Any Second

by Kevin Emerson

  GIANT MIRROR!

  Ugh! Had to be careful with those. Keep her eyes right…on…the sink…

  She ducked, shoved the pills into her mouth, and drank from the faucet. The pills sloshed around, one spilling out. She snared it with her finger just before it slipped down the drain. Popped it in, just chewed it. Friends didn’t let friends waste benzos.

  She cupped her hands and drank some more, then leaned on the sink, head down.

  Oh God.

  Seeing Eli every day…Her fingers crawled up under her hat, searching for fresh hair—

  The door burst open.

  “There you are.” Janice. “Did you get my texts?”

  “No.” Maya’s phone was stuffed far down in her bag, all status updates and notifications disabled.

  “You have to check it more,” said Janice. “It’s like you’re dead to the world. Some of us need to know where you are.”

  Maya just nodded. When was the last time she’d posted anything? That photo of the clouds…was that last week?

  Janice swept over, put her hands on Maya’s shoulders. “What happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You know that doesn’t work on me.”

  “I just…” She started to cry.

  Janice wrapped her in a hug. “It’s okay,” she said into her ear.

  Maya’s muscles felt locked. She managed to get her arms limply around Janice’s waist.

  “You’re forgetting again, aren’t you?” said Janice.

  “What.”

  “That you’re beautiful.”

  Maya pressed her face into Janice’s shoulder. Her denim jacket smelled like menthol cigarettes. “I’m so gross.”

  “You could never be. Someday you’re going to listen to me.” She stroked Maya’s head, fingers running over her hat. Janice had gotten it for her from her dad, who worked the salmon boats out of Seattle. This hat’s been to Alaska, she’d said. It can protect you from anything. She kissed Maya’s forehead.

  They’d been friends in middle school, but Janice had choiced into Elliott because it had the best theater program. They’d stayed loosely in touch on each other’s feeds, and after the DOL, Janice had started messaging. Then, one afternoon near the start of summer, they’d run into each other at Red Light, while Maya had been limply swishing through the racks of discarded selves (she needed new clothes but she couldn’t go to the mall because the mall = boom).

  Janice had helped her finally shrug free of her blurry relationship with this guy Nilo and also sort of his friend Walsh, a mess that began not too long after Todd had dumped her. She and Janice officially started dating in July, while celebrating Maya’s seventeenth birthday with a sleeping bag and vodka on the beach at Golden Gardens.

  “What triggered you?” Janice asked. “You looked like you were doing good in statistics. Actually, you look super-hot in this shirt….”

  Janice pulled back, a slight smile. Maya gave her a quick kiss but looked away.

  “Yeah, I was fine, but then…” Maya stopped.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell Janice.”

  “It got intense, out in the hall just now,” Maya said. “Some of the football guys were catcalling some freshman girls, and there was a traffic jam, and…”

  “Sounds like you need Doctor Pom.” Janice rifled through her backpack and produced a silver flask adorned with an eagle made out of red, white, and blue fake jewels. “Do you have an extra happy pill I can chase with this?”

  “Oh yeah.” Maya fished out her Serenitab and gave one to Janice.

  Janice frowned. “Only one?”

  “Sorry, I’m running low.”

  “That’s okay.” Janice twisted open the flask, took a swig, and passed it over.

  Maya put it to her lips. Pomegranate-flavored vodka. It tasted like a Jolly Rancher dissolved in gasoline. The burn was nice, though. Janice had an older sister who kept her supplied.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Janice. “I thought you were doing better.”

  “Well…” Inside, Maya felt the hatches closing. Hello, Serenitab! The first sign of her supersized dose was a dulling effect, like Maya was on a ship pulling away from shore, the drug ushering her up to the lido deck, far away from the choppy waves and shark fins. The vodka helped too, like a warm breeze. Her tears began to dry, her skin retreating. A dull little laugh slipped out. “I don’t know why you put up with me.”

