. She laughed politely and picked at a loose thread on her jeans. 

“I don’t have cash,” Jacqueline told the door boy. Her father had scolded her for this before, saying that she never knew when an emergency would come up. Jacqueline wondered if he would count this as an emergency. The door boy marked Xs on the back of her hands, removed the chains from the door handles, and waved her in, slighting, “no free drink for you.”

April had warned Jacqueline about the door boy, and had told her not to give him any money. Girls are always free, April had said, and no one was really sure if he worked for Super ThemePark at all. Jacqueline and April met on Jacqueline’s volunteer Goodwill shift, which Jacqueline’s father had insisted on for her college applications. April had picked up a pair of small, gold hoop earrings that Jacqueline had been eyeing for the end of her shift, and when ringing April up, she tried to accidentally drop the earrings behind the register. After Jacqueline finished scanning April’s things, April looked through her shopping bag.

“My earrings,” she said, glancing up with one eyebrow raised. April’s hair was messy and jumbled on top of her head and her eyes were ringed with old eyeliner and mascara, which gathered in the creases under her eyes. Jacqueline’s face flushed. She pretended to look around her area and dropped down to pick the earrings up.

“Whoops! Must have fallen,” she said. April smiled at her with a pleasure that made Jacqueline feel guilty. Jacqueline pushed the earrings across the counter. “Just take them.”

April glanced around, her eyes narrow and uninterested. She unhooked the earrings and put them in right in front of Jacqueline. 

“Pretty,” Jacqueline said, trying not to sound bitter. April pulled out a piece of paper, jotted down her name and her phone number with a smiley face and placed it in front of Jacqueline, announcing, “In case you want to borrow them sometime!” She then bounded out of the door, waving at Jacqueline as she left, and Jacqueline suddenly felt like they were friends.

Inside Super ThemePark, Jacqueline found April at the bar with a boy. He had dark, curly hair under a bright red beanie. His clothes looked too big for his body and his shoes were colored in with black nail polish. She recognized the boy from the pictures April had excitedly sent her a few days before; his name was Kenny, and he was getting his degree in music production from a local college nearby. April clung to his arm, an air of desperation and excitement hanging around her hair and her body. 

“Jacqueline,” April shouted over the DJ. She was wearing the gold earrings that Jacqueline had given her at the Goodwill, and Jacqueline wondered when would be a good time to ask her to borrow them. She imagined herself on the dance floor, cooly slipping one hand behind April’s ear and sliding the earring out, carelessly putting it in her own ear. April’s grip on Kenny’s arm seemed tight.

“This is Kenny. Kenny, this is Jacqueline. She got me these earrings,” April beamed. Kenny raised his eyebrows and looked over at the door. 

“I’m getting something to drink,” he said.

“Get something for us,” April giggled. Kenny raised his eyebrows again and pulled his arm out of April’s grasp with a look that almost seemed to be an eye roll.

The music pounded right behind Jacqueline’s head. She leaned toward April to hear her better, and April rambled about the people around them, people that April seemed to know all about. Super ThemePark was dark inside, and it was just one big room with small alcoves of chairs and benches and miscellaneous knicknacks. There was a bar on the right side of the building and a stage against the back. Jacqueline watched someone shove himself into a small plastic children’s car and push around with his feet. She could have thrown a bucket of bright green paint at the wall and it wouldn’t have been the most obscene thing in the room. She imagined what her father would say if he saw a place like this. She giggled at the thought of him in his giant suit, walking between sweaty boys throwing their bodies around angrily, begging him for the cigarettes he had tried to quit for years and trying to scrub the black X marks off of their wrists. 

Kenny returned with two drinks in clear plastic cups. He handed one to April and looked at Jacqueline.

“I didn’t think she’d still be here,” he said to April, loud enough for Jacqueline to hear. April smiled at her apologetically.

“It’s okay, we can share,” she said brightly, grabbing hold of Jacqueline’s elbow and dragging her outside. Kenny looked less than happy at her presence, and Jacqueline made a mental note not to look him in the eye.

The sun was almost gone and the back of the building was as dark and messy as the inside. There were old, disintegrating picnic tables, lawn chairs, and overturned couches strewn across the yard. April shoved Jacqueline down on a beige, faux-leather couch with a peeling and discolored exterior and threw herself down as well. They shared sips of whatever was in the plastic cup. Jacqueline hadn’t asked what it was. She needed to loosen up, and she knew it. April beckoned over a boy who sat nearby at a picnic table, staring at his phone.

“Adrian,” she shouted. The boy jerked his head up, his hair flopping into his eyes. He glared at them for a moment before ambling over. April introduced everyone and then stuck her hand in her pocket. She pulled out a wallet, and from there a thin joint. Adrian pulled out a lighter without being asked. Kenny kicked at the base of the couch, sending small vibrations through Jacqueline’s legs.

