The Edge of Everything

by Jeff Giles

  She turned off her phone so she wouldn’t hear it explode. She nodded to X. She was ready.

  He picked her up and pulled her to his chest. He did not bother leaping over the fence—he just let out a howl and kicked it down with his boot.

  He carried her up and over the powdery banks and then down the icy road that wandered through the mountains. The moon had broken through the clouds. The snow gave off a faint blue light. Zoe was silent now—overwhelmed by the shock of it all, he imagined. Her eyes were open, but she appeared to see nothing.

  He tried to think of a story to tell Zoe as he carried her. He thought that hearing his voice might console her somehow. Talking would never come naturally to him (how many words had he even spoken in his lifetime?), and he realized now that he didn’t know very many stories—and certainly no pleasant ones.

  So he told her their story.

  He began with her knocking him down on the ice.

  He told her that she’d smelled like the dogs, adding nervously that he meant it as a compliment, that he’d liked it. He told her that he was changed the minute she smashed into him, that by stopping him from taking Stan, she’d woken him up—challenged him not to hate himself and to think of himself as something more than a killer. Because that’s all he was when they met, wasn’t it? It didn’t matter if you killed only bad men. You were still a killer. Even if Zoe and X had never spoken (never touched, never kissed) he wouldn’t have forgotten her. Couldn’t have. He’d have guarded the memory of her with two cupped hands, like it was a flame in a draft.

  Was Zoe listening? He wasn’t sure. But he liked telling the story. It soothed him.

  He told her about how they’d argued when her family found him in agony in the garage—how he’d begged her to abandon him, even though he was praying that she wouldn’t. He described riding to the house in Jonah’s sled and sleeping in a bed shaped like a fat insect. Why was it shaped like an insect? He’d worried it was a stupid question, so he had never asked.

  X told her how he used to lie waiting for her to fall asleep. He told her that she snored just the tiniest bit—but maybe he shouldn’t have said that? He changed the subject. He talked about Jonah. He said he could feel his hard little hugs even now. He confessed that when he was tiptoeing out of the room one night he’d stepped on one of Jonah’s toy animals and broken its horns. How ashamed he’d been! He’d meant to apologize, but never did. He didn’t know what kind of animal it was. It had horns, so maybe it was a monkey?

  Zoe’s lips twitched at this last detail—she nearly smiled.

  She was listening. And she looked warm in his arms.

  X talked for another hour. They were out of the mountains now. They were on a road lined with evergreens. X saw poles strung with wires. He felt civilization rising up to greet them. Still, it would take them ages to reach her father.

  As if she’d read his thoughts, Zoe stirred in his arms and spoke.

  “Why are you walking?” she said.

  Her voice was flat and tuneless, but he was grateful to hear it.

  “Why aren’t we zooming—or whatever you call it?” she added.

  “I have seen the effect that zooming produces in you,” said X, “so zooming must be our last resort. In truth, I am happy to walk—for the more slowly we go, the longer I can hold you.”

  Zoe was quiet a moment.

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “But it’s okay to zoom.” After another silence, she added, “Do you really call it zooming? I was just guessing.”

  “No, we don’t call it that,” said X. Fearing that he’d been unkind, he quickly added, “But we certainly can.”

  Satisfied, Zoe withdrew into her thoughts again. The moon, appearing to follow her cue, ducked behind the clouds once more. Even to X, the darkness was alarming.

  eighteen

  The instant Zoe awoke, she knew her father was near.

  She lay in a bare wooden hut on a beach in what she guessed was British Columbia, the ocean crashing and sighing on every side of her. She could feel her own version of the Trembling spreading beneath her skin. Her heart, her nerves, her lungs—everything in her body told her how close her father was.

  X was not beside her. Zoe remembered only flashes from the night before: the hut had been locked, and X had smashed his fist through the door so they could get in. He’d warmed the place by simply rubbing his hands together, but still they’d slept huddled against each other, as if they were in danger of freezing. X had made a pillow for her out of his coat.

