Any Second

by Kevin Emerson

  One year ago, this very moment: the razor sliding down his torso in smooth strokes so the duct tape would stick best.

  Today I will return.

  All you have to do is let go.

  When was when? A year or a moment ago? Like he’d come so far and nowhere at all.

  “I got a message from Pearson,” said Mom. “They’re on their way to Graham’s.”

  Eli eyed the clock. Six-forty-five. Graham always slept in as late as possible. He might not even be up.

  “It was the right thing to do,” Mom added. She stared at the floor. “You were strong to resist him. I know it was confusing.” She sniffled.

  “It’s okay, Mom. I should have said something sooner.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe none of us saw it. It was more than you should ever have had to deal with.”

  Because you’re broken.

  And yet he had dealt with it.

  “Want me to make you eggs?”

  “Sure.” Eli sat up, his heart already beating fast. He checked his phone and found a message from Maya:

  Happy insignificant Friday! The sun is out! (There are also two police cars on my street, but hey!) See you soon!

  They’re going to Graham’s, he replied.

  I heard. Are you worried about him?

  Yes and no. More like feeling guilty. Knew he shouldn’t be. But still.

  He got dressed slowly.

  One year ago: scalp still stinging from the bleach, cool gloved hands on his bare hips, the pull and stretch of the duct tape shrieking off its roll, the cold cylinder bottles pressing against his abdomen, restricting his breathing.

  Before he left his room, he slipped the gun from beneath his mattress and tucked it into his backpack.

  Downstairs, Mom had put out his pills with his juice. He sloshed them down and looked around online while he was eating. No mention of police raiding a kid’s house.

  “Pearson said they’re watching all the sites from Gabriel’s hard drive. And his mother’s home. So far, nothing.”

  Melissa reached over from across the table. Squeezed his hand. “It’s going to be okay. If he’s smart, he won’t try anything. And if he’s dumb, they’ll catch him.”

  Eli nodded. He started a text to Graham: I’m really sorry. I hope it’s not too bad.

  Didn’t send it. Graham was probably so angry….

  Then he sent it.

  “Finish up,” said Mom. “We should go.”

  Eli scarfed down his eggs.

  One year ago: his stomach quaking, hadn’t eaten in days, shivering nearly constantly. The hood slipped over his head. Taken by the hand and led down the stairs, the bottles sloshing beneath his jacket. Laid in the backseat. The soft interior so different from the trunk. He had become a delicate instrument.

  Outside, he noticed the extra police car up his street. A woman walking her dog. No one else around. He’s not coming.

  I am coming. You know it.

  “I think this is the right decision,” said Mom as they drove. She kept checking the rearview mirror, the officers behind them. “You’ll make it through today and it will be normal and that’s important.”

  One year ago: the sounds of cars and traffic so much quieter in the backseat, a sound like on the day he was taken, so many years before. All of it overlapping. Almost free of the nightmare, or was it just starting? Had all those years in the red dark even happened? Had it all been in his head?

  Outside, the sun brilliant, the trees blazing with fall color, the air crisp and cool, then and now. Eli, eyes down, trying to focus on a recap of the Thursday football game, trying to stay calm.

  * * *

  ***

  “Are you ready?”

  No.

  Two more police cars parked in front of school. Lights off. Two officers standing beside them, watching the entry area.

  Mom and Eli sat in the drop-off loop, cars pulling around them, kids getting out. Doors thunking closed.

  He wondered if those police had checked the auditorium for evidence against Graham. Where was he now? In one of those windowless interrogation rooms somewhere?

  Mom rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re going to be safe.”

  One year ago: the two fingers rubbing up and down.

  Tell me you believe, Jacob.

  “Okay.” Eli opened the door.

  “I love you.”

  Go swiftly into the arms of the Lord.

  Squeezed his eyes shut. Stay here.

  Eli leaned over and wrapped his arms awkwardly around her. “Bye,” he said into her hair.

