You & Me at the End of the World

by Brianna Bourne

  I have to dance.

  I have to dance until I can’t feel anything at all.

  Everything is spinning. The lights, the night, me.

  It’s dark in the back seat of the taxi, and every time the driver turns a corner, I slingshot across the leather seats. I wasn’t dizzy at the hospital, but now every change in direction sends me into orbit.

  I’ll just pretend I’m drunk. This is fun, Leo! Like a ride at an amusement park, like bumper cars or something. Fun, fun, fun.

  Stripes of orange light strobe across my arms as we zoom down the highway. It reminds me of the night Hannah and I chased the beam of light across the city, desperate for it to be a rescue helicopter. I swallow down a wave of nausea. Don’t think about her, don’t think about her, DON’T THROW UP.

  The dried blood on the back of my hand isn’t helping with the whole not-throwing-up thing. After fleeing the ICU, I pulled my IV out like Wolverine. Okay, maybe not like Wolverine. It took me five minutes to work up the courage to do it, and when it finally slithered out, I almost fainted.

  Nobody stopped me as I walked through the bright hospital atrium and out the door, even with blood on my hand and my hospital bracelet peeking out from under a leather cuff.

  I smash the hem of my T-shirt over my hand so I don’t have to look at the blood. I’m wearing clothes that I found in a gym bag in the corner of my hospital room, and I peeled the bandage off my forehead and arranged my hair over the bruise.

  Right now, I need a LifeHack. A whole waterfall of FeelGoods. I want to drown in music and energy and happiness, and this taxi is speeding me straight to a place where I can get all those things: Lissa’s party.

  Asher doesn’t know I’m on my way—he would have tried to talk me out of it. Breaking out of the hospital when you haven’t been cleared by the doctors is not one of my more brilliant plans, but I couldn’t take another second of being in that building.

  Finally the driver pulls to the curb, and I stumble out of the car and into the humid Houston night.

  The thump of shitty subwoofers rumbles through me right away. There are clusters of people in the front yard, talking and laughing and drinking from Solo cups. The porch is decorated with cheap strands of pineapple-shaped lights and the front door’s gaping open. I plunge right into the fray and start weaving through the rooms. Sliding back into my old tricks feels so easy. Feels like where I belong.

  The bruise over my left ribs is starting to ache, and my head isn’t doing great either, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I’d expect to have a headache after that taxi ride anyway.

  I finally find Asher slouched on a couch in the corner of the game room, looking lost under his old skater beanie. When he sees me, his face goes slack with shock.

  “Holy shit, Leo! What are you doing here?”

  “Had to get out of the hospital. It was boring,” I say, shouting over the pulse of the music. I wince—whoever’s made this playlist has no idea what they’re doing.

  Asher stands up, frowning. “I’ll drive you back. I haven’t had anything to drink.”

  “No need. I am totally fine, my dude. Shred-fucking-tastic.”

  He looks unconvinced. “You just woke up from a coma. You have to go back.”

  I sigh and roll my eyes. He’s being such a grandma about it. “Just give me an hour, okay? Come on, Ash, I need some distraction.”

  He shakes his head, but we both know he’s no match for my stubbornness.

  “Fine,” he says. “One hour.”

  I clap my hands together in victory, my rings clacking. “First item on the agenda: What even is this music?”

  “I know. I told Lissa not to let her brother do the sound, but—”

  I don’t wait for him to finish, I just plunge into the crowd. He follows, always my trusty sidekick. There’s a twinge somewhere, some new awareness that there’s something unequal about our friendship that I never noticed before. Thinking about it doesn’t FeelGood, so I ignore it.

  I find the laptop that’s hooked up to the speakers and set it to shuffle eighties rock. No more of this shitty house music. These kids need some Leo Sterling Top 20 up in here.

  The song changes, and the piercing screech of an electric guitar zaps me back to life. This is my jam.

  I’m steady now, expertly weaving through the crowd. Some people I recognize come up to me, and a few Skilletinas are here too. I’m the center of attention, and finally, finally, the night blends into a kaleidoscope of awesome: the pulsing beat of the party, the rush of energy through my veins, the loud music all around me. It’s fireworks and pyrotechnics and headbanging nirvana.

