This is Not the End

by Chandler Baker

  Matt adjusts the angle of his chair using the straw-like contraption. The motion casts his face in shadow again. Dark screen. Unreadable. “Au contraire,” Matt says flatly. As a byproduct of having nothing to do, Matt has listened to the complete sets of Rosetta Stone for Spanish, French, German, and rudimentary Japanese. “It’s practically the only thing I care about right now.” At this, I soften. My eyes search his for signs of my big brother. “Your friends dying went and screwed everything up. More specifically it screwed you up. And that is something I care about immensely.”

  I notice that he doesn’t say someone and my temper flares so white and hot that I can’t speak.

  “Honestly, teenagers, cars, it’s so obvious I’m practically kicking myself—” He pauses. “Notice I did say practically—for not anticipating this sort of disaster in the first place.”

  “I’m glad this is all so amusing to you.” I’ve heard enough. My keys are on my nightstand and I cross the room to get them. We’re done here.

  “Wait,” Matt snaps with a sharpness that feels as though he’s bitten me. “I can help.”

  “Can? Will? From you those are two different things.” My hand closes around the mini surfboard I use for a keychain.

  “I can tell you the first clue.”

  I freeze and turn slowly to him. “What did you say?”

  “I know it.”

  “How?”

  “Because I found it.”

  “How?” I repeat more loudly and slowly, as if he can’t understand English.

  “Because I was here when your dopey boyfriend showed up to hide it in your room and swore me to secrecy. Good secret keeping, huh?” He winks.

  I scan the room. The clue. It’s been in here. Here. All along. “Where is it, then?”

  I snatch up the corner of my bedding and tear it from the mattress. I shake the blankets and look for something to tumble out. But nothing does. I search around for the next thing to tear apart.

  “It’s gone,” he says. “I destroyed it.”

  “You what?”

  “I destroyed it.”

  Like I hadn’t understood him the first time. It’s a good thing there’s a bed between the two of us. “You psychopath.” I reach my hands up and tear at my hair. Pain shoots through my elbow. Matt’s eyes go wide. “What is wrong with you?” I screech. “That is maybe the last message I’ll receive from Will ever, and you—you—” I catch my reflection in the full-length mirror nailed to the wall. Red splotches dot my cheeks. “You took that from me.”

  “Stop, Lake,” he barks at me and for some odd reason I obey. “I needed…insurance. And,” he scoffs, “let’s face it, clearly, I wasn’t wrong. But, I’ve memorized it. Okay? Calm down. I know the whole thing by heart.”

  I feel uncomfortable, like all of a sudden my clothes are two sizes too small. “Memorized it,” he says.

  The words aren’t computing. Why? How?

  I begin to pace, panting and agitated. I consider the effort it must have taken to use that damn robotic arm that he has hardly bothered to learn to maneuver since he first got that wheelchair. It could have taken him hours. That’s how much he hates me. Right there. Remember this, Lake, if nothing else.

  Matt’s eyes don’t waver from my face. Not even for a moment. “I’ll tell you, but I’m going to need something in return first.”

  “No. I’m not promising you my resurrection.”

  He laughs. “No, of course not. You already promised that, so a new promise of your resurrection would be altogether redundant, don’t you think?”

  I close my eyes and think about sweet Will and how he painstakingly put a scavenger hunt together to lead me to something because he thought it was important, and now I do too.

  I open my eyes and there’s Matt. Cruel. Bitter. Mean. Matt.

  “Don’t you want to know what I want?”

  I stare hard at him. Testing, thinking, Think, think, think, Lake.

  Mom pops her head in to my room. I haven’t even heard her coming. “Everything okay in here?” The corners of her eyes show worried creases.

  “Everything’s fine,” we both say in unison.

  When we don’t say anything more, she just taps the doorframe. “Lake, I’m going to make some chamomile tea. I’ll make you some.” And then she disappears.

  And as soon as she’s out of earshot, I tell Matt to go to hell because I don’t want him going anywhere near Will and Penny. Because their memories, at least, are still mine.

