by Emily France
Micah was so excited by the mention of three-tiered kites, he nearly lost it. He started talking super fast, and his hair bounced up and down as he jabbered. He went off about string type, reel recommendations, and wind direction.
The woman ended up buying eighty bucks’ worth of stuff and left a ten-dollar bill in Micah’s tip jar.
Apparently, she was her own superhero.
“Bro,” Micah asked, once she was safely out the door, “did you catch that smile she had when I first talked to her?”
Oliver nodded.
“That’s a thing. That’s a Glory Days Grin.”
“Huh?”
“I remind her of her Glory Days, when she was my age. When she was living the dream.” He pulled the ten out of the jar and waved it around, snapped it taut. “For that alone, I get ten bucks. Happens all the time.”
“Living the dream?”
“College, bro! Partying all night. Meeting Micahs all day.”
Oliver looked at Micah and briefly wondered what it would be like to have that much confidence. Even for one day. One hour. Oliver suspected that Micah’s reality was a far, far cry from his own.
“Fuck Knuckle!” A short, skinny guy burst into the store.
“Love of my life!” Micah answered. Skinny Guy came over and walked right behind the register, like he owned the place. He was wearing a bright blue T-shirt that said Boulder High. Oliver wasn’t sure how he knew it, but he could sense that he was on this guy’s stool. Oliver immediately slid off, and Skinny Guy took his place.
“Who’s this?” He pointed at Oliver like he was kite detritus.
“This is Ollie,” Micah answered. “From Illinois. He’s working here for the summer.”
Even though he’d never been called Ollie in his entire life, Oliver decided to just go with it and managed a weak “Hey.”
“Ollie,” Micah went on, “meet my pal Anish. A rising senior stud at the illustrious Boulder High School. Whose family is like Indian royalty.”
Anish rolled his eyes. “No,” he said. “Not royalty.”
“Bro, I’ve seen the crazy-ass wedding pictures in your living room. There were elephants, dude. And those outfits!”
“Grandparents’ wedding,” Anish said. “I wasn’t even born yet. And when I was born, it was in Fort Collins.”
“He’s modest.” Micah winked again.
If Micah was such a college maverick, Oliver wondered why the hell he was still hanging out with high school kids. But of course, he didn’t say that. Instead, the worst happened: Oliver stuck his hand out. As in, he dorkily tried to shake Anish’s hand. Oliver’s mom had always taught him to offer a handshake to important adults. Like her friends. Or his grandparents’ friends. The manners lesson misfired in Oliver’s brain and there he was, extending a hand to a Boulder dude his age.
Anish completely ignored him and his dorky attempt at a handshake. Oliver shoved his hand back in his pocket and miraculously suffered and survived a mild heart attack fueled by self-loathing. Anish continued talking to Micah. “Party at the End of the World tonight! And guess who scored some Everclear?”
“Everclear?” Micah frowned. “Dude, the last time we drank that, you inexplicably ended up passed out in a women’s bathroom with a retainer in your mouth . . . that wasn’t yours. That’s the type of shit that happens when you drink Everclear.”
They kept debating which substances were the best to ingest at End of the World parties (wherever and whatever those were), and as each second ticked by, Oliver felt like more and more of a jackass. It was extremely difficult to look cool while standing around listening to people talk about a party he was clearly not invited to.
Thankfully, the bell above the door jangled, and Oliver looked up, wondering if it would be Essa coming in for her shift. It wasn’t. It was just a couple of customers. Parents with a ten-year-old boy in tow. Oliver made a beeline for them even though he had no idea what to do once he got there. It wasn’t like he was ready to answer kite questions. But still. Anything to get away from Anish and Micah.
The boy milled around the hover racers, fascinated. Maybe Oliver could actually answer questions about those. But just before he reached them, his phone went off in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the screen.
Mom.
He thought about sending it to voice mail, texting her that he was busy. But something about it pulled at him. Maybe she was calling with an update about Lilly.
Lilly.
