Awake in the World

by Jason Gurley

  “I wouldn’t be born in a different era,” I said. “I’d keep this one. I’d relive every single day, if I could, right up until the day he left us for that last shift. Then I’d go back again. Start again.”

  “A time loop.”

  “Over and over again. Forever.”

  “There would be consequences,” she said. “Everything you want to do with your life, it wouldn’t matter. College, if you want that. Raising the girls. You’d cut it all off every time you rewound to the beginning. Time would lose meaning each time you reset.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But…”

  “But your dad.”

  “Yeah.”

  She put her head on my shoulder, and I draped my arm around her shoulders. When we arrived home again, I could see Derek through the window, washing dishes. Leah sat on the counter beside him. As I watched, my brother leaned toward her, rested his head on her shoulder. The water kept running. I was torn between admiring the sweetness of the moment and rapping on the window to tell him to shut the water off.

  Vanessa stopped me before we reached the door.

  “What?”

  “We’re bound to screw this up,” she said. I knew what she meant: the way she’d blundered into Mama’s room, the stupid comment I’d made about father figures. “But promise me something.”

  “What?”

  “That you won’t just quit.” She drew a deep breath, as if it had taken effort to say that. “Like, tell me when I screw up. And I’ll tell you. But don’t just … quit.” She hesitated, then added, “It’s dumb, but I don’t think I’d handle that very well.”

  I caught movement in my peripheral vision, a glimpse of Derek disappearing from the window. He knew we were back, but the front door remained shut.

  “I promise.” I pulled her in tight and rested my cheek against her hair. She sighed, and I said, “You know, if I could go back—all the way back, like that—then this never would have happened.”

  Her cheeks were pink. She rose onto her toes and pressed her lips to the tip of my nose. Her dark eyes danced. Softly, she said, “Happy birthday … dude.”

  26

  Vanessa

  “Nope. No, nuh-uh, nope,” Cece protested. “I don’t do dream talk. Not since you told me the one about how your skin was a candy shell and you licked it all off.”

  “Cece,” I pleaded.

  “Nope. Dreams are fascinating—when they’re your own. I don’t need to hear more of your freaky, existential nightmares.”

  “This one really means something,” I countered. I gave her my best pouty eyes. “Please.”

  She delivered one of the epic sighs of human history. With a pointed glance at her wrist, she said flatly, “Two minutes.”

  “It’s about Zach,” I started.

  “Nope, nope, no way. Forget the two minutes. I do not want any part of this.”

  “It’s not one of those dreams.”

  “I do not need to know you’re even having those dreams.”

  “I don’t,” I said. “Well, except—”

  “NOPE,” she said, turning away.

  “He turned into a bird,” I blurted out.

  She stopped. “If you humped a bird in your dream, I can’t get down with that.”

  “No,” I said.

  She frowned. “Two minutes.”

  “So I’m on this pitch-black road. It’s the dead of night. It could have been anywhere. There weren’t any landmarks. I could have been in Tunisia, or in Nebraska, or—”

  “The surface of Io?”

  “Cece,” I said. “Io is covered with volcanoes. If I was on Io, I’d have known it. And just after knowing it, I’d have died. Hey, fun fact: From the surface of Io, Jupiter would appear, like, forty times bigger than Earth’s moon. In fact, you—”

  “Get to the point,” Cece interjected. “Or I’m done.”

  “Fine. I remember looking up—you know, to see if I could navigate by stars—and the street was perfectly aligned with the arm of the Milky Way. Like if I’d kept walking, eventually the road would have just merged with—”

  Cece touched her forehead and waved one hand. Eyes closed, she intoned, “You’ll inherit a prime piece of real estate. It’ll be—wait, it’s coming, it’s coming—somewhere in the vicinity of Ursa Minor, on the planet Betelgeuse.”

  “Betelgeuse is a star. And it’s in the vicinity of Orion, not Ursa Minor.”

  “As if that matters one iota to this conversation.”