  Before I even consciously know where I’m headed, I’ve almost arrived at Southshores, a white-stucco apartment complex with red-tiled roofs and a massive parking lot. I’m pleased to find that anger and adrenaline get me most of the way there at a normal rate of speed and that, while my heart has taken up residence somewhere at the top of my throat, the fear of driving hasn’t seemed to have gotten any worse. At least not yet.

  For the first time since becoming friends with Will and Penny, I felt like I had no escape hatch. And it sucks. Because every time I need my family the most, I’m reminded of how the air between us, stuffed into that ocean-view home, has condensed into a hotbed of need and dysfunction. In that moment before I grabbed my car keys, I truly believed that if I breathed in one more lungful of that air, the toxic fumes would smother me dead.

  And then I happened to think of Ringo and it felt like finding the release valve on a teakettle, and it was here or drive around or home and so I chose here.

  I pass through the white-painted wrought iron gates of the community and drive straight to Ringo’s building, where I knock on the door.

  “Ringo! It’s me, Lake!” I call. My pent-up anger has me bouncing on the landing out front of his apartment, number 102. I’m relieved that after only a few seconds there is shuffling behind the door, the clink of a chain being slid back, and then Ringo’s half-and-half face peering out at me from the crack. “Tell me again that my life sucks.” I stomp my foot and curl my fists into balls at my side.

  “Lake,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

  I press my hand against the outside door, push it open, and barge inside. “You were right. Cosmically unfair. Have I mentioned that I hate everything? Because if not, I feel like I should mention it again. I hate everything.” Just like on the beach, it feels good again to say this, out loud, and to Ringo. He is the only person whose face I have seen in the last four days who hasn’t wanted something from me. No, needed something from me, and it turns out needs are at least ten times more oppressive when applied to somebody’s soul.

  Ringo hovers near the entry. “You should have called.”

  But I already feel lighter now that I’m unloading some of that added weight onto him. I spin on my heel. “My brother, do you know what he did? He destroyed the first clue. Destroyed it. Do you know how messed up that is?” Ringo’s cheek twitches. He’s not moving into the apartment with me. I look over my shoulder, suddenly self-conscious. There, in the small, poorly lit living room is a middle-aged woman sitting on the couch staring fish-mouthed into the television. “Oh. I’m sorry.” It’s midweek during the day. “I didn’t think—”

  Without blinking or taking her eyes off the screen, the woman reaches for a Big Gulp sitting on the TV tray next to her, finds the straw with her mouth, and takes a long sip.

  She doesn’t acknowledge me.

  “Are you going to introduce me?” I ask Ringo through gritted teeth, nervously twisting the hemp bracelet around my good wrist.

  He sighs, finally taking a few steps toward me. “Sure thing. Lake, this is my mom, Renetta Littlefield. Mom, Lake Devereaux.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I hasten to say.

  Nothing. No signs of life but for the squeaking of the straw in the lid. Ringo raises his eyebrows at me. One disappears into the angry red birthmark.

  I bite my lip and shift my weight. “Did I come at a bad time?”

  He gives a noncommittal shrug. “You should have called.” I remembered now Ringo entering his num
ber into my phone before he got out of the car following our near accident. Then he told me to take care and was gone.

  Well, that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to take care of myself, I’m trying to stay afloat, to cling on to the only lifeboat there is. But now my clumsy fingers clutch around the shape of my cell phone stuffed into my back pocket.

  “I—I—” I press my palm to my forehead. “I’m so sorry. I’m an idiot. What is wrong with me? Just showing up like this.”

  Ringo is more tense than when I last saw him and he has a sour look on his face, like he’s just swallowed five lemons whole. “No, it’s fine.” He casts a sidelong look at his mother. “Let’s go somewhere else to talk, though, okay?” He’s keeping his voice low.

  The actors on the television babble on against the backdrop of dramatic instrumental music.