He hadn’t thought about her for maybe three hours straight. He couldn’t remember when he’d gone that long. The sudden thought of her rushed through him like a bad dream. Like thin air. Like homesickness for a place he didn’t even know was still standing. He answered the call.
“How is she?” He skipped a greeting.
“Hi, sweetheart,” his mom said. “I just visited. Everything’s under control. Really. There are a few new docs on the team. They’re great. They’re adjusting her meds. How’s Boulder?”
They’re adjusting her meds. How many times had he heard that? How many times had those words filled a tiny balloon of hope in his chest that rose slowly, higher and higher? How many times had it burst? That’s all they ever did, adjust her meds. Most of the time the pills brought her back to reality. Just so she could leave it again a few weeks later and do it all over.
But there it was. In his chest. That little balloon. Rising.
“How bad is she? Are the meds helping?”
“A little. She’s still going on about the white cars. But the other stuff seems to be fading. The crossword puzzles. The messages she thinks she’s getting from the television . . .”
“Does she remember . . . everything?”
Silence.
Oliver realized that his voice had cracked a little when he asked the question. And that he was pacing. By the bin of Mini-Unicorns. He dug his hand in and pulled out a wad of them, their tiny rubber horns jutting this way and that. He let them cascade out of his fist, like a unicorn waterfall. “When can I talk to her? I’ve got to try—”
“I don’t know, honey. I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” His mom paused. Let out a small sigh.
“But she’s my sister. I should be allowed to . . .” Oliver trailed off, suddenly too tired to finish his sentence. He glanced at the hover racer display. The customers were long gone. “I don’t know what happened that night, Mom. I just—” His voice cracked again, and he stopped talking. He had to.
He saw something out of the corner of his eye.
Micah.
Shit. He’s probably pissed that I didn’t help the hover racer customers.
“Mom, I gotta go.” Oliver straightened the sign on the bin of Mini-Monkeys, trying to look like he was doing something that resembled work.
“Don’t go,” she said. “Are you okay out there? Tell me you’re—”
“Bye.” He hung up. And looked at Micah. “Sorry about that. I meant to help those customers, I just—”
“Dude. Totally okay. Seriously.” Micah adjusted a few bin labels himself. Mini-Snakes. Mini-Frogs. Mini-Octopi. “Um . . . is everything cool?”
He wasn’t talking about hover racer sales.
How much did he hear?
Oliver couldn’t even remember what he’d said to his mom out loud. How much did he say about Lilly? About what happened that night? About her delusions? He couldn’t remember. “Uh, yeah. It was about my sister. Had to take it. Or my mom would be pissed. You know how that goes.”
“Totally,” Micah said. “See this?” He held up his cell phone. The background of his home screen was a photograph of a beautiful woman on a boat. Her thick jet-black hair was curling in the humidity; her cherry-red lipstick matched the color of her large sunglasses. In the background, angular tree-covered rock formations pushed out of the ocean. Giant seabirds loomed in the sky. She w
as waving one graceful arm in the air, and a little boy was tucked under the other. He was smiling underneath his mop of black hair.
Oliver raised his eyebrows.
“That’s my mom,” Micah said. “On a boat off Railay Beach. In Thailand.” He looked at the picture again. “If she calls and I don’t take it . . . holy shit. She goes all Turbo-Thai on my ass, and I get the matriarch lecture.”
“So that’s you?” Oliver nodded toward the little boy in the picture.
“Yeah. I was six, I think.” Micah’s smile was easy enough to read. He adored his mom. He looked down at his ratty hiking boots and ground his toe into the carpet. “So . . . your sister. She sick or something?”
Guess he heard enough.
“Um. Sort of. Yes.”
“That sucks. She getting better?”
Oliver didn’t say anything at first. He just looked up at the kites hanging from the ceiling. He’d give anything to get out of this conversation. He didn’t want to be the kid from Chicago with the messed-up family. With the sob story. With the weirdness that no one could understand. He just wanted to be Oliver. High school kid. Summer kite worker. No big deal.
