This Is Where the World Ends (9 page)

Ander and I are a whirlwind. Of glitter and puppies and everything that's good and right in the world. We are perfect and beautiful and I've already gone through two tubes of Chapstick. It's like every day I date him is the best day of my life.

Today is off to a great start too. Over breakfast, my parents told me that Dad got called to an emergency meeting in Utah and Mom's going with him because their marriage counselor says that their Janie-less time is a vital pillar of their marriage. They're going away again in a few weeks because it's really, really vital.
Gag.
They're very, truly, horribly, terribly endlessly sorry to leave me alone on my eighteenth birthday, but they'll bring me back wonderful presents and lots of them, so I assured them that I'd be okay. I came to school and Piper brought me coffee and I invited her and Ander
and a bunch of his friends over to help me celebrate my adulthood.

Ander kissed me when I told him, or maybe I kissed him. Who cares? Literally everyone because they were all watching because the two of us are too damn perfect.

It's like I can really get to know him now, really
see
him. I look at him and I see freshman year, when he had just gained a foot in a summer and it seemed like it was still giving him vertigo. I look and I can just see his second-grade class picture—the crooked teeth and the haircut he did himself the night before, and the eyes the color of maple syrup.

And I see me too, Freshman Me with her new backpack and schedule clutched in sweaty fingers, looking around corners to find classes and—
“Ohmygod here comes Ander Cameron.”
I wasn't even friends with Piper then, was I? No, so it would have been someone else's shoulder that I turned and buried my face in. Who was it? It doesn't matter. I used to look at Ander and imagine waking up with him. Stretch, yawn, see him beside me, smile. I wanted to talk to him and be friends with him and try out a different kind of living with him—the kind that happened with your lips.

Sometimes, back then, I'd see him and he'd see me, and he would blush and I would blush and our mutual
blushing was like—like how Disney told me that love at first sight would feel.

And sure, he became more of a douche.

And sure, I became—

I don't even know. I became
me
, less so and more so.

And now that we are Officially Going Out, it's everything I thought it would be. It's so damn easy. Zero percent commitment, a hundred percent fun. He's started wearing his thick Ralph Lauren sweaters again—you know the ones, the big chunky-knit things made of boyfriend material—even though it's not quite sweater weather yet, and every time I see him, I bury my face in his chest and thank God that fall is a season.

And best of all, he pretends with me. He pretends that we're crazy in love, pretends that the air is our love and we're swimming in it, and it's just
easy
. There's so much kissing.

Kissing him is so. Much. Fun.

This is it. This is true freaking love.

Until the moment passes.

I get a
now
. I deserve a now, don't I? I do.

And here's what's happening now: AP Bio lab, which doesn't ruin the best day of my life because it involves fire. I don't read the lab closely enough to figure out why, and Piper is being an amazing friend by doing the experiment
while I sit on the counter and swing my legs and light matches and blow them out in Ander's direction like kisses. He's across the room and laughing and winking his angel eyes.

(Micah's in this class too, but we're very good about not looking at each other.)

I don't even notice the fire until Piper screams that our lab sheet is burning.

Someone pulls the fire alarm before Mr. Kaplick can tell us to chill, and we're rushing into the hallway and out the door into the sun that keeps the day just above chilly, and I can't stop laughing as the rest of the school pours out. I'm about to lie down and start making grass angels when someone catches my hand.

Ander spins me around with his finger on his lips. I pull it away and kiss him, hard, and he pulls me away and we sprint for the parking lot.

We go to the diner down the road and lounge in greasy seats talking about nothing in particular for hours. He plays with my hair and I order every milkshake on the menu so we can taste them all. His favorite is Clementine Dreaming and mine is NuTELLA Like It Is.

After, he drives me home, and I tell him to stop where the road forks between my new house that I fucking hate and the quarry.

He listens, because that's what boyfriends do. He turns off the car and smiles his crooked smile and leans over and we start making out. I melt like girlfriends do, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him back. We love each other with the kind of love that begins and ends with our lips.

