You & Me at the End of the World

by Brianna Bourne

  At the bottom of the painting, far beneath the woman’s feet, is a field of tiny stacks of cubes. A geometric landscape. Laying on top of the blocks are her two discarded feet.

  I read the plaque on the wall below the painting: The Day She, the Starburst, Shook Loose.

  I stay there for a long time, staring. Losing myself in the swirls of color, in the arch of Starburst’s back, in the tiny voids of the stars on her arms, the way her chin tilts up. Free and wild.

  I feel Leo beside me before I see him.

  “Oh. That’s …” He shakes his head, unable to find the words.

  “I know,” I say.

  His arm brushes against mine, and he clears his throat. “Hey, um. Sorry I kept asking about ballet stuff back there,” he says. “I thought you’d want to keep talking about it, to distract you from things.”

  “I’m sorry I was grumpy,” I say. “I’m just a little tired of always thinking about ballet.”

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize how true they are. I haven’t had five minutes to myself in the last year. Ballet has consumed my life.

  Before the empty, every day was the same. I struggled out of bed every morning, feeling like I’d had eight minutes of sleep instead of eight hours. I floated between classes at school, my head blank. My body ached all the time. Ballet is hard. But the thought of not doing it is even harder. At least in my case.

  Sometimes I wish I didn’t care so much about what I’m supposed to do. To be brave enough to make my own choices, like Leo does.

  The Starburst woman certainly doesn’t care about what she’s supposed to do. I wish I had her hanging in my bedroom.

  “I wonder if there’s a gift shop in here,” I say. “Maybe I can get a print of this.”

  Leo shrugs. “Just take this one.”

  “What? I can’t do that. That’s stealing.”

  “Who’s here to catch you?”

  He has a point. And the artist would probably want her painting to go to a good home, loved by one of the last two people in the world, instead of being sealed up alone in this museum.

  I step forward, angling for a good grip on the frame. Once I find one, I lift the painting off the wall, but something clicks.

  The room starts pulsing red, then the wail of an alarm pierces my ears.

  I freeze and look at Leo.

  “Seriously?!” he shouts up at the video camera in the corner of the room. “Let her have it—there’s no one here!” He turns back to me. “Don’t worry about the alarm. Let’s just get out of here.” I start to put the painting back, but he stops me. “Bring it with you. May as well now.”

  We retrace our steps to the Degas room. The flashing lights are less noticeable in here, but the shrill alarm makes my ears ring. I clutch the painting to my chest.

  At the far end of the Degas room, a thick metal panel is lowering over the exit.

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Leo mutters. He sprints for the door. Under the weight of Starburst, I trot awkwardly, but I can tell we’re not going to make it. Leo drops down to a crouch but jerks his fingers back to safety when it’s clear there’s no way he’s going to stop a solid slab of metal. We spin, about to turn back, but the door to the ultraviolet room is blocked by a metal panel too. At least the alarms have stopped shrieking.

  “Um. This seems a little excessive,” Leo says.

  We stand there for a long moment. Trapped. The rain pounds down on the skylight overhead.

  Leo stomps petulantly over to one of the velvet benches and sits. I lower Starburst to the floor and drop down next to him.

  I’m so stunned by the whole day that I don’t know what to do. I lean my head back against the wall and watch the rain swish against the glass above us. It really does look like a car wash.

  My toes are going numb with cold. I roll my ankles to get the blood pumping again, but when I look down to stretch my toes, what I see makes me jerk my feet up.

  There’s water on the floor. It’s already an inch deep, across the whole room. And it’s rapidly rising. How did it even get in? I look at the metal doors, at the skylight. Nothing’s dripping down.

  “Leo!” I slap at his arm and point to the floor.

  “What the—” He pulls his feet out of the water. “Could this day get any more ridiculous?”

  I scrabble to lift the painting onto the bench with us. The bottom edge is wet, but the paint’s not running. The whole surface is hard and smooth, protected by what looks like a layer of clear varnish.

