The girl heads out of her school cafeteria and into the smoking area where her friend is already smoking. They talk for a little bit, after which the friend asks if she has recurring dreams. The girl says she’s never had one, but the friend says she has one where she’s being chased in the woods by some thing, in the freezing cold, after which she gets caught in its teeth. The girl says it may be a trauma response, after which the friend laughs. They hang out in silence. It is the last time they will see each other.

Growing up, the girl is told by her mother that they’re the only Dominicans in Maine, her family and the friend’s family. That day, the friend is sent home for punching a racist in the face. Meanwhile, the girl thinks that she can beat the racists by doing better than them. Because of the friend’s incident, the girl’s mother talks about solidarity. The girl thinks about how she first met her friend, during recess at the playground, where the friend was sitting underneath a tree. The girl looks at her, noticing that’s the only brown girl she has seen in all four years of her schooling. They introduce themselves to each other, and the girl joins her game of solitaire.

Later, the girl’s window is tapped on by the friend. The girl sneaks out to bring her inside and takes off her jacket, where her shirt is shredded and bloody. The girl tells her to go to a hospital, but the friend declines, saying she was attacked in the woods but barely escaped. The girl then cuts some of her clothes off and wraps her in gauze to stop her bleeding, as well as clean her wound. Afterward, the girl goes back to her bedroom to give her a shirt, and the friend quickly falls asleep. In the morning, she is already gone.

For days, the girl looks for the friend at school but can’t find her. She thinks about all the worst-case scenarios. She finally finds her and asks if she’s alright, but the friend is nonchalant about it, saying she’ll be fine. The girl is afraid about the creature attacking people, but the friend tells her to chill out, before walking away. Still, the girl goes to her smoke breaks and tries to get close to her, and looks at her in the classes they share. In a math class, the friend hands her a drawing of a shadowy face. Later, the friend shows up in the girl’s biology class after getting kicked out of gym. They sit together in lab, as the girl dissects a frog. Eventually, the friend vomits and falls down, though she still dismisses that something is wrong.

Winter comes. It’s a harsh winter, for weeks. The friend visits the girl at her bedroom window every night. The girl tracks where the friend goes, outside, in the treacherous snow. One night, she has a dream that her friend is at first a shadowy thing that then materializes into her friend, before letting out a horrible scream at her window. One day, the girl is in the girl’s bathroom, and the friend comes in to smoke. The girl tells her about the dream she had. The friend tells her that the girl can’t help her through whatever it is that she’s going through.

One day, the girl comes home, and her mother is home surprisingly early. Her mother asks if she’s seen her friend lately, as her friend’s father said she’s been missing for a few days. She says no, and her mother tells her to wait it out. The girl runs to her friend’s house, where her father opens the door, and asks for her. Her father says that the friend bit him and ran away, that she might die in tonight’s blizzard if he doesn’t kill her first. The girl then runs throughs the woods, toward a clearing, and finds the friend sitting there. The friend tells her to go home, but she tries to help her. The friend then pounces on her, with sharp teeth, and asks if she’s into her. The girl thinks she’s going to die and thinks about how she’s never understood her—in fact, she hated how her friend hated everything and felt that she was cursed. The girl quickly fights back and manages to run away. The friend yells that something worse will come.

At home, the girl is taken care of by her mother, who is too worried to punish her. She doesn’t talk about her friend. She thinks about how kids used to sing about the monster in the woods growing up. She sleeps, dreaming of her friend.