  I can mainline this feeling forever. Live in it and ignore everything else. Everything feels good, and this is all I need.

  This is all I need.

  * * *

  The house fills up and the party gets louder and louder, and my veins are thrumming and I’m full of so much FeelGood I could burst.

  Asher and I are hanging out by the pool, surrounded by dozens of people, dozens of heads bobbing to the beat of the music, dozens of cheeks glowing blue from the lights under the water. We’re laughing about something stupid when the song changes into something slower.

  All the blood drains out of me.

  It’s “Patience”—the power ballad Hannah asked me to play when we were sitting by the creek.

  In that splinter of a second, the party blurs around me, and all I can see is one flashing, living, memory: the summer-bright snapshot of Hannah riding next to me in Thunderchicken, framed by the rolled-down window. Sun was streaming in between the skyscrapers, heart-shaped sunglasses were perched on her freckled nose, and my heart was beating hard because she was smiling and it was almost a power chord.

  The real world—Lissa’s party—tilts.

  Suddenly the bright shine of this night feels like a flimsy disguise.

  Asher’s asking what’s wrong, but I’m gone—clawing my way into the house until I’m in front of the sound system. I slam the next song button, once, twice, three times, going fucking BALLISTIC on it. A nearby gaggle of people who were belting out the lyrics to “Patience” groan, then start cussing at me.

  In my head, my sun-bright Hannah closes her eyes and trails a hand through the rushing wind outside Thunderchicken’s window.

  I try to shove her out of my mind. Don’t think about her, don’t think about her.

  It’s no use. The night is already crashing down around me.

  Highs like drinking, smoking, being at this party—they always end. They’re fleeting and quick. Being with Hannah is a different kind of high. Before her, I didn’t know that making someone else feel better was its own kind of FeelGood. Every time I coaxed a smile or a laugh out of Hannah, every time I made the empty city a better place for her … those moments made me feel like I was a worthwhile person, and that’s the best high in the world.

  It was stupid to think this would work. No amount of FeelGood could make me forget Hannah.

  The black pit in my stomach expands until it reaches my ears, blocking out the sounds of the party.

  I left her.

  I should have stayed, but instead I decided to run to this party and act like I didn’t learn a fucking thing from being alone with her in our empty Houston.

  I have majorly, majorly fucked up.

  Someone taps my shoulder and asks me if I’m okay, but I shrug them off. It’s suddenly so clear.

  I have to go back to the hospital.

  I need to find Asher. I stagger back out to the pool, but he’s nowhere to be seen. I suddenly don’t recognize a single person out here, and it feels like a creepy fun-house joke. I work my way back through the house, knocking on bedroom doors, looking in fucking closets. I shove my way through the crowd and out the front door, scanning both sides of the street for Asher’s car. Did he leave without me?

  The comedown is intense. I didn’t drink anything, or smoke anything—I’m not quite that stupid—but I still feel ill. The party looks tota
lly different now, all fake laughs and shrill voices. I miss Hannah’s voice. I’m panicking.

  Where the fuck is Asher?

  I lean against the porch railing. My heart feels funny. It’s going haywire, my pulse skittery like jazz. I have no idea what kind of medicine I was on at the hospital. What if the IV was keeping me from feeling like this?

  The whole night feels so close to falling apart, like I’m on one of those old wooden roller coasters where you can feel the bolts shaking loose as you clack around the track.

  A wave of nausea rolls over me. I squeeze my eyes shut and breathe through my nose. Don’t puke, don’t puke.

  My head spins, and I’m suddenly terrified that I’m going to pass out, right on the porch of this godforsaken party, and everyone will just leave me here to sleep off another drunken night because I’m Leo fuckin’ Sterling.

  I’m so sorry, Hannah.

  It takes my last ounce of balance to make it down the porch steps. I duck behind a row of bushes and sink to the ground, shaking and sweating.

  I can’t breathe.