  An hour ago—could it have been more? she wasn’t sure—X had opened the door, and a wedge of sunlight had fallen across her face. She’d woken, briefly. He told her he’d be back. He told her to keep sleeping. It was such a lovely thing to be told: “Keep sleeping.”

  Zoe’s mind must have churned as she slept because she woke up knowing exactly what she and X had to do about her father. The answer had been sitting in her brain for hours, waiting for her to awake. She knew X wouldn’t like it. She’d have to find the right time—and the right way—to tell him.

  She sat up and leaned back against the wall. The place was one of those changing-room huts that families rented on the beach during the summer. It was tiny. There were hooks for clothes and rough wooden drawers. Otherwise the inside of the hut was stark, white, and empty. Zoe could hear the wind whistling outside. When she peered through the slats in the wall, she saw a line of snow-covered trees leaning almost horizontally over the edge of the cliffs.

  She pulled her phone from her pocket. It was 8 a.m. There was a string of texts from her mother, beginning with one that read, What do you MEAN you won’t be home? There was also one from Dallas (Do you really like the quilt I got you? I got a gift receipt just in case), and one from Val (Why isn’t your butt at school?! Is your butt malfunctioning?!)

  To Dallas, she texted: I love the quilt, shut up, go away.

  To Val, she wrote, Loooong story. Who told you about my butt??

  To her mother … Well, what could she say?

  Zoe stared down at the phone, and began typing:

  I’m in Canada, I think.

  CANADA? YOU THINK?!

  Road trip. Hard to explain. I will be home soon. Pls don’t freak.

  Waaaay past freaked. Who are you with?

  …

  WHO are you WITH?

  …

  Zoe? Are you there?

  I’m with X.

  Zoe couldn’t explain the situation. Not in the state she was in. For all she knew, X was on his way back with her father right this minute.

  She stuffed the phone in her pocket, put on X’s coat, and pushed open the door.

  The hut turned out to be on stilts, and—because the tide was high—standing in three feet of frigid water. The outside walls were bright red. On either side of it, there were identical huts, painted yellow and powder blue. Zoe had planned to walk on the beach, but the ladder at her feet was so swamped with water it had begun to float. She might as well have been on a houseboat.

  Zoe sat in the doorway, the cold sun on her face, the wind playing games with her hair.

  She tried not to think about her mother. Her mom would understand—eventually.

  She tried not to think about her father. When she did think of him, all that came to her was a rage so dark it was like a storm front. Maybe that was for the best. She was going to need her anger.

  Zoe caught sight of X coming down the beach. He waded toward her through the water, his pants soaked, his shirt flapping against his chest like a sail in the wind. He was carrying two plastic bags. When he noticed her perched in the doorway of the hut, he lifted the bags high and shouted the most surprising thing she’d ever heard him say: “Breakfast!”

  X climbed the ladder, and handed Zoe the bags. For a moment, he stood in the doorway, wringing the cold salt water out of his pants. His face was flushed from the wind. He looked weirdly happy. Giddy, almost. Zoe had seen him twirl Stan like a baton. She had seen him stagger into the ice sto
rm to confront a lord. But she had never seen him as proud of anything as he was of having successfully ordered takeout.

  She watched as X converted his coat into a picnic blanket—she made a mental note to get the thing dry-cleaned—and unpacked the bags.

  They held three Styrofoam containers, which were still so warm that they perspired slightly. There was also a bizarre number of cans: a Canada Dry Ginger Ale, a Big 8 Cola, a Jolt Cola, an RC Cola, a tomato juice, and a Diet Dr Pepper.

  “I demand that you explain this amazing triumph,” said Zoe.

  X looked at her sheepishly.

  “Surely there are more important matters before us?” he said.

  “I can’t think of any,” she said. X seemed unconvinced so she added, “I need to hear something happy. Everything else is too awful. Let’s just talk about food for a little while? Please?”