  “Because I’m in love with you, dummy.” Janice hugged her from the side, rested her chin on Maya’s shoulder.

  Maya braved the mirror, considering them together. Janice was so damn beautiful. Eyes and hair from across the Pacific, chin and shoulders from the farms of Minnesota, legs and boobs from who knew where. Moments like today where she wore the black skirt, her flannel tied at her waist…damn.

  And yet she also had those blue eyes like glaciers. She might flash her warmest smile, but right above, those eyes never melted. When she said she loved you, could you totally believe it? It seemed inevitable that at some point she’d find another cool-eyed being of her own kind, and leave Maya and the rest of the mortals behind.

  And why shouldn’t she? Maya’s hat might have been hiding the torn-away gaps in her auburn hair, but there were still her eyes, a very average chocolate brown surrounded by bloodshot swirls and sunk into tar pits, the acne blooming on her nose, her red scoop-neck top—Don’t you think that’s a bit too low? Mom had said—which had slipped down nearly to the midpoint of her bra, acne there too that she hadn’t even noticed until now.

  She frowned at the mirror, tugging her shirt up.

  “Stop that.” Janice pushed her hand away. “Don’t spoil the view.”

  “Come on,” said Maya.

  “What?” Janice stepped behind her and rubbed her shoulders. “You’re so cute. My little kitten from the animal shelter.” She nuzzled into Maya’s neck. “Janice will give you a good home and make you all better.”

  Maya managed to smile because Serenitab, ohhh, Serenitab, you do your thing….Safely away from shore, the world around her shrouded in fog.

  “Feeling better?” said Janice, her hands exploring.

  Maya’s knees wobbled and she leaned back. The combination of Serenitab and Dr. Pom could lead to enhanced lustiness.

  “You know, we’re already late for third period.”

  “Mmm.” It would be nice, spending a few minutes here…but Maya took Janice’s hands and twirled away from her. “We shouldn’t. We’re only four days into the year. And it’s a new school for me.”

  “Please?” Janice batted her eyes, holding Maya’s wrist firm. For a moment, the strain on her arm nearly stopped her…but she pulled away.

  “I can get us late passes from the nurse.” Maya let her lone cocky grin out of its cage, pointing a thumb at herself. “War hero and all.”

  Janice crossed her arms. “Whatever.”

  “Sorry. Later, I promise.” Maya pushed through the door into the now-empty hallway. For a moment, it seemed like Janice wasn’t coming….

  Then she emerged, eyes on her phone. They walked up the hall side by side, but the gap between their shoulders seemed a mile wide.

  “I really am sorry,” Maya said after a minute.

  “It’s fine.” And then a couple steps later: “I just really could have used a little action, you know? Something positive.”

  “I know, but—”

  “I don’t get why it’s such a big deal. You said all the teachers know your situation.”

  “I don’t know.” Maya felt her head listing, but also butterflies in her stomach. Janice was right about the teachers. She’d even been given this special pass, so if she started to have an episode, she could go directly to the nurse, no questions asked. She hadn’t tried it yet, though. “I just wa
nt to make a good impression.” She offered a smile, but Janice wasn’t looking. “Have everyone think I’m somewhat normal, you know?”

  She knows, now hush, whispered the misty steward on the good ship Serenitab. Sit on this deck chair. Here’s a wool blanket. If we’re quiet, we might hear whales.

  Janice was saying something, but Maya missed the start. “—my fucking parents trying to undermine me.”

  “What did they do?”

  “God, keep up. I said, all I did was mention Juilliard audition dates and my dad launches into this whole thing about practical jobs and how rents in New York City are astronomical and you really need your degree to count. It’s such crap. I know what he’s really saying. Get a law degree, and a boyfriend while you’re at it! I hate him sometimes.”

  “That sucks.” Maya hoped she’d said that out loud.

  They must have gotten late passes after that.

  Then third period was English or something.

  Study hall, later, a buzzing-hive thing.

  “Have you seen the new video?” Janice had asked at one point.