Jacqueline had smoked before. She knew that people didn’t end up somewhere like Super ThemePark without doing something at least a little scandalous, at least one time. But she also knew that whatever she had done before, April had done a hundred more times, and Kenny had probably done a thousand. Still, she took small hits of the joint when Adrian passed it to her. She leaned against the arm of the couch and willed herself not to cough. April talked passionately with Adrian and Kenny about the DJ inside. Jacqueline stretched out her legs and thought about what her father might be doing at home. He was under the assumption that Jacqueline was practicing tennis with a girl from school, but the girls from school didn’t care for Jacqueline. 

The girls on the tennis team liked to have sleep-overs and bake cookies and talk about boys, and for some reason their mothers were always in the room and their mothers hand delivered hand-made trail mix. Jacqueline appreciated that, and wanted to hard to care about what they cared about. But she always left their sleepovers wondering if there was anything else to them besides trail mix and tennis skirts; if there was, they never revealed it to her. Her head spun. The world below her seemed to waver.

Jacqueline laid herself down on the couch, anxiety rising in her ribs, her head on April’s thigh. Was this how she was supposed to feel? Wasn’t this what she was supposed to do? She felt April’s cool hands on her back, between her shoulder blades, cupping her hands around Jacqueline’s. This was what it meant to be young and to have fun. Jacqueline wanted to be young and she wanted to have fun, and she knew April could be her guide. April stroked Jacqueline’s hair, shifting her legs beneath the weight of Jacqueline’s head. Jacqueline knew she should sit up, but the thought of opening her eyes overwhelmed her. 

“I want to go dance,” she heard April whisper. 

“I’ll watch her,” Adrian volunteered.

“Fuck no,” April snorted, rested her hand on Jacqueline’s head protectively, her cold fingers stroking Jacqueline’s cheek. Jacqueline sat up quickly and opened her eyes. Kenny had made a silent exit, and she was now only in the presence of Adrian and April. April threw an arm around Jacqueline’s shoulders and shook her.

“Having fun?” she asked. Jacqueline looked at her and tried to figure out what exactly she knew about this girl. Where were her parents from? Where did she live? Who were her other friends?

Adrian placed himself next to Jacqueline very carefully. He stuck out a hand.

“Adrian,” he said. Jacqueline shook it. His clothes looked like she might as well have sold them directly from the Goodwill that afternoon. He wore a Hawaiian shirt two sizes too big and baggy corduroy pants, even though the humid Houston heat was stifling and frizzing up Jacqueline’s hair. 

April leaned across Jacqueline’s lap and shouted, “let’s go inside! I want to dance!” She got up and held a hand out to Jacqueline. Jacqueline got up and April wiggled her eyebrows at Adrian, who was looking down at his shoes. 

“Adrian, coming?” April said. Jacqueline smiled weakly. Adrian stood up and they followed each other back into the building. Jacqueline felt regret at leaving the overgrown yard, where she had all the air she could ever want to breathe and all the space she needed if she wanted to run. 

Adrian tried to grab her hand so that he wouldn’t lose them in the crowd, where people were jumping and moshing and throwing their bodies around in a sweaty and shifting mass. Jacqueline jerked herself forward as politely as she could, and if Adrian noticed he didn’t say. April pointed up at the stage, where people were dancing next to the DJ. She motioned for Jacqueline to follow her. Jacqueline did so obediently. They stood on the chair next to the stage and pulled themselves up. 

Above the crowd, away from the writhing masses, Jacqueline felt her head clear. She looked down at the people below her and felt the tightness in her chest relax. The knot that had formed in her stomach loosened. April’s hair tickled Jacqueline’s shoulder and Jacqueline’s mouth broke into a small smile. April handed her a cup with liquid in it and she sipped it. Adrian touched Jacqueline’s elbow and she almost jumped, having forgotten he was there at all. April began to sway with the other people on the stage and bounced and moved over to the DJ, who grinned at her and slung his arm around April. He pushed his nose into her hair and whispered something in her ear. April giggled and twisted and pulled Jacqueline under her arm. Jacqueline, feeling warm and secure, did the same to Adrian, who slid his hand around her ribcage. 

“It’s fun, right?” April shouted. Jacqueline felt sweat under her nose from the lights and it was fun all of a sudden. April’s arms were fun and Adrian’s arms were fun and she was full of a good time. Jacqueline and April threw themselves backward and forward, screaming vaguely to whatever song was playing behind their heads, April occasionally falling under the arm of the DJ before wriggling out. Jacqueline and Adrian hauled her up over and over again until they were laughing too hard to do so, and the DJ used both arms to pull April up. She flung herself on him and suddenly April and the DJ were kissing. Jacqueline’s face turned red and she could feel Adrian’s grip on her waist tighten slightly. April and the DJ pressed their faces together, April’s hair shielding Jacqueline from a full view.

