Rebecca’s is worse because it happened the night before her birthday.

She laughs about it now, saying, “I guess his plan kind of backfired when I started puking all over his bed.”

Rebecca’s is worse because I didn’t even make it to some man’s bed. I just turned white and then green and then started shaking and then felt like a puddle. People tell me I didn’t literally melt — that I wasn’t a dissolved human being in a heap on the floor — but that’s what it felt like and I couldn’t see anything, anyways, so all I know is what it felt like.

I was dressed inappropriately for the weather as usual and had eaten pizza for all three meals that day. The party was at an apartment in the West Village that a friend of a friend was house sitting. People assumed I had smoked some laced weed or done some bad coke. But the truth was that I’d had just that one beer. And it tasted the way it was supposed to. And everything was the way it was supposed to be, until it wasn’t.

Rebecca’s is worse because she had to wake up there.

At the party, I was keenly aware of just how much space I was taking up in the room. Logging heights, distances, intimacies. I’m taller than many men — even some of the ones I’m supposed to be afraid of — but I still keep track of who is standing an inch too close. It’s my way of existing in the world as a woman. Usually it isn’t even a physical thing, it’s the hot breath of a stranger’s stare warming your cheeks. But there wasn’t a tall, imposing man standing too close that night. There was only lukewarm beer.

Rebecca’s is worse because I came with two female friends who took me home that night, feeding me my fifth slice of pizza of the day before tucking me in to bed to sleep it off.

Rebecca and I weren’t together for either night. We hadn’t met each other yet. We talk about those nights in a crowded bar on the Lower East Side with our hands grasped tightly around our drinks. I think I see her knuckles whiten when she smiles and says, “We were such babies back then!”

It’s been two winters since that night and I’m sitting next to the boy I am vaguely dating at a bar covered in taxidermied animals. A formaldehyde-soaked deer head stares at me as I swirl the straw in my gin and tonic.

The boy’s name is Greg and he works at a bike shop. He always tells me, “Bring me any bike — any bike! — and I can fix it.” But I don’t even have a broken bike to be fixed.

It’s late, almost one a.m, and I’ve already decided that I feel like sleeping in my own bed alone tonight.

There’s a falcon perched above my head with marble eyes. It reminds me of the khaki-clad animal rescue groups that used to visit my elementary school classrooms with trunks full of snakes, birds, and other strangely docile creatures. I was always amazed the birds didn’t fly away. It wasn’t until later that I realized their wings were clipped.

“Cigarette?” Greg looks at me expectantly.

I motion to my half full glass. “Give me a minute.”

Greg grabs a cocktail napkin and wiggles it over the straw and cup, creating a makeshift tent. He admires his handiwork and stands, adjusting the beanie on his head.

It’s then that I realize Greg wasn’t raised on fairy tales. His mother never warned him of poisoned apples and hexed sewing wheels. He was raised to think his drink would always remain unharmed, waiting for him. I follow Greg outside, giving my abandoned cocktail one last look.

Later that night, I walk home alone. Greg had been polite and offered to walk with me but that would have involved not inviting him up to my apartment so it seemed easier to part ways at the bar. I lie and tell him I have an early shift at the coffee shop.

I could have taken the subway but I want to feel the cold air on my exposed skin. My neighborhood is mostly industrial buildings and old factories. At night the concrete surroundings cloak the air in a layer of unexpected quiet. I like it because it makes my breathing seem loud inside my head. I’m drunker than I thought I would be and my throat is sore from too many cigarettes.

A few blocks from my house I hear footsteps fall into the rhythm of my own. I speed up slightly, listening as the person following me matches my pace. I clutch my purse closer to my side but I know that if this is “a bad man,” it isn’t my purse I should be worried about.

DON’T DRINK TOO MUCH

Sleeping Beauty and Snow White never stood a chance.

NEVER LEAVE YOUR DRINK UNATTENDED

I guess that’s why we invented Prince Charmings for little girls, to make up for the harsh reality of villains.

USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM

The footsteps continue. Sometimes I do this thing where I dial ‘nine’ and ‘one’ on my phone, my finger at the ready for the second ‘one,’ as if cop cars and ambulances are waiting around the corner at the ready, my knight on a white horse with a siren.

There’s always the moment where you want to run. I’ve run before. A man was yelling “Here kitty kitty!” Unfortunately I was dressed like a cat at the time. I wasn’t the one chasing a seventeen-year-old in cat ears and yet I felt like the silly one.

The footsteps are still getting faster. It takes me a moment to isolate the sound — it’s the familiar clomping of platform heels behind me. I steal a glance behind. A small woman in a tight dress and leather jacket is tottering on her heels behind me. She isn’t chasing me — she is listening to the advice of the pamphlets instructing us to “take back the night,” as if it were ever ours to begin with. Apparently, we are using “the buddy system.” I slow down and she adjusts her speed accordingly.

The next morning, Rebecca’s voice crackles through the intercom.

“Come on up! I’m just in the middle of shaving.”

I take the stairs two at a time. I’m here so often that I couldn’t tell you the color of the walls but I could walk up to her fourth floor studio blindfolded.

Rebecca swings open her door before I reach the top step. She’s fully clothed but half her face is covered in shaving cream.

“Uh, what exactly are you shaving?” I ask. Rebecca has never even had a whisker worth bleaching.

“Oh, this!” she laughs, as if surprised by my surprise. “I read on some beauty blog that shaving your face is a good way to exfoliate.”

She goes back into the bathroom. I picture her as a young boy standing on a step stool next to a much larger man in a business suit. In this scenario, he is her father. The two stare into the mirror shaving, each occasionally stopping to appreciate one another’s technique. Of course, as a little boy, her razor would have the blade removed and maybe the man wouldn’t be dressed in his suit yet. He would probably be in a white Hanes t-shirt and boxers so that he wouldn’t spill shaving cream on his fancy work clothes. I’m not sure because I have never been a young boy standing on a step stool shaving next to my father.

I sit down on Rebecca’s couch. Her laptop is on the ground a few feet away from me. I manage to stretch to grab it without changing my lounging position.

“Guess how tall Shia LaBeouf is,” I ask. This is my favorite game. I have an uncanny talent for guessing celebrity heights.

Rebecca makes a face as though she is thinking really hard. Maybe she is thinking really hard. “I bet he is really short. Like, he is definitely overcompensating. I bet he is either really short or average height or has a surprisingly big dick.”

“He definitely has a tiny dick. But you have to pick a height,” I say. I take this game seriously.

“5’6".”

“Google says he’s 5’9".”

“Bullshi–ah, fuck!” Rebecca has nicked her cheek with the razor. She washes her face, sticking a piece of toilet paper to the cut, the white quickly blossoming with red.

“That’s what you get for underestimating Shia LaBeouf’s height,” I say.

Rebecca laughs, admiring her newly exfoliated and bleeding face in the mirror. “You know my mom always says to only date short men because they can never look down on you.”

Alexandra Wuest is a writer and poet based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in Hobart, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, and htmlgiant, among others. She can also be found on Tumblr and Twitter.