  He said he’d taken the money from Zoe’s pockets as she slept—he still felt bad about it—then wandered along the road until he discovered a restaurant. It was a bright, loud place, full of laughter and clinking glass. Everyone swiveled toward him when he walked in—partly, he supposed, because he wasn’t wearing a coat and his hair was not quite presentable.

  Zoe snuck a look at X’s hair, and smiled. It pointed in every direction like a sign at an intersection.

  X said that he’d panicked as the diners inspected him. He thought of fleeing, but a woman with bright yellow hair and a pencil welcomed him and set him at ease. X pretended he couldn’t speak English. The yellow-haired woman found this endearing. She toured the establishment with him, miming that he should look at everyone’s plates and point to what he wanted.

  “Oh my god, she was flirting with you,” Zoe interrupted. “I may have to go back and have a talk with her.”

  X had been telling his story excitedly—breathlessly, almost. He stumbled to a stop now, confused by Zoe’s comment.

  “Never mind,” she said. “Keep going. This is my favorite story of all time.”

  All the diners, X said, wanted him to choose their food. It became a game. They lifted their plates to him as he passed, hoping for his approval. Whenever he selected something, a cheer would go up, and the waitress would scribble on her little rectangle of paper. His only difficulty had been choosing the drinks because he couldn’t see what was inside the cans. He hoped she found something here acceptable?

  She assured him that she did. She took the ginger ale for herself and, when he reached for the Jolt Cola, guided him toward the tomato juice instead, saying, “I think you’re jacked up enough already.”

  Next came the ceremonial opening of the Styrofoam boxes. X watched as Zoe gazed inside them. He looked so nervous that it would have moved her to tears if she hadn’t been starving. In the first box, there were two thick, buttered slices of French toast, each with a whorl of cinnamon in the center, and a side of wavy, gleaming bacon. In the second, there was a golden mound of onion rings and a small container of blue cheese dressing. In the third, there was a slice of molten chocolate cake so enormous that an elastic band had been stretched around the box to keep it safely inside.

  X stared at Zoe, desperate for a verdict.

  “I do not pretend to know what constitutes a meal,” he said.

  She leaned over the boxes, put a hand behind his neck, and pulled him close for a kiss.

  “These are the best foods on earth,” she said. “How did you know?”

  X beamed.

  “Should we begin with this?” he said, pointing to the chocolate cake.

  “Obviously,” said Zoe.

  The waitress had forgotten to give them silverware—or paper plates or napkins—so they ate with their hands.

  They ate until there was nothing left but crumbs. They ate until their hands, their shirts, their faces—somehow, even their necks—were sticky with grease and frosting. They ate until the tide had receded, until the sun sat overhead, until X was so high on syrup and cake that he was hopping jubilantly around the tiny hut and doing impressions of Ripper, Dervish, and the Russian guard. Zoe laughed, remembering Banger and all his candy bars. Come to me, ye Men of the Lowlands, she thought, and I shall give you sugar! And maybe even caffeine!

  Seeing X so happy calmed everything inside her. She wouldn’t have thought it was possible. She had gotten so used to pain and to loss and to impossible questions—and yet right here in front of her was love, was hope, was an answer.

  After the inevitable sugar crash, X slept for hours, his long legs sticking out of the hut. Zoe watched him every moment, just as he had watched over her all night. Her father had abandoned her, but X never would. Not willingly. She smoothed his hair as best she could with her hands. She traced the tattoos on his arms with her fingers: the giraffe, the monkey, a knife, a tree, a band of stars. She worried that it was wrong to touch him while he slept, but she couldn’t help herself. And, anyway, she could have sworn that his breathing deepened whenever her skin touched his. She pressed her lips to the insides of his wrists and the soft hollow at the base of his throat. She kissed his fingers one by one, and took them into her mouth. She did it all softly so he wouldn’t wake. Her face flushed with heat. Everything tasted of maple syrup.

  They were so close to Zoe’s father that the Trembling returned as X slept. Being with Zoe always quieted his body, but never cured it altogether. X’s skin became damp and feverish. Zoe opened his shirt wide to let the air cool him, allowing herself the brief pleasure of placing her palm against his chest and feeling his heart pump beneath her hand. As the hours passed, the sickness grew stronger. X shook and thrashed his head in his sleep.

