by Amber Smith
I sensed she meant The End, as in biblically, the end of days.
In her next breath, she said, “Why don’t you go ahead and get home,” adding morbidly, “while you still can.”
As soon as I walked through the sliding glass doors, I was thankful for Donna’s early dismissal because the wind was already blowing hard, thunder was rumbling miles away, and the clouds were dark and full. I hurried around to the side of the building where my bike was waiting.
When I pulled it out of the metal bike rack, it was hard to move. I kneeled down to get a closer look, and that’s when I realized they weren’t just deflated; there were two ugly puncture wounds, one on the wall of each tire. I knew right away it was no accident. It was Neil. He wasn’t going to let what happened at Bowman’s go that easily. I stood back up and looked around, half expecting to see him somewhere watching me, but no one was in sight.
A drop of rain hit my forehead. They splattered one by one, cold against my skin, falling faster and faster, pockmarking the dusty gravel.
I had several choices:
1. I could wait it out inside.
2. I could wait for one of my parents to give me a ride on their way home from work.
3. I could call Hayden and ask her to pick me up . . . that is, if I hadn’t been so weird with her earlier.
4. Or, I could walk.
In case Neil really was watching, I chose option four. I wheeled my bike out of the parking lot and onto the road—those deflated lumps of rubber flapping against the pavement like slabs of raw meat. I would trudge through the goddamn apocalypse in spite of him.
CHRIS
I WAS STARTING TO GET the hang of small towns, but only after I realized there was really, truly nothing to do.
Not that it wasn’t fun hanging out with Isobel. It just wasn’t exactly as I’d imagined it would be. We’d talk and laugh and do puzzles and play games and eat microwave popcorn and watch movies. But it wasn’t like when she stayed with us for that month and a half, helping me get better. Here, she had her regular life. She had to go to work, and sometimes she worked crazy double shifts at the hospital that was already over an hour away in Charlotte. I’d never admit this to my parents, or even to Coleton, but it was starting to feel a little too much like home: me, stuck in a room, alone, reading, planning, and thinking, thinking, thinking.
I’d traded one prison for another.
I hopped into the station wagon—I didn’t know where I was going. The car bounced and rocked back and forth as I carefully drove over the railroad tracks and past Bargain Mart, and the brick cube that was the post office, and a corner store that boasted in its window that it sold both “Live Bait!” and “Custom Headstones,” a sampling of which were proudly displayed in the patch of weedy grass next the crumbling parking lot.
There was one stoplight. And then nothing, as far as I could see.
I liked the car windows down and the music blaring, even if it was only Isobel’s old cassette tapes from the nineties. They were full of songs from bands I’d never heard of, music that sounded like it was from another planet—tinny and off-key and imperfect, singers who couldn’t really sing but made their voices raw and open. There was something so real about it. Something that made me lose my sense of time and place, sort of like the feeling I get when I look at the stars. When I was driving, I could lose myself.
I was in the middle of getting lost when a wave of thunder rumbled in the distance. I turned the volume low on the radio. I took my foot off the accelerator and slowed down, watching the speedometer decelerate—55-50-45-35-15—before I pulled off onto the shoulder of whatever no-name road I was on. I stopped for a moment, checking my mirrors before I made a U-turn.
By the time I got to Carson, the rain was already there, the sky darkening by the minute. I went over the railroad tracks and past the Bargain Mart, and through the podunk “downtown,” my body feeling heavier with each mile.
Through the screen of rain I saw something on the side of the road. Someone. The windshield wipers swished back and forth as fast as they would go, leaving streaks of water that made it hard to see, but I could tell right away who it was: Maia. She was wheeling her bike alongside her.
As I slowed down next to her, she looked up quickly, her hair dripping in strands, and waved me on with one arm. I lined the words up carefully in my mind before I even rolled down the window because I already had one strike against me and I didn’t want to say the wrong thing again. I had to shout over the pounding rain: “Hey, you want a ride?”
“No,” she yelled back over the noise.
I stopped the car completely, and she stopped walking too. Squared off her feet like she was ready for a fight, but the effect was weakened when her voice—strained and splintered—fought for enough volume to yell, “I said I don’t need help!”
“I know. That’s why I said want a ride, not need a ride.”
She pushed her hair out of her face and opened her mouth, but before she could say anything else, another crack of thunder roared—it vibrated through the car, rattling the windows. She looked around, and reluctantly nodded. I braced myself against the rain as I ran to the back of the station wagon to open the trunk. It was coming down sharp like needles. She wheeled her bike over, and I grabbed on to the handlebar while she took the rear tire, our hands touching for a moment as we both reached for the crossbar at the same time. In that second it felt like lightning had touched us both.
“Go, get in,” I said, adjusting the bike’s position.
She ran over to the passenger side, and I scrambled into the driver’s seat, which was now soaked from the rain falling into the car.
“Shit,” she breathed as she slid in and quickly slammed the door behind her.
We looked at each other, dripping and soaked, and both started laughing.
I could feel her watching me as I shifted the car into drive and pulled back onto the road, but when I glanced over, she looked away.
“This weather’s no joke,” I said.