  Mom sniffled. “You’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”

  Eli pulled away. Got out and ran a hand over his backpack, could just feel the impression of the gun in the front pocket. He slung the pack over his shoulders and started up the steps, body tense, cold sweat, head down. Dawes and the other undercover officer stood on either side of the entrance. More vigilant eyes today. Had to be cool.

  Paused at the top of the steps. Mom was still watching, of course. He waved. She blew him a kiss. He’d always assumed she waited to be sure he made it safely inside, that he wouldn’t disappear. But maybe she also watched him for as long as she could, in case it was the last time she’d see him.

  The first bell rang. Eli nodded to Dawes. Dawes gave him a quick thumbs-up.

  On his way to English, he passed Mrs. Davina’s Earth Science class. Graham’s empty seat.

  You did the right thing. But the wrong thing before that. Let his friend end up a criminal. There had to have been some way that things could have gone differently. Something he could have said.

  So many things like that. His whole life.

  Eli walked into English and sat and heard nothing.

  The clock inched along. On to second period.

  One down! Maya texted him.

  Always a hand slipping beneath his desk, tracing the impression of the gun.

  One year ago: the noise of the food court. The slick of sweat on the mask. The view through the eyeholes.

  We’ll find the Purpose once more.

  Third period. Getting closer. Static in his head and the noise of class distant. A wildfire spreading through him. He should have stayed home. Or run away.

  Blink.

  The sunlight through the atrium roof.

  Blink.

  Pressing his thumb down. Gripping. Pain shooting up his hand and arm.

  Blink.

  Counting the steps. Forty-eight…forty-seven…forty-six…

  All you have to do is let go.

  He found himself at lunch. Barely remembered walking there. Sitting at his usual table alone. Wondered about Graham. Looked out the windows behind him. A police car in the front drive, gleaming in the midday sun. Another officer down by the road.

  It’s your light. You will make light. You will be free.

  Stared at his lunch. A cheeseburger and some limp fries and a pudding. Why hadn’t he brought the bowl? Because you haven’t in weeks. How was he supposed to eat without it?

  Opened his pudding and tasted it, put his spoon down. Picked up his cheeseburger—dropped it.

  You fast before you detonate.

  Checked out the windows again. Scanned the room from one table to another. Laughing kids, shouts of surprise, jokes and smiles and arguments and noise noise noise.

  Sheep.

  No.

  You will never be one of them.

  Eli squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them and noticed a few boys at a nearby table watching him. Hold it together.

  He ran his hand over his backpack. Imagined seeing Gabriel across the room. Standing up and shooting.

  Blink.

  The lit sign for the DOL.

  Blink.

 
Lungs aching, straining. Thumb muscle straining. Elastic around his head straining.

  No no no.

  Eli found himself tapping his hands against his legs. Heard an explosion of laughter. Those boys were still watching him, enjoying the show.

  Had to get out of here. Finish eating, go to the library. He picked up his cheeseburger again—

  “Hey!”

  Just ignore them.

  But the shout had come from somewhere else. And maybe he heard other raised voices, all of them making him look up—

  And see the wolf.

  Coming toward him.

  The mask with its black eyes, its snarling snout, blood-coated fangs, marching right into the lunch room. Right at him.

  Eli’s heart spasmed. He was here—Gabriel! But no, too short and skinny.

  It was himself, Jacob, the wolf coming to finish the job. I’ll blow this place up. I’ll walk right to the middle. All I have to do is let go.

  WAIT, that’s not you—

  Storming in, shoulders stiff, an angel of death, a young boy in a wolf’s mask mere days before Halloween. Holding out his hand, something long and silver in it, waving around.

  “You!” the wolf shouted, voice muffled. “You called them! Didn’t you?”

  Eli lurched backward, his chair overturning.

  The wolf marching toward him. The black elastic—it was red—around shaggy hair—it was bleached-blond—the mask off-kilter.