“Not really. But what are those?” He pointed to a line of kites above them that looked different from the others. These were triangles, but more angular than the rest. They had scalloped edges, racing colors, and clean, hard lines. There were five in a row, and together they looked predatory, like a pack of bats ready to attack.
“Stunt kites,” Micah answered, looking up. “Batkite brand. Totally badass. Fast and precise as hell. Also a hundred and fifty bucks.”
“Cool.” Oliver couldn’t think of anything else to say. He knew there must be a million questions one could ask about such a thing as stunt kites, but his mind remained stubbornly blank. “Really cool.”
An awkward silence engulfed them.
“Anyway,” Micah continued, “you wanna come to a party? Tonight. It’s at this really cool spot above Boulder. We call it the End of the World. Anish and I’ll pick you up.”
Oliver could hear Micah’s motive. It was so obvious. As if he’d just been handed an actual party invitation written in a new font: Times New Pity. Helvetica Charity.
Oliver looked up at the kites again. The thought of traipsing into the woods at night freaked him out. And sounded kind of boring. And if the rest of Micah’s friends were as ice cold as Anish, it would be a miserable night. A miserable night in the woods with people who didn’t want him there.
“I’ll go,” Oliver said.
On the Pathetic/Overeager scale, Oliver’s answer was a perfect ten. It came out so fast. So forcefully. He didn’t even ask what time or anything. Silently, he chastised himself for sounding so desperate. He wondered why the hell he’d jumped at the chance to go to something that sounded terrible in the first place.
But he knew why. He totally knew why.
The truth made his face burn, and he was grateful Micah couldn’t read his mind.
Essa.
Maybe she’ll be there.
10
OLIVER
He was in the back of Micah’s Jeep, about to throw up. Micah was speeding up the steep, winding roads into Boulder Canyon. They were in the middle of a line of nearly twenty cars, all snaking their way into the mountains, kicking up massive clouds of dust as the road turned from pavement to gravel and finally to dry dirt. The dusty haze around the car was catching the golden light of sunset, and Oliver felt like he was in a movie. Maybe the scene just before the hero’s car spins off the road and disappears over the cliff beside them. Oliver peered over the edge at the straight drop. His stomach lurched. It was so far down with nothing to stop them if their car went over. Boulder stretched out below. Beyond the city, the land flattened out and seemed to go on forever.
Micah looked at Oliver in the rearview mirror. “You can see straight to Kansas from here, bro.”
“Yeah.” Oliver wished Micah would just keep his eyes on the road. As they climbed higher and higher, the altitude made Oliver sick. Waves of nausea rolled over him. He decided he’d made a terrible decision to come up here. But on the very small bright side of the current situation, both Micah and Anish were actually being nice to him. Oliver wondered if Micah had told Anish about his sister, that he’d overheard him talking about some mystery illness on the phone.
“Next up, the Black Forest,” Micah called, tapping his hands on the steering wheel.
Anish was rolling a joint in the passenger seat. Micah took a sharp turn around a switchback, the wheels skidded, and the car slid sideways. The rolling paper in Anish’s lap floated up and was sucked out the window. “Dammit!” Anish reached for it, but missed. “I wanted to be high before we got there. Slow the hell down and close the windows until I get this rolled.”
“Edibles, dude.” Micah shook his head. “So much easier.”
“They take too long to kick in!” Anish threw his hands up in disgust. “I can’t calibrate. I always overshoot the mark. Or undershoot, which is nearly as bad.”
Oliver tuned out their conversation as they left the switchbacks and the road entered a high alpine meadow. It was covered with burnt trees. Thousands were still standing, and hundreds more lay still and lifeless on the ground like blackened cadavers. Oliver stared at the upright trees, charred black, with limbs twisting into the sky like they were frozen in their last moments, begging for mercy but denied it.
“What is this place?” Oliver leaned into the front seat.
“Big fire swept through here years ago. How old were we?” Micah glanced sideways at Anish.