She didn’t respond, so I turned the volume on the music back up just a little, anything to cover the silence.
Finally she cleared her throat and said, “Thank you,” as if they were the most difficult pair of words she’d ever had to utter.
“You’re welcome.”
I didn’t know what to say next, so I didn’t say anything.
It seemed like minutes passed before she broke the silence again. “You know, I knew what I was doing back there.” She paused. “I mean the other night—I knew what I was doing.”
“All right.” I tried so hard to stop myself from saying anything else, but I couldn’t quite exercise that much restraint. “You know I was only trying to help, though, right?”
“I know, but I didn’t want help—I didn’t want to need help.”
“I get it.”
She just stared at me, squinting, and I could tell she didn’t believe me.
“No, I really do. I mean, I know better than you’d think. I know what it feels like to be targeted. Someone once had to help me out in a situation, and I didn’t want to need help either.”
“Oh,” she whispered.
“I guess I just couldn’t stand by and do nothing. But not because I thought you were some damsel in distress—I would’ve done the same thing for anyone.” I was worried I’d said too much, but something in the space between us loosened in that moment.
“So maybe”—she paused—“maybe you were partially right. Maybe I was taking it out on you,” she said, her voice softer. “But Neil doesn’t scare me, okay?” she added. “We just—we have history.” I couldn’t tell what the expression on my face looked like, but it clearly must have given away exactly what I was thinking, because she quickly added, “I mean, not that kind of history.”
It was still raining when I turned into her driveway, but not quite as violently as it had been only minutes earlier.
“Well, thanks,” she said, unbuckling her seat belt as we approached the house.
“No problem.” I got out of the car and helped her get the bike. It was only then, as we began maneuvering it back out of the trunk, that I noticed both tires were completely flat.
We stood there next to each other, her bike in between us, and right then, the rain slowed down to a drizzle.
“Okay, well—” I started, but she interrupted me.
“So are you going to the thing on Sunday?”
“What thing?”
“The Fourth of July thing—it’s just this stupid town picnic fireworks thing.”
“I don’t know, are you?”
She laughed, that ha laugh again. “Yeah, I’ll be there. I mean, it’s not like I have much choice.”
“Why not?”
She looked at me for a second, then took a deep breath like she was preparing to say something long-winded, but she just shrugged and mumbled, “I don’t know.”
“I might check it out,” I said.
“Maybe I’ll see you, then.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, while biting down on the inside of my cheek to keep my grin in check. “Maybe.”
I watched as she wheeled her bike toward the house and leaned it up against the railing of the porch. As I pulled out of the driveway and back onto the road, I let the smile I was holding in take over my face. I’d told her maybe, but I knew there was nothing that could prevent me from being there.
MAIA
I WAS WAITING FOR HAYDEN and Gabby on the blanket we’d laid out by the lake, picking through the macaroni salad on my paper plate with my plastic fork, separating out the mushy, green, formerly frozen peas from the mayonnaise-coated macaroni and cubes of cheese. Someone had gotten edgy this year and used sharp cheddar. Hayden and Gabby were waiting in line for barbeque.
I’d never been a huge meat eater—I couldn’t quite get past imagining the faces of the animals—but the switch happened all at once. We had a bunch of people at the house after Mallory’s funeral, and there was a ton of food. I remember Mom and Dad hadn’t eaten for days, and I felt like I should’ve lost my appetite too, but I was starving—it was all I could think about during the service.
I went into the kitchen, and when I realized I was alone, no witnesses, I grabbed for the first thing I could find: the plate of pigs in a blanket I suspected one of the mothers had brought. I swiped a whole napkin full of them and smuggled it to the bathroom, where I could eat without judgment. I locked the door behind me and laid the napkin out on the bathroom sink. They smelled so delicious—the warm buttery dough, the salty sweetness of the meat—I ate five of them in a row, devouring them as if I’d never eaten anything before in my entire life.
Someone knocked on the door, I remember, and I swallowed one last huge mouthful and yelled, “Just a minute.” I flushed the toilet and ran the water, and as I looked up into the mirror, I remember being struck by this overwhelming sense that I didn’t quite recognize myself. It was something subtle, but unmistakably altered.
I leaned in closer. Was it my hair, something around my eyes?
No. It wasn’t either of those things.
It was Mallory. Or not Mallory. Her absence from my life made me look physically different to myself, made me into a stranger. Then suddenly that full, warm, satisfied place in my stomach opened up like a hole inside me, and started churning faster and faster, like the slushie machine at the gas station. It had been days since she’d died, but this was the moment it first hit me that she was gone. Not just gone for the weekend or staying at a friend’s house or off on some photography expedition with Neil. But gone. Forever.
And the person I was when she was here was gone too.
Losing control over my own body, I stumbled through the two short steps it took to get from the sink to the toilet, barely making it in time. On my hands and knees, I leaned over and I threw up everything inside me—I threw up my heart, my lungs, and all of the vital organs I imagined had been swimming around within me—purging the last remnants of my life as I knew it. Then I lowered myself the rest of the way down onto the floor and closed my eyes, all those people on the other side of the door taking turns knocking and calling, “Are you okay?”
