My roommate and I are drinking like we want to hurt ourselves the night she rips her arm out of her socket.

We’re sitting on the floor on opposite sides of the room. We’re staring at each other. We’re afraid of each other. I’m afraid I’ll make a move on her. She’s also afraid I’ll make a move on her.

“What is this?” she asks, waving her hand in the air. I know she means the music I put on. We’ve been friends for a long time, so I can read the vaguest of her gestures.

“Björk.”

“That explains it.”

“Do you feel enlightened?”

“Kinda.”

“Do you wanna watch something stupid?

“Something as unenlightening as possible.”

“Pineapple Express.”

“Yes.”

That’s how it happens. I hoist myself up with my hands on the ground. She reaches up with her left arm and grabs onto the door frame she’s been leaning her head against, then starts to pull herself up.

Then I hear a wet snap, a gurgling cry, and she falls back down on her butt.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“My arm. I think it came out.”

“Came out?”

“Popped out of its socket.” Her voice shimmers with fear and pain. I cross the room, closing the distance between us, and see her left arm hanging limply at her side, while the rest of her shivers.

“Oh fuck. Are you okay? I’m sorry, stupid question.”

“No. … I’m mostly okay.”

“What the fuck do I do?”

“Let me think.”

My roommate has been fragile her whole life. She was born premature, has lung and nose issues, is constantly twisting or fracturing or popping her limbs. This is the second time her left arm has been ripped from its socket. Doctors tell her it will probably keep happening, all her life, unless she gets surgery.

Shit like this never happens to me. I’m heartier than her, thirty pounds heavier, seemingly invincible. I’m constantly slamming my head into walls, getting into drunk wrestling matches. Once at a party I bully a group of guys into taking turns punching me in the face. Once after work I challenge my manager to a self-mutilation contest, with razors and cigarettes. But the wounds never last. I’m like a bouncy ball. I tell everyone I do it to impress boys. And it kind of works. I hook up with one of the guys who punches me in the face. I hook up with my manager.

I haven’t yet figured out how to impress girls. I’m working on that.

“Okay,” my roommate says. I sit down next to her and let her wrap her arm around my shoulder, then we stand up together, her whole body shaking against mine. I walk her over to the couch, realizing absently that Björk is still playing. All is full of love. “Okay,” she says again, wincing as she falls into the cushions.

“Do we call an ambulance?” I ask.

“No! Do you want to bankrupt me?”

“We have to do something!”

“Okay, well … the first time I popped it out, my dad popped it back in for me.”

“Stop.”

“Well, I don’t know what else we can do!” She chokes on a sob.

I’m quiet for a moment, trying to think of another option. “I just—I really think a doctor should do this. How can we get you to a doctor?”

“You can’t exactly drive me.”

I sway in front of her, not willing to point out that if I’m too drunk to drive, maybe I’m too drunk to pop her arm back into its socket.

“What if we Uber?”

“Dude, it really hurts to move. I’m kind of begging you.”

Recently, during another masochistic drinking binge, she told me that she sometimes wished she was gay. I confessed that I was bi. She didn’t really react, pretended to forget the next day. It doesn’t matter, I told myself. We both have boyfriends anyway. But I’ve noticed that she acts a little differently now. Leaving her vibrator on the kitchen counter after washing it. Watching TV in her bra and panties. Sitting on the same side of the booth as me when we go out to dinner, nudging my ankles with her feet, stealing from my plate without asking, complaining about the sex she’s having or lack thereof, as I sit with my legs crossed and my heart pounding and a sick feeling in the base of my chest and the pit of my stomach, which I try to fill with light beer and sweet potato fries.

“I’ll walk you through it.” She takes a deep breath. “First, gently grab my wrist.”

I gently grab her wrist.

“Now. Lift up my arm.”

I lift up her arm.

She screams.

I drop it.

“Aw, hell.” Tears roll down her cheeks.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

“Just give me a second.”

The worst thing, though, is when we drink like we want to hurt ourselves, when we close the distance between us and join up on the couch, sitting so close together we might as well be glued at the side, whispering in one another’s ears, talking about our families, our cobbled-together religions, our worst impulses, our least politically correct takes. When she tells me I’m not as invincible as I think I am, when I tell her she’s not as delicate as she pretends to be. When we commiserate about our jobs, even though I hear her talking on the phone the next day with her therapist, loudly complaining that I have no right to complain about my job. When she holds my hand and tells me that I’m saving her life, fixing all her problems, that she doesn’t know what on Earth she’d do without me.

“Okay. Let’s just … try again.”

“You sure?”

“Just do it.”

I take a shaky breath, wipe some tears off my face. “Fine.”

“Grab my wrist.”

I do.

She braces herself, squeezes her eyes shut. “Lift up my arm.”

I do, as slowly as I possibly can.

This time, she’s silent until her arm is almost perpendicular to her shoulder, and then she gives a loud moan. Instead of dropping it, I gently place it back at her side, but it doesn’t seem to make the pain less intense. She whimpers and weeps long after I stop touching her.

I stand there, ashamed and guilty, listening to Björk yelp to a sparse beat, waiting for permission to call 911.

My roommate is always furious when I coerce men into hurting me, with both me and the men, even when I indignantly point out to her that I quite literally asked for it. “Why are men always so eager to hurt women?” she asks. The implication being that women never hurt each other.