Outside the car, the lamplight is fighting the rain. The Metaphor is just down the hill, and I imagine it while he kisses me, the perfect scene: the two of us dancing under shy streetlights, spinning closer to the water, hand in hand, climbing my mountain of rocks and falling flat on our perfect asses. Can't you just see it? I can.

Maybe we even make it to the top together.

I always knew I'd make it to the top one day. I had painted the moment of triumph in watercolor, in oil, in acrylic; I had sculpted it in clay and stone and plaster, welded it in copper and iron; I had dreamed it in color and sepia, oversaturated and in black-and-white. And never once had Ander been there with me.

It was always Micah. Always, anything, everything.

We kiss for a while, until Ander starts getting frisky and I pull away. He never stops grinning at me, not even when he drives me up the hill to my new house, where all the lights are on because my parents have probably
been waiting for me to come home for hours now. My lips are swollen and I use the last bit of my third tube of Chapstick. He kisses me again before I get out of the car, and he gives me his jacket to run to the house so I don't get wet.

At the front door, I turn back to blow him a kiss good-bye, but he's already gone.

Dewey is in my house again.

Why is Dewey always in my house?

“Dude,” he says. “You gotta get out of bed. You smell like ass. You haven't even been getting up to shit, have you. Goddamn, Micah. I brought Metatron: Sands of Time. It's zombie Confederates this time. Come on, get up.”

“No,” I say.

“Yeah, you know what? We need to get you out of this house. We need to get you some air or something.”

“There's air here,” I say. I take a breath to prove it.
Look at me, breathing. Look at me, breathing. I'm not a vegetable.

“Vegetables still breathe,” says Dewey.

“Did I say that out loud?”

“Yes, you goddamn said that out loud. Jesus, Micah.”

“Oh,” I say.

“Jesus,” he says again, and glares at the ceiling like Jesus
is right there. “Come on, Micah. We're gonna do something. What do you want to do?”

“I want to lie here,” I say.

“We could go to the diner,” he says, like he didn't hear me. I don't know. Maybe he didn't. Maybe I didn't say it out loud that time. I try to remember, but I already forgot. “Or we could drive somewhere, run over some kids like Janie liked to do, crazy bitch—WHAT THE FUCK, MAN?”

I throw an apple at his head, hard. It's rotten; it splats.

“Oh, fuck it, Micah,” Dewey howls, “they were right about you. Goddamn,
goddamn
, you actual fucking
ass
, what the hell? Fuck. You're going goddamn crazy, man. You're one seriously fucked-up little son of a bitch, and—screw you, Micah. God, my
fucking face
.”

But he still doesn't leave.

“Get the fuck out of bed,” he says, seething, looking around for a clean shirt to wipe his face on. He snatches one up, finally. I think about telling him it's not clean, but I guess he'll figure it out. “You know what? We are going out tonight. I'm going to throw your sorry ass over a cliff.”

“I don't want to get out of bed,” I say. Yes, out loud, I hear the words out loud. “I want to stay here and feel sorry for myself and imagine the apocalypse.”

Apocalypses. Apocalypses are safe.

“Let me tell you about the apocalypse,” Dewey says. He strides to the bed and throws my covers back. I shiver and he gags. “Jesus.
Jesus.
You know what, Micah? You're not going to live to see the fucking apocalypse. You're going to get your filthy ass out of bed and we are going to go see this shitshow of a world, or I'm going to murder you right here and you'll never see anything again. Got it?”

I sigh into the pillow, and he's right. It does smell like shit. “Will you just leave? Please?”

“Yeah, dude. And you're going to come with me. Let's go.”

So I get up. I go.

The Metaphor is Janie's territory. Dewey and I always do our drinking on the far side of the quarry, where people drown. That's where we go now. There's a ledge where stoners smoke and assholes dare each other to jump. We are both tonight. Dewey has weed and cigarettes and Canadian whiskey, and I keep daring him to jump.

He just lights another cigarette. He cups his hands around the tip and shivers. “Dammit, Micah, will you sit the fuck down? You're making me nervous.”

