Jennifer--s Body -2009- Apr 2026

For the first time, her face cracked. Just a hairline fracture. “It’s not inside me, Needy. I’m inside it . And it’s always hungry.” She looked at me—really looked, like the old Megan peeking through a keyhole. “Run away. Tonight. Don’t look back.”

And underneath that, smaller:

I closed my eyes. The wind smelled like her hairbrush. Jennifer--s Body -2009-

She grinned. Her teeth were too white, too straight, too many. “Tasted like old jerky. Boys are better. Boys are an appetizer you don’t feel bad about finishing.”

I smiled.

“Freak accident,” she said, tilting her head. Her hair, which used to be mousy and fine, now fell in a black curtain that seemed to drink the fluorescent light. “Poor guys.”

I’m still hungry too.

“You brought scissors to a demon fight?” she laughed.

She lunged. I stabbed. The scissors went in just below her ribs—the place where, in fourth grade, she’d been stung by a wasp and I’d carried her to the nurse’s office. Black blood geysered. She didn’t scream. She sighed, like a tire letting out air. For the first time, her face cracked