  “What?” Maya shouted down from the railing.

  “The new Alpha post.”

  Alpha-something. That was what he went by: this kid who said he was from their school had been posting these videos about how everyone was evil and needed to be judged or something.

  “Nah,” said Maya.

  “It’s gross,” said Janice. “He’s definitely one of these hard-up nerds. No kid who’s gotten laid would make a video about blood sacrifices and dates of judgment. Once you’ve had sex, you want to live as long as possible so you can have as much of it as you can.”

  “Right.”

  “Charlese thinks he’s not even really from here. That he’s like, from Everett, or homeschooled or something and just picked a big-city high school to freak people out.”

  “Probably.” What were they talking about, again?

  Maya held each moment in her palm just long enough for it to blow away, a feathery seed on a tropical wind.

  Slip, she watched them go, sort of.

  Later, at lunch, she saw Eli again, emerging from the lunch line. But by then, her thoughts were mostly zombies. Her brain a vacant parking lot.

  And the day went by.

  September 10

  “What do you want?” The lunch lady was looking at him.

  Eli gazed at the food. He’d brought his lunch last week. This was the next step to being a normal kid. Pizza. Steamed broccoli and carrots. Rice and curry chicken. Wire rack of cereal cups, muffins, burritos you could microwave. Behind him: a salad bar. Multicolored. Different kinds of dressing.

  So many choices.

  Every meal in the red dark had arrived in the exact same metal bowl. Silver-colored. Aluminum. Like you’d take camping. Along with a spoon that was also silver but had a black handle that was two plastic halves snapped together around the metal.

  The bowl had a dent. Upside down it sort of looked like a planet with a crater. In the red dark, like Mars. Mars had been a glassy, flickering orange mystery that summer before he’d been taken—chosen—barren and frozen and lifeless. Now it had running water. People were planning to go there.

  So much had changed.

  The bowl of food had always been a mixture. Everything chopped up. Baked beans and rice and corn, or spaghetti and peas and spongy meatballs. It was hard to eat spaghetti with a spoon. Oatmeal was easier. Cornflakes mixed in. And dates. But dates made the pail smell. Gabriel always seemed to wait extra-long to change the pail in the days after the oatmeal.

  Sometimes the bowl had eggs and toast.

  Grilled cheese with mushy beans and crumbled potato chips.

  No matter what: all mixed together.

  Eli would sit on the floor with the bowl in his lap and eat. Through the floor, he could hear the scraping sounds of Gabriel dining. Imagined him eating the different foods separately, like on a nicely arranged plate, like with a fork and knife. He’d hoped maybe his sister got to eat that way too.

  For one six-month stretch there had been only dog food. Every day twice a day. What had he done? Forgotten the Purpose somehow. It was hard to remember. He didn’t want to remember.

  Except he remembered. He always did.

  A quarter of his life in that room. There was no ignoring it, no pretending it hadn’t happened. In fact, that only made it worse, as the memories could creep up unexpectedly and send him reeling.

  The dog food had been because he’d almost gotten that truck driver’s attention. Plumber? Deliveryman? Eli hadn’t known. It had been afternoon, according to the angle of the sliver of light between the plywood and the sill. He’d heard an engine. Footsteps around the back of the house. The last sounds from downstairs seemed to indicate that Gabriel had left.

  Eli had started banging on the plywood and shouting.

  “Hello?” the driver called to him. “Somebody up there?”

  “In here!” Eli wailed.

  But then Gabriel’s voice. His calm, never-rising tones, speaking to the man. The truck driving off…

  A brief, stinging lesson with the garden hose. And then only dog food, day after day.

  “You gonna pick something?”

  The lunch lady looked at him with something like sympathy, and Eli wondered if she knew who he was. He’d been told that only essential personnel had been briefed on his identity. Was the lunch lady essential?

  Someone sucked their teeth behind him.

  No idea how long he’d been staring. Keeping track of time was still a problem. He tried to focus on the choices—

  The excess…Food is one of the weapons the Barons use to keep us docile.