  “Cece.”

  “Fine. Continue.”

  “Zach was there. He didn’t see me. I ran toward him, but just when I thought I would reach him, he unfolded these huge wings. Like, albatross-sized. And he just flew off.”

  “Which direction?”

  “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Southward. I mean, maybe. I watched until he was gone, and then I woke up.”

  “Were you sad? When you woke up?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “No.”

  “It was a premonition,” she said. “You saw the future.”

  “Zach doesn’t have wings.”

  “No,” she said. “But where’s that school you tried to push him into?”

  The skin on my neck tingled. “San Diego,” I said.

  “See? South.”

  “Cece.” I grabbed her face and kissed her forehead. Ada was approaching, and I gave her an abbreviated wave as I flew past.

  “Yeah, you’re welcome,” Cece called after me. “Madame Cecily says come again. And bring money next time.”

  * * *

  “I think I’d rather have giant bird wings,” Zach said. “Besides, I never would’ve pegged you for a dream theorist. Not my Vanessa, Queen of Reason and Logic, Empress Scientist of the Milky Way Gala—” He stopped, reading my face. “What?”

  “Your Vanessa,” I said.

  He blushed furiously. “I just—um—I—”

  I laughed and hip-checked him. “I thought it was sweet.”

  His face returned to its usual color, and his voice dropped. “Look,” he said gently—but there was a firmness that hadn’t been there before. “College sounds like fun. I’d probably like it. But…” He looked away, as if searching for the words. “Not everybody gets that dream. Or needs it. All the things I’d miss? I can’t leave all that. My family needs me. It’s not like with you.”

  All I wanted to do was shake him. He was so wrong.

  “You disagree,” he said. “It’s okay, I can tell. You think I’m selling myself short, or something. Maybe you think my family’s just this anchor, holding me down.”

  “No,” I said. “Zach, that’s not—”

  “But I don’t think you know what it means to need an anchor. If I didn’t have them…” He hesitated. “If I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t want what was left of me. They define me. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s the best thing. It’s … the only thing.”

  From where Zach stood, we were fundamentally different. We were two people, running side by side, for a moment in time. But whereas my course had a finish line, a destination, Zach’s was just an infinite loop. He wouldn’t ever be allowed to stop running.

  He left me for work a few minutes later, and I biked home, unable to shake the feeling he was right. We were two different people. The only reason I would ever fly in circles, I thought, would be to build momentum, to slingshot myself to something greater. And that’s what Cornell was. Cornell wasn’t my endgame; Cornell was the trajectory, the loop. When I burst free, I’d be going somewhere that mattered.

  He flew in circles because he was tied down. And not by his family, like he thought I thought. But by circumstance. What would happen to us when I flew away? What would happen to him?

  I parked the Kestrel in the garage, hung my helmet on the handlebars. Before I went into the house, I hesitated. Something was off. Something wasn’t … right. And when I opened the door, I could hear it. The sound of Mom and Aaron fighti
ng.

  I’d never heard that sound before. Their disagreements could have been used as a syllabus in conflict-resolution classes. We don’t have to agree, one of them would say. I respect your point of view, and it doesn’t make me love you any less, the other would reply.

  But not today.

  I waited inside, at the bottom of the stairs, listening. I’d always been afraid a day like this might come. Now that it had, it could mean only one thing: The bloom was off the rose. Aaron had finally found something about Mom to dislike; Mom had found a hint of my father in Aaron. The marriage had an expiration date now, and when it arrived, Mom and I would be alone again, wounded and searching for somewhere safe to land.

  But we’d done it before. If it came to that, we’d do it again.

  When I reached the top of the stairs, they looked like raccoons caught raiding the trash. “What’s going on?”

  Mom’s eyes were red, I saw in the instant she met my gaze. Then she looked away.

  Aaron was red-faced, sweating. He looked at me, then turned back to my mother. “Elise, you have to tell her,” he said.

  “Tell me what?” I asked.