I sit. He hands me the bottle of whiskey. I drink until I almost puke.

“God,” I say, coughing. Some of the whiskey comes back
up and sprays the grass, which is already frosty. “Isn't Canadian whiskey supposed to be the good stuff?”

“This is the good stuff,” he says. “Just wait until we have to start into the shit wine. You know what you need? A cigarette. Shit offsets shit.”

I ignore him and take another swig. And another. Dewey watches me. I watch the other side of the quarry, where someone is running. “Is that Piper?”

“Hell if I know.”

“She's always crying,” I say. “Every time I see her she's crying.”

Dewey snorts. “And how often do you see her?”

Not very. But in school, when I was still in school. Sometimes, she runs by my house and she's always crying.

Another swig. After a while, he tries to take the bottle back, but I lean out of reach and take another swig.

“Seriously, Micah,” he says. “How are you doing?”

“I'm cold,” I say.

“Micah—”

“I'm fine. My attitude is as bright as my future.”

“Micah, stop fucking around—”

“I'm not,” I say. “I'm telling the truth.”

The truth, the truth. I'm a terrible liar. I take another drink. Dewey stares at me for a while, and then he starts talking about shit I don't care about. He blows clouds
around our heads and I drink until I forget.

Drink to forget.

Janie's lips in my ear. “Take another shot.”

“. . . town is going to shit. I love it. You hear about Ander?”

Her breath soft against my cheek her lips in my ear her body warm against mine.

“Are you listening to me? Suey Park and a bunch of other people told the police that they saw Wes and Ander leaving Janie's before the fire started, so I guess that idiot really didn't set the fire. Shame, right?”

Her breath soft against my cheek her lips in my ear her body warm against mine her eyes colorless and glittering.

“I mean—shit. Don't listen to me. Don't worry about it, man. No one really thinks you did it. They just think that she—that you might have known . . . you know what? Never mind—Micah, what the hell are you doing?”

Her breath my cheek her lips my ear her body against mine her eyes

her eyes glittering and colorless

and the only part of her face I can see

as she tells me to take another drink.

“Micah, Jesus, get away from there.”

The only part of her face I can see because she is backlit

by the bonfire that rises higher

and higher as she tips my cup back

whispering, “Just drink. Forget this. It's okay. I promise, just drink, just forget.”

“She told me to forget,” I say, spitting the words so that they are real and outside my head. Spitting, as if the momentum will push the memory out. “We were on a lawn chair and under a blanket and the cup was electric blue and she made me drink and drink and told me to forget.”

“Micah.”

Lips breath warmth.

The whiskey is horrible in my mouth pleasant in my chest fire in my stomach. I take another swig, a long one, and then I say, “I think we did something. Janie and I.”

“Micah,” says Janie.

“We did something horrible.”

“Micah,” Janie says again. Her voice is burning. “Don't.”

“What? She told you to do something and you scampered off to do it like her little bitch? Yeah, I'm not surprised.”

“She doesn't want me to tell you.”

“The two of you were so fucked up,” he says, but he isn't taunting anymore. He takes a long drag on his cigarette and the tip burns the color of her hair. His voice is low and tight.

“She says that you can't ever know.”

Dewey blinks, and then he's squinting at me. “What?”

“Micah, stop talking. Stop talking now.”

“She wants me to stop talking,” I say.

“Micah. Micah, hey. Look at me.” He taps the side of my cheek. The cigarette is too close to my ear. I think I can see it burning out of the corner of my eye, but that could just be Janie. It could be her hair. “Micah, man. You're saying she's here? Now?”

“Yeah,” I say. “She says that she hates you.”

My legs are over the side of the ledge now. The water is far, far below, probably. The quarry is two hundred and nineteen feet deep. It is the deepest quarry in Iowa. It's dark. I can't see. I don't remember when I got this close to the edge.

Dewey's face is so white that it glows in the dark. “Dude, do you want me to—do I need to take you to the hospital or something?”