  What are you supposed to do when the world is closing in and the edges of your vision are going black? Put your head between your knees or something? Is this a panic attack, or something worse?

  I drop my head, sucking in air. I grab on to the grass to keep the world from spinning.

  I’m going to pass out.

  Fuck.

  This suddenly feels like a familiar story.

  All those rock documentaries I used to watch with Asher? They weren’t always high-octane glamorous fun. Halfway through most of them, sad dirges would start playing, signaling tragedy. Band relations went sour, hotel rooms were trashed, drugs were taken and drinks were drunk and lives crumbled.

  And sometimes guys died.

  Overdoses. Fatal drug cocktails. Am I going to end this night choking on my own vomit?

  Through my thudding, closing-in world, something suddenly makes sense that never made sense before.

  This is why.

  This is why I lied to Salina Sakurai about writing original songs, why I haven’t asked Bruce for a job, why I didn’t want to buckle down and do the hard work that might turn Rat Skillet into a real career. I didn’t trust myself to be able to handle it.

  If I ever got the resources rock stars get, I’m the kind of person who would OD on FeelGood. I’d end up strung out in a ditch, dead, cold and blue, because every time I can’t handle something, I smother it with something loud and wild. This time I’m on whatever the hospital gave me, but it’s not hard to imagine me on something else. Leo’s LifeHack.

  I swallow down a sob. I don’t want to be dead at thirty, choking on my own vomit.

  With Hannah, I was different. Maybe I could do the whole music career thing if she were with me. I liked the Leo I was when I was with her.

  Here, behind the bushes of some unimportant party, I realize: I don’t have to keep being the Leo I was before.

  I can choose to stick to everyone’s expectations, have them nod their heads and say, I knew he’d turn out like this. I can keep running from the hard shit, and everyone will think, That’s just what Leo’s like. Entertaining, life of the party, but selfish when the going gets tough.

  I have to stop fucking up, stop skating by on this bad boy reputation. When Hannah wakes up, that isn’t going to be enough for her. When you love somebody, you can’t just take all the good stuff and weasel out of the hard stuff.

  Suddenly Asher’s here, trying to squeeze in behind the bushes to check on me.

  “Shit, Leo—someone saw you crawl back here. What the hell are you—”

  “You gotta take me back to the hospital,” I grit out, trying not to puke, trying not to cry, trying not to fall apart.

  “Oh my god, yeah—yeah, of course.” His eyes are wide and panicked. “Should I call an ambulance?”

  “No, I’m okay—just get me back.”

  I couldn’t care less about my own health; that’s not the real reason why everything in me is straining for the hospital. I need to get back to Hannah, no matter how hard it is for me.

  Fear courses through my veins again, rancid and hot. What if she’s still not awake?

  It doesn’t matter.

  It’s not about me anymore.

  I double over at the barre in my basement, sucking air into my heaving lungs. I just finished a grueling variation, and pain throbs through my feet. A layer of sweat suffocates my skin. For one oxygen-deprived moment, there’s nothing in my head at all. No thoughts, no feelings, no memories.

  It doesn’t last long.

  I press my fingers over my eyes as it all closes in on me again. The emptiness. The silence. The deep, ringing truth that I’m absolutely alone.

  It’s been so long since Leo left. It’s always dark now, so I don’t even know how much time has passed. Upstairs, the windows are cold black panes of glass, except when lightning flashes and illuminates the pelting sheets of rain. I’m in the center of a raging, never-ending storm, and my house feels like the last safe place in the world. Maybe it is.

  I grit my jaw, draw up onto pointe, and start again.

  This time I get halfway through the song before my vision blacks out at the edges. I trip and end up on the floor.

  Pain. It’s the only thing I can think about. So much pain. My feet are bleeding. My head is throbbing with sadness, hunger, exhaustion.

  God, I need some water.

  I drag myself to my feet, barely make it upstairs to the kitchen and to the sink to fill a cup. I stagger to the couch and sink into it. Earlier, I changed into my mom’s Swan Lake Odette costume. The tutu crinkles around me, glass crystals glinting in the dark. The silk corset digs into the skin under my arms, rubbing me raw along every edge.