  “You son of a bitch!”

  The wolf, here. All along. Been Jacob. Always Jacob, never Eli. Here now to blow it all up, this cafeteria or this dream—had he ever left the red dark?

  All around him voices were rising, people pointing.

  “You ruined everything!” the wolf shouted.

  Getting closer.

  Twenty-five…twenty-four…twenty-three…

  Shoved a girl out of the way, sending her stumbling, her lunch spilling.

  “It’s a mask like the mall kid!” Someone saying at the next table over.

  “How could you do that to me?” Jacob stopping right on the other side of the table.

  Just release your thumb, and your work on this Earth will be done and you will see your sister’s smiling face. All you have to do is let go—

  Blow himself up. Finally stop existing. Stop endangering everyone.

  Pointing at him. “He’s the one! Right there! That’s the Cedar Gate bomber! He’s here to kill you all!”

  Everyone in the mall—no—the cafeteria—turning, urgent whispers…

  Eli fell against the windows, raising his hands, had to act before it was too late—

  “Oh my God, he’s got a gun!”

  Who did?

  Gabriel— No, he did. The gun in his hands. Pulled it out of his pack before he’d stood…to stop the wolf, to stop himself….It’s not you!

  Screaming. Chairs flipping and trays scattering. People diving under tables. Crying, pleading, falling over one another as they ran.

  “Do it!” the wolf shouted, waving the silver object in his hand.

  You are a weapon.

  “The kid from the mall!”

  “Call the police!”

  “Come on, do it!”

  You won’t blow up! I’ll stop you!

  Do not hesitate, not even for a second—

  But Eli blinked, gulping breaths. His body a bolt of lightning. Saw his hands outstretched, gripping the gun. Pointed at the wolf, who was holding a length of thick metal pipe—

  Not a trigger. A bomb—

  “Do it!” the wolf shouted again.

  DO IT! YOU WILL BE LIGHT—

  NO!

  He was here. He was Eli. Against the window. The wolf could not be him. Had to be…

  “Graham?” Eli finally recognized the hair, the green jacket with the Sideshow shirt underneath, the jeans, their knees dirt-stained and torn.

  All around him, kids under tables. The sudden, eerie silence in the cafeteria.

  Graham waved the pipe around, eyes unseen behind the mask. “Do it or I’ll kill us all, I swear!”

  October 26

  She realized it on the way to lunch. How she’d been feeling all morning. Different. Lighter. Stronger? Maybe.

  Weird things like slipping on her shirt and being aware that she had nice shoulders. Shoulders that could do shit. Or like brushing her hair and thinking, from the right angle, that she had nice hair, where she had it. Hair that could grow back, that was already pretty. Things like drumming on the counter while eating frozen waffles, her fingers zipping along and thinking, hell yeah, drums. The rhythms a second language that she knew so well.

  At school, not blowing up, but also aware: of her classmates and all their little oddities. How Gretchen, who sat in front of her in history, flicked at her own earring over and over. How Jeremy’s head twitched while he was watching the lecture. How Lyla methodically chewed all her nails during calculus. Little blips all around her. They were all imperfect machines, wired well enough to survive, but every one of them flawed and yet grinding on.

  And Maya wondered: maybe all their smiles online weren’t actually taunts, but shows of bravery. I am still here and I am well, they said. All the moments weren’t good, but maybe the good ones were worth sharing, worth celebrating. And they didn’t have to mean that you weren’t doing well by comparison. They weren’t about you at all.

  Sending Eli a text between each period. One down! Two down! Even though he wasn’t replying.

  Only one Band-Aid on one finger.

  She sat alone at lunch, on the end of a table where some freshman boys were playing a card game. Not as close to Eli as she would have liked, but she could see him over there, had craned her neck a few times hoping to get his attention, but his head was down.

  While she ate, she tapped her phone. Went to her feed and pushed back through time, until she came to the photo Janice had posted.