Anish couldn’t answer because his tongue was otherwise engaged. He had the joint rolled up and was licking the new paper closed. He held up one finger until he was done. “You would’ve been in sixth grade,” he finally said.
“Yeah. Sixth grade. It was massive. Burned this entire area.”
Anish pulled a lighter out of his pocket and lit his joint. He took a few shallow inhales until the tip glowed red and then pulled in a long drag. He held it and let go in one slow, smooth exhalation. He didn’t even cough once. “Guests next,” he said, turning and offering it to Oliver.
Oliver had never smoked before. Or drank. Or done anything, for that matter. He stared at the joint. Maybe now was a good time to trash his sober policy. Was he really the good kid anymore after what happened with Lilly? His mom had to dump him in Boulder for the summer just to get him out of Chicago. Out of the way. A problem. He was kind of a problem now. Might as well go for it.
But the truth was, it terrified him. Would he be like Lilly? Would he hallucinate? Would he lose all touch with reality? That’s why he’d never gotten messed up. Not from alcohol or drugs or anything. How could he knowingly mess up his mind when some people had no choice? When some people were stuck like that for life?
“Maybe later,” he said.
“Don’t worry, there’s plenty where we’re headed,” Anish said. “We party just at the edge of the burn area. Where the trees are thick again. It’s like paradise.” He took another drag.
Just ahead, cars were pulling off the road, driving into the woods and crossing the forest floor. Compared to parties in Chicago which always happened in the basement of someone’s townhouse or on the roof of an apartment building, there was only one word that captured what was happening right now: nuts.
Then he felt like shit for even thinking that word.
“We’re here,” Micah called. He pulled the Jeep close to a stand of thick, healthy-looking pine trees and parked. He flung open his car door, letting the accumulated weed smoke escape into the woods.
It was nearly dark. The dense forest around them hid the last few rays of sun. Oliver followed Anish and Micah a few hundred yards ahead, to a large clearing in the woods.
“Behold!” Micah said, holding his arms outstretched. “Welcome to the End of the Wo
rld. Greatest secret party spot in all of Boulder County. And nary a cop has ever busted us up here. It helps that the land belongs to the uncle of the student body president. But still.”
Oliver looked around. The place was crawling with people. Some wore boulder high T-shirts, some had on hiking stuff, a lot of girls were in yoga pants. In the center of the clearing there was a bonfire, surrounded by a ten-foot circle of bricks laid in the ground. It was like a makeshift patio.
“We built that,” Anish said. His eyes had taken on a glassy, foggy look. He seemed kinder, gentler. A little wistful, even. He put a hand on Oliver’s shoulder. “Bricks keep any sparks from lighting. This is wildfire country, my new friend. Your ass will go to jail if you start one up here. Doesn’t matter how young you are. We’re lucky they haven’t banned burning yet this season.”
“Truth,” Micah said. “Starting one in these mountains is, like, worse than murder.”
Music started blasting from somewhere. Oliver had never heard the song. It had a lot of guitar. It sounded almost raw, like a concert bootleg. Micah walked over to a keg and filled two red cups full of beer. He thrust one into Oliver’s hand. And then held up his own for a toast. “To the End of the World! A most beauteous place.”
Anish nearly died laughing. Like, really. Oliver was worried he might die. Which made no sense because all Micah had said was the title of their party spot. And the word beauteous.
Mental note: weed makes the unfunny very, very funny.
Oliver took the cup and pretended to take a sip. Micah and Anish were quickly surrounded by other people, so he quietly slipped away from the crowd. He looked at the treetops above him, at all the gnarly, twisting branches. The smell of pine and woodsmoke filled his nose.
He saw the source of the music: someone’s portable speakers sitting on top of a car hood. A new song started playing. Another one he hadn’t heard, stripped down, just guitar and vocals. It made the woods feel lonely. It made the world feel lonely. Like he was the only one out here in the darkness. Like there was nothing but the looming trees above him, the crunch of pine needles under his feet, the warm glow from the bonfire. Like he needed to go back to Chicago as soon as he possibly—