  I nod, relieved. Ringo too seems to collect himself. He takes a deep breath and puts his hands on both my shoulders. He lowers his head to look straight into my eyes. “Just…wait here, all right?” He tilts his chin to gesture at the couch next to his mom. “Five minutes. Promise. I just…I need to put some shoes on and—” He pinches the flimsy white undershirt he’s wearing. I blush. “Get dressed.” Then he mouths “Five” and holds up one hand, fingers spread wide while he backs away. “Promise!” he calls as he disappears down a dark hallway.

  I swallow, uneasy, then sink carefully down onto the sofa cushion next to Ringo’s mother, worried that in my attempt to escape one suffocating atmosphere, I might have jumped right into another.

  “Hi,” I say. “Your, um, apartment, it’s lovely.” Not a word. Ringo’s mother has a pooch of fat above the waistline of her pants on which crumbs have gathered, giving the impression that she doesn’t move from here often, but she is quite pretty, her face smooth, with high-arched eyebrows and dark eyes. “Have you lived here long?”

  She unwraps the plastic from a Twinkie and stuffs one end of it into her mouth. “I can’t hear my soaps,” she says. A few cake morsels fall into her lap, where she leaves them.

  My jaw clamps closed. I don’t even dare utter the words of an apology. Instead, I resort to the coping mechanism of awkward people everywhere and pull my phone out from my pocket.

  Up until now, I’ve been too scared to check ChatterJaw, an app that lets kids in a particular social circle post anonymously. I usually check into our school’s ChatterJaw at least once a day, more during the school year, when I feel like idly checking out whatever gossip is sweeping St. Theresa’s or if I’ve forgotten the night’s assignments for a particular class that I don’t share with Will or Penny.

  But for the past week, I’ve been consciously avoiding the application because, well, I already know what the gossip of the day will be. I haven’t been immune to the pull of seeing it firsthand, though. So, maybe just a peek now. While I won’t have time to think about it. Perhaps it won’t hurt. Much.

  I click on the icon and wait while the loading spiral swirls and swirls. I sneak a look at Ringo’s mom. She’s taken another bite of her Twinkie and set it down in favor of the giant soda cup.

  The app loads. My fingers are sweaty with anticipation. I don’t have to scroll to find evidence that news of our car accident has reached the St. Theresa’s crowd. The thread R.I.P. Will Bryan & Penny Hightower has been upvoted 137 times, so it appears at the top. I tap the thread and the screen populates with dozens of anonymous messages. I scan through a few:

  Only the good die young

  Will and Penny, your lives were taken too soon. I will see you in every butterfly, every springtime flower, every rainbow. Rest in Peace

  Really makes you appreciate the small things…

  Be real, guys, they thought they were better than everyone else

  Ass

  Has anyone talked to Lake?

  I heard she was in the car too. She’s not listed as a fatality so…there’s that

  The messages are basically what I’d expect—some that wax poetic, others that are mean, plenty that are just curious. I wish I could stop there, because I can handle those messages, but it’s the next thread that grabs me by the throat and strangles the air out of me.

  Virtual Bookie: Over/under—who will Lake choose?

  “Damn,” I mutter.

  “Hush,” Ringo’s mom snaps and I shrink closer to the armrest on my side of the couch.

  The first message in the thread is:

  Lake turns 18 this month. Who wants to take bets on her resurrection choice. Serious takers only. We’ll go private to exchange the $$

  “Going private” refers to the private-message feature through which ChatterJaw members can send each other messages only visible to a single other member in their social circle.

  Despite my conscience screaming at me not to, I read the messages that follow:

  Will—$20

  Will—$45

  Will—$15

  Will—$155

  You guys are crazy. #Teampenny all the way! Penny—$40 #hoesbeforebros

  Will—$60 #teamwill

  Penny—$120 #teampenny

  Lake’s not resurrecting Will. No way. Haven’t you checked out the Spilled thread? #Doyourresearchbitches #troubleinparadise #teampenny $200

  I read the last message again. What is the poster talking about? “Trouble in paradise?” What “research”?

  “You ready?”