Both of Adrian’s arms were around her suddenly and he pushed her forward. She instinctively tried to get him off, but was shoved to the side by Kenny, who had appeared behind him. Adrian held Jacqueline up as Kenny pulled April back by the neck of her shirt and shoved the DJ, pushing them apart. Kenny turned back to April and his profile was illuminated by the lights. April looked at him playfully and swatted his arm, though her eyes were big and her mouth was a tight line and Jacqueline’s breath caught in her throat. The crowd was clustering below the stage to watch the angry exchange. Kenny grabbed April by the arm and dragged her to the edge of the stage. He pushed her off, and though Jacqueline lunged for April, April laughed; the crowd caught her dutifully and she was passed face-up between hands. She spread her arms out and glistened in the strobe lights. She smiled and closed her eyes and let her body be carried from the stage. Jacqueline watched April disappear. 

Suddenly filled with fear and a sense of loneliness, Jacqueline clumsily tried to push herself through the crowd of larger men who were gathering around Kenny. In a final moment of strength before being taken down by whatever version of security Super ThemePark employed, Kenny grabbed Jacqueline by the wrist and shoved her to the edge of the stage, where he pushed her off just as he had done to April. But her foot caught on a light and instead of being sent into the hands of an adoring crowd, Jacqueline fell to the ground, palms first. Upon impact, Jacqueline’s hands slammed into the concrete floor, catching the rest of her body. She was eye-level with everyone’s legs. The music disappeared for a moment and the shoes that pounded on the floor froze in mid air and Jacqueline couldn’t breathe or see, and the music rushed back and Jacqueline could taste that she had bitten the inside of her cheek during her fall. She wanted to lay down there; she wanted her father to appear with a blanket and kind words which she wasn’t sure if he even possessed. But she felt like if she just saw his face, she would be okay, and she wouldn’t be there anymore.

Adrian jumped down to her, the stage filling with older men who grabbed Kenny’s arms and started shoving him away. The people on the ground seemed oblivious to Jacqueline. Everyone looked toward the back, trying to glimpse where April had ended up after she had left their hands. 

Jacqueline was pulled to her feet quickly. She felt light-headed. Her arms felt like they were floating. This was what it had been like when her father taught her how to swim, and she had lost her breath after he pushed her in the pool and he had jumped in right after to help her float. She could feel her father’s hands on her back, and then realized it was only Adrian. He was guiding her to the front of the building. His hand was on her upper back. She looked around wildly for April, who had truly disappeared into the mass of people. Outside, they passed the boy at the door, who had a drink in his hand and a swarm of people around him. Jacqueline wriggled Adrian’s hand off of her at the first breath of fresh air.

“Baby! You didn’t even let me buy you a drink,” the door boy slurred after her. Looking at him again, Jacqueline realized he couldn’t have been much older than her, not much older than 18. He stood in the doorway swaying and her heart beat heavily in her throat. She wondered what exactly led him to someplace like this, what led him to ticket taking, who he knew that brought him here. Who was April for the boy at the door?

“I want to lay down,” Jacqueline insisted. Her head and palms were pounding and someone had stepped on her hands when she had fallen. Adrian guided Jacqueline over to a small, black loveseat positioned against the building, facing the street. She took up the whole seat and laid on her back so that Adrian could not join her.

“I’m going to sleep,” she lied. She didn’t want him to try to talk to her, but she knew he wouldn’t leave her alone. She would wait here for April; April had to come out eventually. 

Neither of them spoke, or really moved, for minutes, but Jacqueline could feel Adrian watching her. He moved her hand back to her stomach when it slid off and dangled above the ground. She heard rustling and the sound of paper, and then Adrian placed something light and round delicately on Jacqueline’s bottom lip. Jacqueline’s stomach churned slightly.

“Got a light?” he asked in a high pitched voice. Jacqueline’s breathing fluttered on his fingers; her long dark hair mingled with the long blades of grass in the yard. Adrian took in a dramatic breath and she heard a lighter spark and he jerked the cigarette away.

“Thanks,” he said, in his high pitched voice. Jacqueline’s eyes began to twitch and she wondered if he really thought she was asleep. Adrian exhaled his smoke in her face. Her eyes flew open.

“Did you just blow smoke in my face?” she asked incredulously. Adrian jerked back.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t think you would wake up. I thought there was… I’m sorry. I was just trying to make sure that no one got on you or something,” Adrian stammered. She then wondered if April would have felt bad for snapping at him, and pushed the guilt low into her gut. She didn’t know where April was. She considered going back inside, but revisiting the boy at the door made her feel uneasy. 