  No. It was just lunch. Options kids might like. Gabriel had been wrong. About most things.

  “Hurry up!” some boy called from farther back.

  Deep breath. “Pizza,” he said. “And the vegetables.”

  The lunch lady scooped and handed him a tan tray, separated into sections. The vegetables in one little rectangle. The pizza lying over two.

  He grabbed a blueberry muffin wrapped in cellophane and turned to the drinks. Kids jostled in front of him, hitting the soda levers with their cups.

  Hum and whir of carbonated beverage. Crush-crack of ice. Sizzle of juice dispenser. Thunk of refrigerated case door nearby, full of milks and soy drinks and almond drinks and smoothies—

  Eli hurried for the exit, knuckles white on the sides of his tray. He had a water bottle in his backpack. All the other kids left their bags in their lockers, but Eli never did. He kept his with him, jacket stuffed inside it, not just for lunch but the whole day.

  Just in case.

  Stupid. Gabriel’s not going to come here. He’s smarter than that. And yet Eli was always scanning the hallways, street corners. Detective Pearson had told him not to worry. That Gabriel was likely multiple states or even an ocean away by now, and that even if he’d stayed local, he’d realize that Eli was being watched around the clock.

  And yet Eli could never quite shake a nervous quiver inside, a certainty: You don’t know him like I do. I failed the Purpose. I need to be punished.

  He moved along the wall, kids cutting and bumping and pirouetting around him. Voices tumbling and gathering and climbing over one another. Shouts. Laughter. The shriek of a table moving.

  Eli headed for two tables over by the windows that looked out on the courtyard in front of the school. The first with only one kid, the second completely empty. He’d chosen the empty one the first day, but almost immediately eyes had found him there.

  Anonymity seemed to be a balance. Being utterly silent and friendless was just as attention-grabbing as being brash and popular. Like teen radar was drawn toward extremes. In order to stay invisible, you actually had to raise your hand now and then in class, or they
noticed that you never raised your hand. Had to make eye contact now and then in the halls, or they noticed that you never made eye contact.

  Maybe it was about connection. Like in a weird way, they would punish you for not being plugged in enough. Eli had seen it happen already this week: quiet kids suddenly shoved against lockers, food thrown at daydreamers during lunch. Maybe it was actually a strange form of sympathy. Like the way schools of fish all spiraled at the same time. Staying invisible meant staying with the group, while everyone had their gaze turned outward. Because, sure, high school seemed dangerous, but there were bigger predators out there in the inky blue. Man-eaters.

  Eli knew.

  So he’d been sitting with this other loner instead. Strength in numbers. Eli sat with his back to the window and put his backpack up on the table, his tray concealed behind it. The other kid was hunched over a graphic novel, same as every other day. He glanced at Eli like he always did, a one-eyed gaze, his long, matted brown hair hanging down over the other. Acne so bad on his nose you could see the biggest ones from here.

  Hi, Eli thought to say.

  The boy returned to his book, kept eating his pizza. They had yet to actually speak.

  A group of girls at the next table over exploded into laughter. Eli tensed. Was it him? But they were totally absorbed in one another. He wondered how they could have become such good friends in such a short time. But then, duh, maybe they’d already been friends from years past, maybe back in middle school, even elementary.

  Faces flashed in his mind: Carlos, Danny, and Josh, the friends he’d had before. Melinda, who’d lived a few doors down; he’d thought she was cute. They were probably all at the high school in his old neighborhood. Maybe they sat together at lunch. Did they ever talk about him? Or had they forgotten him by now?

  Sometimes Eli heard the kids around him chatting, about shows, or games, or gossiping about their other friends, and he felt like he’d never be able to do it. Too many missing reference points, missing skills and stories, and if he ever did end up in one of those conversations, he wouldn’t be able to explain why he had those gaps. It had barely been a week, but he had no idea how he would ever be part of this world around him.