  I jump and jam my finger into the lock button on my phone. My screen goes instantly dark. “Huh?”

  Ringo is standing in front of me, dressed in a pair of gray shorts and a navy polo. “Keys, phone, wallet.” He touches his pockets. “Yep, good to go.”

  I realize I’m meeting him with only a dumb stare. I’d nearly forgotten where I was. He looks at me quizzically, the stained patch of his face wrinkling. “Um, yeah, yeah—” I shudder, shaking the cruel messages away as best I can. “Where are we going?”

  “Coffee shop. Down the street. We can walk.” He says this like he knows it will be a relief.

  He offers me his hand and pulls me out of the crater I leave on the flimsy sofa cushion.

  “Nice to meet you,” I call to Ringo’s mother before I hurry after him, out of the cramped apartment. Ringo’s walking quickly and I have to trot to catch up. He’s leading me across the vast parking spaces and back through the white iron gates. “I…thought you said your mom was a professor?” I ask in my best innocent voice.

  When we’re out of the gates, Ringo’s pace slows and he adopts the easy, relaxed posture that I admired when we last met. “Was,” he says. “She’s retired.” He puts that in air quotes.

  “Are you two in some sort of argument?” I think of my own family, where we’re literally battling over promises of life and death, but it’s still not as awkward as it was between Ringo and his mom.

  “We had a falling out. About a year ago, give or take,” he says.

  “It’s been like that for a year?”

  We walk along the steaming road in the direction of a strip mall, which is drawing nearer by the second.

  “Pretty much.”

  “Oh.” Ringo seems like he’s finished talking about his mother. Our steps fall in sync and we walk along the road in silence.

  “I’m not trying to be a jerk,” he says. “I like to keep my worlds separate. At home and, well, basically everything else.”

  “Me too,” I say, and mean it.

  “Your life is cosmically unfair,” he says, and I catch him looking sidelong at me with a crooked smirk creeping the curve of his mouth up. “Total balls.”

  “Thank you.” The constant knot in my chest seems to untangle itself by one loop at least. I try to imagine Will in the same position as Ringo right now. What would he say to me? It’s hard to imagine that he would say anything was cosmically unfair. Will was an eternal optimist. Even when his dad left, sure, he cried, but he was already busy making plans to be nothing like Logan. He wouldn’t have said that anything sucked. Nothing sucked for Will Bryan. Nothing except fo
r dying.

  Ringo leads me into Neville’s Coffee Shoppe. On the outside, it’s a simple, run-of-the-mill, strip-mall storefront, but once inside, I find a busy cafe. Round community tables dot the center of the room. Hanging above them are outlet strips where patrons have plugged in their laptop computers and cell phones. There are other seating options too. A nook with loveseats and squishy armchairs. Schoolroom desks. High-top counters. Conspicuously absent is any sign of the beach at all. The decor is all deep gray and crimson without any of the sky blue and white, the coastal colors that businesses in our town typically favor.

  I follow Ringo to the coffee bar and the baked goods display. A barista with a tight shirt, tattoos, and a white towel slung over his shoulder greets us. “Ristretto macchiato, dry?” he asks Ringo, already pulling a small cup from underneath the counter.

  “Come here much?” I tease. The barista doesn’t linger over Ringo’s split-personality face or glance away.

  “And what it’ll be for the missus?” he asks, using the towel to dry the inner rim of the mug he’s already holding.

  “Actually, I don’t like coffee,” I say.

  The barista raises his eyebrows to Ringo. “What is this, witchcraft?”

  “Pure heresy,” Ringo agrees. “How are you running? Battery power?” He arches back as if to look for a pack or an outlet between my shoulder blades.

  “All natural, I guess.” I flip up my palms apologetically.

  “Ringo’s veins are highly caffeinated,” says the barista.

  “We can fix this.” Ringo draws out his wallet and lays a credit card on the counter. “Make it a cup of Neville’s house blend, double-double.”

  “But—”

  “You’ll like it,” Ringo insists, daring me to challenge him.