  The water is rising fast. We huddle and watch, stupefied, as it climbs. Four inches. Six. It’s not slowing down. I knew we shouldn’t have come out again. The rain is going to fill up this whole room, and we’re going to drown.

  In the flash of a second, I can see it all. How we’re going to frantically tread water as we rise up to the ceiling. We’ll press our hands against the smooth glass of the skylight, trying to break it with our car keys. We’ll press our noses into the last bubble of air. Exchange sad glances when we realize we can’t save ourselves. We’ll hang on to each other as we drown.

  Oh, cut it out, Hannah. Think, think, think.

  Maybe instead of imagining doom, I can imagine a way out. Wait—what if there’s a secret passage? Like a hallway that the janitors use. I start searching for a gap in the crown molding, or a camouflaged handle. Something. Anything.

  I don’t know what to do with Starburst. “Hold this,” I say, shoving her into Leo’s arms. The water is knee-deep now, almost covering the benches.

  “What are you looking for?” Leo wades behind me, splashing through the murky water. He’s balancing the painting on his head.

  “A door, or something—here!”

  It was a ridiculous idea. A desperate, grasping-at-straws kind of hope, but … I think I just found a door. There’s a crack in the wall running up, over, down. A panel. I run my hands along the crack, but there’s no handle. I bend down and plunge my arms under the water. At the bottom of the door, there’s a pin that shoots into the floor. I lift it up, and the door is free. I pull it open, fighting against the force of the water. Leo grabs the edge of the door, helping me pull.

  And then we’re through. The water rushes into the next room, spreading across the floor like a spilled vat.

  “Go!” Leo shouts.

  We sprint through the next room, and the next, following the glowing red exit signs. Leo pushes a fire door open, and more alarms blare. We tumble out into an alley between the buildings, and the rain sideswipes us. The storm is still raging, and for a second, I think about turning around and running right back into the museum, but Leo shouts, “Thunderchicken!” and then we’re shoving back against the rain, using Starburst as a shield. As long as the untreated back of the canvas doesn’t get soaked, I don’t think the rain will damage the painting. The flying shrapnel is another story.

  When we break out of the alley and onto the street, the wind swats at us, but it doesn’t knock us off course like before, and we press our way toward Thunderchicken. Leo wrangles Starburst into the back seat, and then we’re piling in through the driver’s side door.

  “Shit, we left the windows rolled down!” Leo yells. We both work on cranking them back up, and then, finally, we’re safe again from the storm raging around us.

  The seats are sopping wet, and my arms are shiny with rain. I twist to arrange Starburst more carefully on the back seat, pinning her in place with Leo’s guitar case so she doesn’t slide around.

  I squint out the window, trying to figure out where the storm is coming from or what direction the wind is blowing, but it seems to shift every second. Out the back window, I’m sure the clouds are denser, darker. They’re coming our way.

  “Leo?” My voice wobbles.

  “Hey, hey, hey, we’re safe.”

  “No—I think we need to leave. I really think this is a hurricane.” I’m starting to shiver again. “We need to get out of the city. We need to evacuate.”

  Leo says som
ething, but I’m envisioning us swimming under overpasses and getting electrocuted or eaten by alligators.

  He shakes my knee. “Hannah? I said we’ll go.”

  “How are we going to drive through this?”

  “I can do it. Hannah. Hannah, look at me. I can drive in this. I’ve driven in worse,” he says.

  I cover my mouth. I don’t know if I’m going to cry or throw up. Maybe both at the same time. It’s a thousand times worse than my almost breakdown in the lobby, and I can’t stop it.

  Leo throws one wet arm around me, squeezing, holding me until the worst of the shaking passes.

  “I can drive in this,” he says again, firmly. “Where are we going? Just away from the Gulf?” he says.

  I nod. And then, somehow, through the panic and chaos and the death scenarios flying around my head, I remember. “My grandparents.”

  “What about your grandparents?” he asks.