No. I was not okay.
I gave up meat in that very moment, with my cheek pressed against the icy tiles, the bitter, acrid taste of my insides still on my tongue.
• • •
Hayden and Gabby were holding on to each other’s arms and squealing, each precariously balancing a flimsy paper plate in her free hand, as they made their way back to our blanket. Gabby kicked her sandals off in the grass and plopped down next to me. She was wearing these short-shorts and a bikini top. She had found all these yoga videos online and had been doing them every day for the past year. Now she took any chance to show off her flat stomach and sculpted arms and thighs—at school, she had taken to walking around the locker room in only a bra and underwear.
“What?” I asked. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh, nothing,” Hayden said, waving her hand.
“Yeah, you kinda had to be there,” Gabby added.
The weirdest part of suddenly being the third wheel in our friendship was that they were both my friends first. They hadn’t even liked each other—I’d practically had to force them to start hanging out together, and now, when I wasn’t looking, they had somehow become best friends, rendering me useless.
“I’m sure you could catch me up.” I smiled and tried to laugh, as if I was merely joking, but I don’t think it was very convincing.
“It was just this stupid thing someone said,” Hayden insisted.
“Who?”
“Maia, dude.” Gabby called everyone dude. “Why does it matter?”
“I just want to know.” I don’t know why I couldn’t let it go. Maybe part of me thought they were laughing at me. Or maybe I was trying to pick a fight. “Why don’t you want to tell me?”
“It was something stupid Gabby’s little sister said—she didn’t realize she was saying something sexual,” Hayden finally told me.
“Really?” Even I could tell it wasn’t a question; it was a dare. “Well, what was it?”
Hayden and Gabby exchanged a loaded glance.
Gabby sighed, and then said, “Is this ’cause we went to the beach without you?” Adding, before I could answer her, “Even though we asked you—no, begged you—to come a million times?”
“What’s ‘this’ supposed to mean?” I set my plate down and air-quoted with my fingers for effect. “There is no this. I’m just trying to get you guys to fill me in on the funny story. Why can’t you just tell me what she said?” I insisted again. “Why is it such a big deal?”
“She said ‘beating off,’ okay!” Hayden yelled, her eyes growing all wide and dark the way they do when she’s really passionate or angry about something. “But it’s not funny without the rest of the whole situation, and . . .” Hayden looked at Gabby, to finish.
Gabby rolled her eyes. “And we didn’t think we should be going on and on telling you some pointless story about my sister that wasn’t even really all that funny to begin with.”
“You can talk about your sister. What do you guys think, I’m gonna fall apart at the mention of the word? Sister!” I yelled. “Sister!” I cupped my hands around my mouth, and shouted it: “Sisterrrrr!”
“Jesus,” Gabby mumbled.
“Fine,” Hayden said, talking over me. “It’ll never happen again. Will you stop yelling?”
“No problem, I’ll stop embarrassing you.” I stood and picked up my plate and my bag.
“Maia, come on,” Gabby whined as I started walking away from them.
“Let her go,” Hayden countered.
Raw, formless anger coursed through my body as I made my way over to the edge of the lake where the ducks and geese were waiting; they immediately began to close in on me, sensing I had food to spare. All I’d been able to eat was a handful of greasy, salty potato chips and half a hamburger bun that I’d filled with condiments only—lettuce, tomat
o, ketchup, relish, mustard, onion—but without the burger part, there wasn’t much of a point. So I started ripping pieces of plain bread off and tossing them to the smaller ducks. I tore at the bread until all that was left on my plate was a pile of soggy, discolored, condiment mush and pale green-gray peas.
“You know, that’s really bad for the birds,” a voice said. It took me a minute to realize the words were directed at me.
I looked over my shoulder to see that Chris was walking up behind me.
“Oh, hi.” I was surprised at how relieved I was to see him standing there and not Hayden or Gabby. “Wait, what?”
“The bread,” he clarified. “It’s not good for them.”
“Oh,” I said again, looking down at my plate. “Why not?”
“It causes all kinds of problems. Malnutrition and deformities and things like that. It can even kill them,” he told me. “I read an article about it a while ago. They have these little pouches in their beaks where they store food, and if the bread gets stuck in there, it can get moldy and poison them.”
I thought about it for a second as I watched the geese pecking through the grass for crumbs. “Everyone feeds them bread, though.”
“Yeah, I know. Exactly.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels and said, as if just realizing the strangeness of this conversation, “So, spread the word.”
“I will.”
We looked out at the lake for a second before he said, “How’s your bike? Still out of commission?”
I nodded.
“That sucks,” he sighed. “Well, let me know if you want help with the tires,” he offered.
“You know how to do that?”
His gaze drifted off and he grinned in this shy way, like he’d only just realized that might be helpful. “Well, no,” he admitted. “But I know how to look up videos that will show us how.”
“Thanks,” I told him. “I might take you up on the offer.”
“Cool.” He nodded and looked around uncomfortably. “Well, I just wanted to say hi. Again.” He smiled and said, “So hi,” as he started backing up.