  Just a little break, I think. Just a few minutes, and then I’ll go back down.

  I take a shuddering breath, and the smell of a just-blown-out candle fills my nose. Tears prickle at my eyes. My house still smells like Leo.

  Outside the kitchen windows, the world is a dark and crumbling nightmare.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I whisper into the dark. If the storm outside is just my imagination, why can’t I make it stop? Maybe there was a limit to my power, and I used it all up painting skies.

  As if in answer, a streak of lightning turns the room white. I go nearly blind when it reflects off something in the corner of the room.

  It’s the gilded edge of a picture frame.

  Starburst.

  I stumble across the room and sink to my knees in front of the painting. I run my fingers over the hard ridges of paint. I forgot Leo hauled it in after we got back from my grandparents—I was too much of a mess to do anything. I trace a whorl of the woman’s luminescent hair, and I swear I can feel something warm and living under my fingertips.

  Starburst looks just like she did in the museum, floating in midair, bursting with life and momentum, back arched and hair flying out around her. The Day She, the Starburst, Shook Loose.

  “I wish I were more like you,” I say softly.

  I flick a glance at my basement door. I can go back down. I can keep dancing. I can try to fight a little longer.

  I look down at my pointe shoes, at my legs, at the stiff tulle skirt of my tutu.

  I’m an imposter in a ballerina’s body. I never asked the other girls at the Academy their reasons for dancing, but I knew they weren’t the same as mine. Some were addicted to having a strong, healthy, capable body. Some were true performers, living for the applause and the accolades, or a jealous glint of admiration from another dancer. But for the majority, and for my mom, it was always a love of the artistry: the music, the grace, the beauty.

  Me? I danced because it was all I knew.

  I was always waiting to feel something—a passion for the physicality or the artistry or the performance, but it never happened. And it’s never going to, because my heart’s not in it. I’m not sure it ever was.

  When Leo coaxed me out into the
city, I had some of the best moments of my life. Speeding in Thunderchicken. Writing by the creek. Spinning out gorgeous, mind-blowing things. Painting the sky. In between the fear and the panic, the real Hannah got to peek out. The Hannah I was meant to be.

  If this is the end, I don’t want to spend it dancing.

  I press my hands to my chest and force myself to breathe slower. In front of me, the painting glows to life, lighting up the whole room with a vapor-wave glow.

  It’s gorgeous.

  With trembling fingers, I pull my bobby pins from my hair. Slowly. One at a time. I tug my fingers through the crisp hairspray, breaking the bonds until my hair is soft. My scalp tingles from the released pressure.

  And then, equally as carefully, I work my fingernails into the knots at my ankles. I untie my ribbons and peel my sweating, bleeding, aching feet out of my pointe shoes.

  I take a deep breath and will myself to stop shaking. I want to spend my last few minutes being who I always wanted to be. A girl who pulls words out of the air. Who imagines things.

  With one hand still on Starburst, I press the other palm against the living room’s french doors.

  I close my eyes and feel my power rally.

  Maybe I won’t be strong enough to turn the sky a different color. But who says darkness is bad? The same people who laughed when I wrote out my first stumbling stories, who made me feel like my imagination was embarrassing and stupid? Who made Leo feel like he was never going to amount to much?

  There’s nothing wrong with night. I can make night pretty too.

  When I open my eyes, the rain has stopped. Beyond the raindrop-jeweled glass, there’s a navy-blue night sky full of twinkling stars. More stars than I’ve ever seen before.

  I wait to see if the vision holds. When it does, I raise up an iridescent moon. It’s huge, looming, and it coats my backyard with a glowing, pearly light.

  I ease the door open and step into the night.

  Outside, it’s silent. But instead of the terrifying quiet of the first few days I was alone, this silence is serene.

  I take a step. Another. Until I’m in the middle of my backyard.

  All around me, the world is muffled. At peace. The night smells like rain and growing grass. I’m sure I can even smell the moon, all cold rock and iron.