  Zoe’s phone trilled in her coat.

  The screen said ME!!! was calling. Jonah had programmed himself in.

  She stepped down the rickety ladder so X wouldn’t wake, and balanced on one of the narrow rungs. Birds that had drifted in from the water were tracing circles around her. The waves roiled just below her feet.

  Jonah began talking before she’d even said hello.

  “Why aren’t you here?” he said. “Where are you? What are you doing?”

  Zoe answered the least complicated of the questions.

  “I’m looking at the ocean,” she said.

  “Where is there an ocean?” said Jonah suspiciously. “We don’t have an ocean.”

  “I’ll tell you everything when I see you, bug,” she said. “I can’t talk right now.”

  “Don’t hang up!” he said. “If you hang up, I will call back sixteen times! You have to come home, Zoe. Right now! Mom said you’ll come home when you’re ready, but I’m ready right now!”

  “I can’t come yet,” she said. “Soon.”

  “I’m all by myself!” he said.

  “Wait,” she said. “Why?”

  Jonah gave an exasperated grunt, then poured out the following without pausing to breathe: “Rufus is late ’cause he got in an accident—the bear fell off his van, I guess?—and Mom couldn’t wait ’cause she had to go to work, and now I’m alone and I hate it and it’s scary, and why do you have to look at the ocean when we have stuff right here you can look at?”

  It took five minutes to get him off the phone.

  Zoe pocketed her cell and climbed the ladder. The birds sensed food now. Zoe eyed them anxiously. Their bodies, their bills, their moist little eyes—everything was jet-black, except for their wings (which had streaks of white) and their legs and feet (which were bright red and reminded her, strangely, of the bottoms of expensive shoes). She ducked into the hut and began bundling up the bags.

  She wasn’t fast enough: one of the birds dove through the door.

  The instant it was in the hut, it freaked out. It banged against the ceiling and walls, trying to escape. Zoe saw X register the noise in his sleep. She was desperate for him to rest and wanted to protect him like he had protected her, but she just couldn’t drive the bird out. She felt sure it’d been sent to remind them that there could be no sleeping—no touching, no forgetting, no relief—while the Low
lands were watching.

  Zoe finally trapped the bird in X’s coat. She carried it to the door. She released it, watched it disappear over the waves, then sank down in the doorway. The agitation had pushed her over the edge. X, who’d slept through all the commotion, woke up the instant she began crying. She found that moving somehow: that he could ignore anything but her.

  He touched her shoulder.

  “I dreamed you were kissing me,” he said. “I dreamed you were kissing my fingers, my hands, my throat.”

  Zoe turned and smiled guiltily.

  “Weird,” she said.

  She dried her eyes on her sleeves, embarrassed that something as random as a bird had upset her.

  “Can you stand?” she said.

  He nodded and stood.

  “Can you walk?” she said.

  He nodded again.

  “It’s time to find my father,” she said. “I’ve made a decision.”

  X nodded a third time, and took his coat from her. Even the simple act of pulling it over his shoulders seemed to exhaust him.

  “What is your decision?” he said. “I must know.”

  Zoe stood now, too. The birds were still circling the hut.

  “The lords gave you his name to punish us, right?” she said.

  “To punish me,” said X. “You have done nothing to chastise yourself for. I beg you not to imagine otherwise.”

  “Why do they want to punish you?” said Zoe. “Because you’re innocent—and they’re not? Is that what it is? They’re just … assholes?”

  “You may think me innocent,” said X. “But they do not. They think me arrogant and vain, for I have put myself above them. I have put you above them. Now they mean to show me how weak I truly am.”

  “Because they don’t think you can do it?” said Zoe. “They don’t think you can take my father, no matter what evil crap he’s done? They think you’d rather go back to the Lowlands forever than do something that would hurt me?”

  “And I fear they are correct,” said X.

  Zoe opened the door and began descending the ladder again.