  “They live out that way.”

  “Do you know how to get to their house?”

  I nod.

  “How far?”

  “I don’t know. An hour? Maybe a little more?”

  “Okay. We’re doing this. Put your seat belt on,” he says.

  “Do we have enough gas?”

  “Tank’s at three-quarters, so it should get us there. I filled up yesterday before I went to the guitar store.”

  “Was the gas station—”

  He nods. “Just like the grocery stores. All the lights on, no one home.”

  Leo pulls Thunderchicken away from the curb. Her headlights refract off a million raindrops. It’s like driving into a wall of light, so he switches the headlights off.

  We crawl along, using the green-yellow-red blurs of the traffic lights to navigate. Every now and then, Leo pats Thunderchicken’s dash like she’s a horse that might get spooked. My cheek starts throbbing again.

  When we finally hit the highway, there’s an LED sign on the overpass.

  HURRICANE SEASON IS HERE.

  BE PREPARED.

  “That’s so great of them to give us a heads-up,” I say, and I swear I see the corner of his mouth lift.

  Thunderchicken plows through the darkness and the rain as we leave Houston behind us.

  This is awful. It’s the furthest thing from comfortable in the entire history of Leo Sterling, and that’s including the time my PE teacher made me run two miles without walking.

  Thunderchicken’s windshield wipers slash back and forth like a psychotic metronome, but they can’t keep up with the rain. It just keeps coming, lashing at us from every angle. Hannah and I have been driving for three hours, and now we’re on an unlit farm road. I’m straddling the lanes, making sure the yellow stripes disappear under the exact middle of Thunderchicken’s hood because I’m terrified we’re going to hydroplane and end up in a ditch.

  I adjust my white-knuckled grip on the wheel. This is the road trip from hell. No tunes, no enormous gas-station drink sweating in the cup holder, no giant bag of M&M’S on my lap. My back hurts from leaning forward, my legs itch from wearing wet clothes for so long, and my stomach hurts because I’m worrying about Hannah. Even my eyeballs hurt from squinting through the wall of rain.

  I can’t remember the last time I was this stressed out. I’m starting to suspect that something is going on with me. Why am I doing all this for her? I don’t think I can use the same excuse I’ve been using. It’s not just because she’s the only person here anymore.

  I glance over at Hannah. She’s an ultra-tense, rigid column beside me. She’s watching the road, helping me keep away from the edges. Her shoulders are shaking, but it’s not cold in here. She’s either in shock or in her own head again. When I take my hand off the wheel to give hers a squeeze, our fingers intertwine like they’ve got minds of their own. My rings clack against the plain silver band she wears on her middle finger—the only finger I don’t have a ring on.

  I shouldn’t be holding her hand. But it fits. Like it belongs in mine. A fresh wave of adrenaline hits as I think about whatever happened in the museum lobby. What was she thinking when she had her eyes closed? I wish I had time to soak in the memory of how warm her skin was under my hand, how my eyelids felt heavy with want, but we’ve got bigger shit to deal with right now.

  A gust of wind knocks into Thunderchicken’s side, and we veer off course. I can’t drive with one hand, not in this storm. She realizes it too, and we untangle.

  Why are we doing this again? If it had been up to me, we would have stayed downtown. We could have broken into the outrageously expensive hotel next to the museum. We’d be wrapped in silky sheets, drinking champagne, living up our last hours before being obliterated by the hurricane or whatever this is.

  But Hannah wanted to come out here, and I can’t turn back now. I have to get us to her grandparents’ house.

  Hannah’s ballerina spine gets even straighter as she peers out the windshield.

  “Slow down,” she says. “I think it might be the next turn. Yes—yes! After that green mailbox.”

  I pull off onto a narrow, unpaved road. Crooked trees reach their branches out at us like fingers.

  “This looks like a horror movie,” I say. “Are you sure this is the right road? Where’s the house?”

  “I’m sure. Keep going—their driveway’s a mile long.”