  “Ask her,” Aaron said quietly. “Ask what she did.”

  Mom held my gaze, but I could see that it took considerable effort. Her jaw twitched ever so slightly.

  “What’s he talking about?” I asked. “Mom, what did you do?”

  Her lips parted, but it took a moment for her to say the words. She closed her eyes. “It’s gone,” she said, finally. She shook her head. “It’s all gone, Vanessa.”

  “What is?” I asked.

  Mom didn’t answer. She whirled about, slid past Aaron, and disappeared quickly down the hall. A moment later, I heard the bedroom door click shut.

  I looked at Aaron. “What did she do?”

  “I’m so sorry, kiddo,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

  “Didn’t know what?”

  “Our savings,” he said. “Your … college money. It’s all gone.”

  The room tilted. My stomach slid sideways.

  Cornell spun away from me in that moment; the news slingshotted me in the opposite direction. I was supposed to find out in a few weeks if I’d gotten in. Years of hoping, planning—and at that last minute … this?

  Slowly, waveringly, he told me the story. Over the past several months, Mom had drained both accounts dry. Every penny had gone into Costa Celeste, the lead balloon that she and the rest of the council kept trying to pump full of air.

  “It was our savings first,” he said. “When that was gone, she took the rest.” He choked up. If I hadn’t realized before how much Aaron cared for me, it was on full display now. “Everything that was yours.”

  I had to sit down. Aaron pulled out a chair for me, then sat beside me.

  “It wasn’t just her,” he went on. “Everyone did it. The whole council. Investors kept dropping out, and the council decided—off the record—to self-fund the project.” He ran a hand through his hair. “So damned stupid. They thought if they could just open the doors, then overnight the town would drown in tourist money. They’d get it all back, and more.”

  “Stop,” I said. It was getting hard to breathe.

  “I bet tonight there are conversations happening all over town just like this one. All those empty bank accounts, all those cashed-out 401(k)s, second mortgages. And all for that damned—”

  “Stop.”

  He went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water for me. I took a long swallow, and he said, “Better?”

  “No.”

  “I knew she’d put aside college money for you,” he said with a sigh. “After the divorce. I just figured she’d put it into an education fund. Something protected. Not just a savings account.”

  “In her fucking name,” I swore. I looked up at him. “She—she really took it all?”

  His eyes were wet. “Yes.” He took a deep breath, and I could see him trying to make sense of it himself. “She thought she was doing the right thing,” he said. “I’m sure they all did. I’m mad as hell, and more than a little hurt, for both of us, but she—”

  “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t do that.” My ears were ringing. “I was going somewhere. Now I’m not.”

  “Hey. There are still scholarships,” Aaron said. “Financial aid. I promise this isn’t the end, no matter what it sounds like. And…” He paused and put a hand on my shoulder. “I know you don’t want to consider it, but there are a hundred schools that would take you in a heartbeat. Like that.” He snapped his fingers. “We’ll figure this out. I promise.”

  “I don’t want a school to take me,” I said, fighting tears. “I want to go to the one I love.”

  His mouth opened, closed. “I’m sorry, kiddo. Don’t give up. Not yet.”

  I could hardly hear him. The ringing in my ears became a roar, and I ran to my room and shut the door and sagged against it. Beside my desk was a bookcase stuffed with books by Carl Sagan; on the walls, posters and news clippings. I fought a sudden urge to tear everything down, to hurl his books through the window, onto the lawn.

  Cornell had been a dream; now it was a mirage. Worse, it meant my father had been right: My hero was dead. And now so was my future.

  Everything that had mattered an hour ago no longer did. My application, the imminent early decision …

  How naive and stupid I’d been.

  PART THREE

  February 2013

  27

  Zach

  “Four waters,” I said, delivering four glasses to the table. When I straightened up, Jill, the morning-shift manager, beckoned to me.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “Maybe you got a field promotion,” she said, “but didn’t I hire you as a busboy?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And yet I see you serving.”