  Lost cause! Gross!

  The picture was as bleak as ever, but her gaze in that mirror: it was more than just disappointment at seeing herself. She’d also been fed up with Janice, knew it needed to change. Excited to see Eli later. Scared, but determined. There had been hope, despite how she looked. Despite what she’d been through. She might be the only one who could see it, but still.

  Maya pressed her thumb against the photo and saved it to her phone. Clicked over to her profile picture, which had been a shot of her feet in the surf for most of the last year. Considered Janice’s photo again. She tapped the edit features, would put a filter on it, maybe blur the edges—

  No. It should just be what it was. What she was. No more hiding.

  I am still here and I am not well, but I am working on it.

  Her heart tripped on itself. Her parents would see. Grandparents, cousins, summer camp friends, the wide wide world—

  Maya hit post, held her breath, and watched the status bar load—

  Just as the wave of screams and panic reached her.

  Someone slammed into her table and everyone was scrambling to their feet, shoving one another and running for the doors, the corners, hiding behind the pillars, the soda machine. For a second Maya couldn’t see what was happening, but then she noticed that every head that wasn’t ducking or running was craning toward the windows.

  Eli.

  Maya leaped up. Jumped to see over people. A panicked girl sprinted by and bumped her shoulder hard. She caught one glimpse through a gap—

  The gun in his outstretched hand.

  ELI! Was it Gabriel was it—

  Didn’t matter. Needed to run. An emergency exit door behind her. The lunch line doors nearby. The main entrance not too far beyond that— No! To him.

  Kids screamed and dived beneath tables, overturned others. Maya lunged into the chaos, heart pounding
, white at the edges of her vision but NO, not blowing up, not here not now. She pushed through the terrified bodies, ricocheting off shoulders.

  A guy grabbed her arm and tried to yank her away. “He’s got a gun!”

  “The kid from the mall!” someone else shouted.

  “The bomber kid!” Phones were coming out everywhere.

  “Let go!” Maya tore herself free and staggered on. Tripping—a girl lying on the floor with her hands over her head, terrified and trembling and weeping to herself. Another under a table, whispering a prayer. A slam as the doors to the lunch line were thrown shut. The main entrance doors too. A few stragglers pounding on them and screaming to be let out.

  The fire alarm began to blare, a serrated tone on and off. Everyone by the doors getting down on the floor. Through the windows, streams of kids pouring out of the building, led by teachers.

  In the cafeteria, no one moved.

  Except Maya, closer now, almost to Eli. Where the fuck did he get a gun? He leaned against the windows, both arms outstretched, aiming at someone standing with his back to her. The hair, the clothes: Graham. Now she saw the wolf mask, the length of silver pipe in his hand: a bomb, oh God, another bomb.

  “Do it already!” Graham shouted. “Or I’ll set this off, I swear to fucking God!”

  Maya moved at an angle. Someone grabbed at her ankle, but she shook it off. Still out of Graham’s view. She waved her hands. Eli saw her, his eyes wide. He motioned with the gun as if to say, Get away!

  Graham turned. “Of course you’re here, you bitch,” he snarled, his neck and ears beet red. His jacket and knees were filthy. He wore dirt-covered socks but no shoes.

  Maya reached Eli’s table and edged around it, her eyes darting from Graham to Eli and back.

  “Actually, I’m glad,” Graham spat. “This is your fault too. So let’s all go together!” He shook the pipe at the two of them.

  Maya heard sirens beyond the shrill blaring of the fire alarm. She felt the bugs with their swords in formation on her skin. Blinked against the blast at the edges of her vision, the sabotage in her head. STAY HERE.

  “You need to get away from me,” said Eli.

  “No,” said Maya. “Put the gun down.”

  “Shoot me or I’ll do it!” Graham waved the pipe again. “A hundred dead bodies or one! Just finish the fucking job you started by ratting me out to the cops!”