“Nah,” I say, and take another swig. “Damn, Dewey. Isn't Canadian whiskey supposed to be the good stuff?”

The bottle is empty. The bottle goes flying. Dewey smacks it out of my hand and it goes flying. Distantly, there is a splash as it falls into the water.

I squint into the dark. “There's like a five-hundred-dollar fine for littering.”

“Screw the fine.” He's in my face. “There's been, what,
fifteen people who've died here in the last fifty years? If they can't find their bodies, you think you're going to find that stupid bottle? Look, Micah, listen to me—”

“Fourteen,” I say. “The last one was Patty Keghel in 1972. I remember. I was looking up local apocalypses and came across her name because she was a big Herbert Armstrong follower. She believed every one of his false apocalypse predictions and once she ran naked through Waldo to alert everyone. She used to fish in the quarry and she made her own rafts, but I guess not good ones because that's how she drowned.”

Dewey goes quiet, so I keep talking.

“Janie and I saw her grave. Freshman year, we saw her grave. It's in the cemetery. Do you want to see? We should go see. We can go now.”

“What the hell are you on right now—”

“And again,” I say, spitting again, “again this year, we came here. Here.”

“Yeah, I know we've come here before. We get drunk here all the time because we're the biggest shits on the planet.”

“Not you and me. Us. Janie and me. Me and Janie. I remember that. I remember now, it was our birthday. We came and there was a boat. You made a treasure hunt and it led to you.”

“Micah. What the fuck are you even saying? Are you talking to her?”

“Yeah,” I say, and I turn to Dewey but a little too fast, and his hand is on my arm and I am leaning on him because I can't feel my feet. “She won't—she won't leave me alone.”

“Oh, stop exaggerating, Micah,” Janie says. “You don't want me to leave you alone.”

“She's my soul mate,” I say, and I say it again, but I can't make it clearer. The words are mashed in my head, vomit in my mouth. “My soul mate. Or not soul mate. She said that we shared a soul. What does that mean? She said that we were an atom. I don't know, Dewey. I think she's crazy.”

“I am crazy,” Janie says. “So are you. All of the best people are. Who said that?”

“Lewis Carroll. Lewis Carroll said that.”

Dewey is holding his cigarette so tightly that it's disintegrating in his fingers. Maybe he's imagining that it's me. Squeezing all of the insanity away. “Micah, seriously—”

“She's goddamn insane, man. But I love her, Dewey. God, I don't know how to stop loving her. Sometimes it fucking hurt to look at her, you know? You ever love someone like that? No, you haven't.”

“You don't know that,” Dewey says. All of a sudden, his voice is so sharp. He cuts through the haze, and it hurts, hurts everywhere.

“It hurts,” I say, and it's almost a sob, it sounds like a sob. Am I crying? I don't know. I don't know. “It hurts, Dewey, it hurts so fucking bad. It feels like I'm dying, Dewey, like my head is fucking tearing itself apart. I just want her to come back. I just want to know why she didn't ask me to go with her, I just need her to text me back—”

I'm on my feet and the ledge is higher than I thought and I'm staring down and down and it's too dark because there's no moon tonight just like there was no moon that night and I can't see anything but the height. I look to the side and Janie is looking up at me and everything is blurry and she is the only clear thing in the world.

And then I'm falling and falling and falling

but

in

the

wrong

direction.

T
HE
J
OURNAL
O
F
J
ANIE
V
IVIAN

Once upon a time, there was a boy in a tower. His hair never grew long enough so that he could climb out, so for a long time, he just watched. He watched and watched until he knew the angle of the moonrise and where the stars crossed and how the geese flew. He watched anything, everything.

Which was nice and all, but someone had to show him that there was more to life than watching. Someone had to drag him out.

That's where the girl comes in. The girl was the best kind of crazy. She got her luck from matches and threw rocks at his window and coaxed him out, one word at a time. She did it because she wanted to, because she needed to, but also because she didn't want to be alone. It wasn't fair to keep that kind of boy locked away.

But life's not fair. So there's that.