“You want one?” BK, or Bethany-Katherine (nobody but Grandma calls her that), and I were standing in the elevator at 3 a.m. when she offered me a cigarette. She kept a pack and a neon green lighter in her breast pocket where I might keep a pen or note. I thought it made sense since it was a reasonably sized pocket for a lighter and pack, but she said that it was a metaphorical expression of her addiction to nicotine. BK was thoughtful like that.

“No,” I responded quickly. At any other time of day I would have said, “No, thank you,” but at 3 a.m. in the elevator I felt a little dazed.

“You tired?” she asked, taking one for herself.

“No, no, I’m still hyped up from going out.”

“Of course you are.” She struck a flame with the lighter and lit her cigarette. “You can crash on the futon, if you’d like. Otherwise we’ll have to blow up the air mattress again.”

“Are you gonna stay up?” I asked looking at the mirror on the ceiling of the vertically bound box. She looked more stout from this view than she does in real life; I looked thin and narrow.

“Probably.” BK exhaled; I watched the mirror as smoke accumulated around her face. “I don’t have to work tomorrow, and you’re flight home’s in the evening, right? We could just take it easy tomorrow, or today, I mean.” The doors opened, and we proceeded down the hallway to her apartment. “You look tired,” she stated nonchalantly.

“You look tired, too.”

“That’s just the way I am,” she said pulling out her keys.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Next door, in Sean’s apartment (BK had introduced me the day before), we heard the low rumble of male laughter and a high-pitched female laugh. The high laugh was full of energy and unforgivingly loud, like Lily. I’m good at making Lily laugh; they say you can’t love anyone with whom you never laugh. BK laughs, too, but she doesn’t give it away as easily as Lily. With BK, you have to earn it. My cousin stared at Sean’s door, clearly unimpressed.

“You know who that is?” I asked, referring to the unidentifiable woman. She looked over her shoulder at me.

“You ask too many questions.” She rolled her eyes as we entered her apartment. BK apathetically but angrily dropped her purse and kicked her shoes off down the hall so that they landed in the living-dining room. “Make yourself at home.” She murmured walking away. “As you know.” I waited a few moments before asking.

“What’s wrong, Bethany?” (I do sometimes call her Bethany, but not Bethany-Katherine, to show sincerity).

“Nothing,” she called from her bedroom. “And don’t call me Bethany.” I had played this game with Lily before. The I’m-Mad-And-I’m-Not-Gonna-Tell-You-Why game. For some reason I wasn’t in the mood to play that night. I knew BK had problems; that’s why I visited. Not to spend the weekend touring Pittsburgh, not to stay out late and party with her, not to catch up, but to be a friend and see how I could help. Now was my chance. I found her in her room, staring at herself in a full-length mirror. She didn’t see me as she watched herself smoke a dwindling cigarette. I knocked.

“Yeah?” She didn’t turn around.

“I need …” I struggled for the word. “An explanation.” I said it as softly as I could. I’ve learned in the angry-game that being forceful can be the worst approach. She turned.

“Where do you want me to start?”

“How about with the woman in Sean’s apartment?”

“I don’t know her, but he picked her over me.” She took one last drag. “So that’s that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She could be anyone. She probably has the blond hair, the lipstick, the figure, or whatever. I don’t know anything about her, other than she’s not worth a minute of anyone’s time.”

“Okay,” I responded; BK had given me more information than I was expecting. “So what’s the deal with the comment about being tired? You said you always looked tired. You said it’s just ….”

“Have you been paying attention at all?” Now she was upset. “I told you about the fallout with Sean, I told you about being tired, I told you about the sadness, but it’s like you’re oblivious. I mean, we’ve spent forty-eight hours non-stop together! I’d think that you might at least listen, if nothing else!” She huffed past me, escaping to the living room.

“BK,” I started. “Don’t walk away. I came to see you.” I sat down on the futon. “I came to see you because I want to know …” I couldn’t quite find the words. “What do you want?”

She looked at me long and hard. “You think you’re some kind of hero? Who the hell asks what do you want and means it?” She started to tear up.

I tried again. “If you could have one thing, tangible or not, what would it be?”

“I want to be one of those bubbly people,” BK finally said, watching the floor and wiping her eyes. “You know those girls who walk down the street boldly? The ones who wear bright red lipstick, tall heels, and big earrings? That woman in there looks like them.” She gestured to the wall that she shared with Sean.

Her dark eyes suddenly jerked up at me. “I want to be the beautiful, powerful type. I want to be one of those people who takes charge just by standing and smiling. I want to command attention through what’s inside me. I don’t wanna be this lifeless shell!” Her voice was escalating. “I want to be larger than life! I want people to look at me, to know me, or to meet me and think that I’m the s***. Is that too much, Gavin? I want to be happy and bubbly!” Now she was jumping around. “How do those girls do it?”

Then she stopped suddenly, looked at me, and exhaled a sharp sigh. “How do you do it?” She caught me off guard. I’m not larger than life. The Joker in “Batman” is larger than life. Obama is larger than life. I’m just some guy. BK looked at me and saw a man who at that moment felt too exposed to raw emotion to properly process what he had witnessed. She waited for my response, tossing her bangs out of her face.

“BK,” I started slowly. “I don’t think you know how small you’ve made me feel.”

“What?” She looked confused. “What did I do that made you feel small?”

“You’re just – ” What was I going to point out? Her unnaturally bold stance? Normally she had a hunched back and copacetic posture. Her zealously frustrated tone of voice? Normally her voice was soft and attractive. What did I owe her as her cousin? What did I owe her as her friend? “Look at yourself; you are bold.”

“Liar.”

“Just listen to me,” I said. “It’s hard for you to make a convincing case about being shy when you’re shouting at the top of your lungs.”

“I can be loud and shy,” she responded quickly. “Shy is when you’re afraid of social judgment. Loud is just a volume. It doesn’t matter anyway, because neither necessarily corresponds with happiness.” She looked at me. “To answer your question as to what I want, I don’t want to be the shell who is living out a system.”

“You think having a bubbly personality would help you?”

She looked up at the ceiling. “I just don’t want to be the lonely shell.” Then she sat down next to me on the futon.

“You know something?”

I took a random guess. “That Pittsburgh is an underrated city?” Lily would have laughed at that. BK didn’t find my crummy joke funny. “Um, no. I don’t know anything other than that.”

“You don’t make me feel lonely.” The room fell to the silence of 3 a.m.

I shrugged. “For what it’s worth, you make me happy. Your sarcasm makes me happy. I don’t want you to be larger than life. You do you really well. I wouldn’t want anyone else to be you.”

“What?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t want any other person to be BK. You’re the best BK I know, shell or no shell, bubbly and determined or not. It doesn’t matter. You do it perfectly.”

BK nodded and sighed. “You know what sounds good to me?” she asked suddenly.

Alcohol? A cigarette? Taking a walk in the middle of the night? Things I could neither morally or ethically do? Those were answers I anticipated. “What?”

But no, she had a better idea. “Rocky.” She grinned and got up to retrieve the DVD.

“You think I could take Rocky in a fight?”

She shook her head and chuckled at the idea of me, tall and skinny, taking on the Italian Stallion. I chuckled, too; not at my dorky attempt to connect with my cousin, but with satisfaction. I had earned BK’s laughter.