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s just, the customer asked me, and—”

  “You’re wearing the apron of a busboy, are you not?”

  Sigh. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She shielded her eyes, looked both directions. “Do you see any of the servers wearing that apron?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “So you do know the difference.”

  “I do, ma’am.”

  Jill nodded toward a table in the corner, where a party of four was pulling on the jackets, abandoning half-finished stacks of pancakes and cold, Play-Doh-yellow eggs. “Then do your job, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Maddie, of course, had severely trimmed my hours after Christmas. She had me there Tuesdays and Fridays after school, in four-hour shifts. She’d released two other stock boys and Pat, the cashier. Pat, as it turned out, worked as a line cook at Dot’s Diner in his off hours. He’d hooked me up with this job. Jill was happy to fill my empty schedule with hours. When I wasn’t at Maddie’s, I was here. When I wasn’t here, I was at school or collapsing onto the sofa at home. What I wasn’t doing was spending any time with Vanessa.

  Something had gone sideways with us. She didn’t wait on the sidewalk for me and the girls anymore. She’d started ducking me at school. No more walks from class to class, no more free periods spent reading in the loft. I sat down to lunch with Cece and Ada, and Vanessa simply didn’t appear. In health class, she wouldn’t look at me. If I saw her in the halls, she vanished before I could reach her.

  Each day I expected to find a note in my locker slats: For a time, we occupied the same orbit. But every orbit decays. It’s time for me to move on. But the note never came, and I kept replaying her words on the night of my birthday: Don’t just quit. Tell me if I screw up, but don’t just quit on us.

  Well, I hadn’t. And yet here we were.

  I’d expected this at graduation. She’d leave town, ascending like a rocket. But we hadn’t even made it to January. She was still here—I could see her—but she wasn’t, not really. After a few weeks, I’d handled all the uncertainty I could bear. I lingered in the hallway outside her AP calculus class. I�
�d prepared a whole speech in my head: romantic and forceful—in a romantic kind of way?—but I didn’t get to deliver it.

  “Zach?”

  Cece and Ada appeared in the hallway. The end-of-class bell hadn’t rung yet. I’d scammed a hall pass from my teacher, but I didn’t know what the two of them were doing out here.

  “Hi,” I said.

  Cece looked at me, then the door to Vanessa’s class. “So,” she said. “You’re—what? Stalking her now?”

  I felt dewy with sweat. “I’m not.”

  “Precisely what a stalker would say,” Ada supplied. She removed a tiny notebook from her pocket and jotted something down. “What else would a stalker say?”

  “I’m not,” I repeated, mouth dry. “Not a stalker.”

  Ada kept writing. “Uh-huh.”

  “Look,” Cece said, perhaps realizing she’d put me on the defensive. “You’re not. Bad joke. But you should probably go before the—” The bell sounded, and up and down the hall, doors opened, leaking teenagers. Cece sighed. “Before that happens.”

  I could see Vanessa inside the AP calc room, at Mrs. Ashworth’s desk. Cece noticed, too, and shook her head.

  “Just … don’t,” she said. She sounded resigned.

  Ada touched Cece’s hand. “I have creative writing. Find me after?” She trailed her fingers over Cece’s collarbone as she departed, and Cece turned to watch her leave.

  “Do you have any idea what’s going on?” I asked. “She just fell right off the planet.”

  “It’s her business,” Cece said, a little too firmly. She watched until Ada was gone, then, with a sigh, she admitted, “Honestly, she barely talks to me now, either. Something’s up, but I don’t know what.”

  A flash of movement drew my eye. Vanessa stood frozen in the classroom doorway, thumbs hooked beneath her backpack straps. She was wearing a huge pair of noise-canceling headphones. She stared at Cece, then me.

  “Nessa,” Cece started, taking a step away from me.

  Vanessa held my gaze for a moment longer, and I tried to read her face. But I couldn’t. I didn’t say anything; my speech withered in my head, forgotten. Then she turned sharply and walked away.