  Who has a mile-long driveway? But I follow orders. Finally the trees thin out and the dark shape of her grandparents’ house looms up through the curtain of rain. Gravel crunches under Thunderchicken’s tires as we roll up.

  I twist the keys out of the ignition and leave Thunderchicken’s headlights trained on the front steps like searchlight beams.

  I slump back against the seat. “Oh my god. We made it.”

  Beside me, Hannah slumps too.

  “Told you I could drive in it,” I say, even though I was only about six percent sure that I could. Now that we’re stopped, the rain sounds like handfuls of tiny rocks being chucked at us.

  I stretch my cramped hands. They feel like arthritic claws, curled around the steering wheel for so long—and suddenly Hannah’s taking them in between her own hands, rubbing away the soreness. I’m afraid to talk. I don’t want her to stop.

  Whatever it is between us, it’s sweet right now. Completely separate from the moments that burn me up.

  She puts my hands down a few minutes later, warm and limp in my lap.

  “Thank you for driving,” Hannah says softly. Then she pats the glove box. “And you were brilliant, Thunderchicken.”

  She smiles at me for the first time in hours, a grateful strum of a thing, but I have to manually restart my breathing.

  I like the way that one small thank you feels, the same as when she smiled outside the bookstore after the eclipse. Like I’ve done something right.

  I lean forward and study the house. I’m not sure what I expected—another shiny white Parthenon? Instead it’s a small farmhouse with a wraparound porch, all dusty blue siding and white shutters.

  “If the door’s locked, which window do you want me to break?” I ask.

  “None of them,” Hannah says. She dips her hand into the cup holder and brings up her key chain. “I’ve got a key.”

  “Excellent. Ready to go?” I brace myself—we’re going to get soaked again between here and the door.

  “I guess,” Hannah says, but she doesn’t move.

  “What’s up?”

  “I knew there wouldn’t be anyone here. I didn’t expect there to be, but it’s still weird. My grandma’s always waiting outside for us. The windows should all be lit, and she should be up there sitting on the porch swing.”

  The swing in question is empty, swaying violently in the wind. What an interesting concept. Someone waiting for you on the porch swing. That’d be nice.

  “Sorry,” Hannah says. “I’m ready now.”

  I turn off the headlights so Thunderchicken’s battery doesn’t run down. “Go time,” I say.

  We explode into the nig
ht. The rain soaks us cold in seconds. We rip open the back doors and grab our stuff: guitar, backpack, painting, and then we’re slamming the doors and pelting up the steps. Hannah scrabbles at the lock, then pushes the front door open, and we’re tumbling into a shadowy living room.

  Hannah clicks on a lamp. The soft light blooms over a pair of hideous floral couches, and everything smells like pine needles and lavender. There are framed photos on every wall and tissue boxes on every flat surface.

  We’re panting and wet, and I feel so out of place in the stillness of this grandma-cozy living room.

  Hannah props her painting up against a wooly brown armchair. She’s silent for a moment, standing forlornly in the middle of the room. Then she rubs her hands over her face and starts moving.

  “I’ll get us some towels,” she says. “Do you want to borrow some clothes?”

  “I’ve got some in here,” I answer, patting the backpack I pulled from the back seat. I keep spare clothes in the car, because I never know when I’ll be crashing at Asher’s or some chick’s house or who knows where. I think my Def Leppard shirt and a pair of jeans are in here. They may not be fresh-from-the-washer clean, but at least they’re dry.

  She shows me to the downstairs bathroom. I hang my head over the sink and rinse the rain out of my hair, then I dry off and change. I think my toes might be raisins forever.

  When I come back out to the living room, Hannah’s standing by the window, wearing fleece pajama pants and an oversized T-shirt. She hasn’t even taken her hair down. Wait—I think she’s actually redone it. Combed it and put it right back into that severe updo.

  “Do you think we should have kept driving?” she asks, staring out into the rain. “Does it look like more’s coming this way?”