“I think I should go home,” Jacqueline said. She pulled out her phone to call an Uber or Lyft or anything. Jacqueline had walked to the bus stop that evening with her family’s maid, Romelda. They made some small talk, overcoming the small language barrier. Romelda pointed out other houses that she cleaned for, and told Jacqueline gossip about whose husbands had what in which drawer, which neighbors were over at whose houses. Jacquelined wondered, if I wasn’t here, what she would be saying about me? She imagined that Romelda would point to her family’s house, with its sprawling and manicured lawn, and say, “a little girl lives there. Her father, nice man, always tips me well.”

“Why the bus?” Romelda asked. She eyed the manicured ranch houses, deceptively belonging to the upper middle class despite their low and small appearances. Jacqueline couldn’t tell her the truth, that she had been going somewhere that no one took an Uber to, so she simply replied, “I think it’s time I learned how to use public transportation.” 

But now Jacqueline had no desire to step foot back on the bus. She looked at her phone, and it was later than she had realized. She wasn’t even sure if the buses were running anymore. She wished she could call Romelda and ask.

“I can drive you,” Adrian offered. She looked at him and thought about April, and wondered what April would do.

“Can you not blow smoke in my face?” She tried to joke but it came out weak and flat. Adrian nodded and held out his pinkie. 

Adrian said nothing about Jacqueline’s neighborhood or its large houses or its newly washed cars. It wasn’t until they pulled up to her own home that he finally said, “Wow, St. Michael’s tennis star.” He pointed to the yard sign that her father and stepmother had put up a few weeks before. It was a giant yellow tennis ball, with her name and graduation year on it. Her face burned red with embarrassment.

“Fancy,” Adrian pressed on. Jacqueline felt burning inside her chest and shoved open Adrian’s old Toyota clumsily. She thanked him for the ride and he grabbed her forearm, which she had placed on the dashboard to help lift herself out of the low car. Her heart jumped and the burning intensified and she felt tears behind her eyes. Her home was so close—it was right there, and her Dad was in there and she knew that if she wanted to run a bath the water would be hot and it would comfort her. 

“No,” she said hoarsely, as more of a whisper than anything.

“Oh, no,” Adrian said quickly. “I was just saying I expect gas money next time I see you.”

“I don’t know when that will be,” Jacqueline said, moving quickly to close the door. Gone was the girl who would lie to get the earrings she wanted, who would have killed to experience something like Super ThemePark and died to have danced with someone like April on a stage. Adrian threw up his hands in humble defeat.

“Just whenever,” he shouted as she closed the door. He sped off immediately, not braking for the stop sign at the end of her street.

Jacqueline’s house was dark from the curb, except for her bedroom, where she had left the light on. There were no cars around. She moved slowly up the sidewalk, a loud buzzing ringing in her ears. 

Inside, she could hear the television and her father laughing to whatever show he was undoubtedly rewatching. Jacqueline saw herself in the reflection of the window on the front door. She looked nothing like a girl who had just played tennis for a few hours, as she had told her father. She looked like a girl who had been thrown from a stage and then been driven home by a boy who most definitely was under some kind of substance. Her hair stuck to her face, which was glistening and red. Her mascara gathered underneath her eyes, though she had not yet cried. 

She knew if she were to walk in, he would double take and his hands would clench and his jaw would tighten. He would say that she should go to bed and they would talk in the morning. She used her finger to rub underneath her eyes. She took a rubber band from her wrist and twisted her hair back into a low ponytail. It was frizzy and disheveled. The garden hose was tossed carelessly into a flower pot by the door; Jacqueline picked it up and let water drip into her hands. She rubbed it on her face and used her shirt to rub everything dry. 

She wondered if this was being young. Waiting on the front porch, throat burning, nothing in her head except the ringing noise which constantly reminded her where she had been, where she had wanted so badly to go. She wondered: if she went inside, would she forget how it felt to stand on the stage with April before Kenny had pushed her off? Would she remember April floating across the crowd, hair and body splayed and drifting, in ten years—in twenty years? She wondered how to remember that moment and forget the rest. She pushed open her door and ducked her head.

“JJ? Jackie?” her father called out, the remnants of a laugh tinging his voice.

“Yeah,” she croaked. She wished so badly that she had just come from a tennis practice and that she could curl up beside him and have him be proud of her. 

“How was practice?” He asked. Jacqueline didn’t respond. 

April had sent her a message reading, Going home with Kenny. U ok? Jacqueline felt headless, limbless, and incomplete. After all of that, she felt incomplete. She yearned to be back with April outside on the faux-leather couch or waiting at the bar with black Xs on her hands or dancing high above everyone else.

Jacqueline sent back: all good. The earrings looked great tonight.