The Way We Fall

by Megan Crewe

  “I guess I’ll come back later,” he said, already backpedaling.

  “Wait!” I said. “Gav, this is my dad. I wanted you to talk with him.”

  He stopped, eyeing Dad warily, and it occurred to me that he’s probably lumped Dad in with the government and the town hall and all the other people in charge who’ve let us down. Dad’s a scientist, a specialist, and he didn’t catch the virus in time.

  But Gav trusts me. He came to me when he wanted to know what was going on, when he needed help before.

  Dad stood up slowly and bobbed his head in greeting.

  “Gav,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot about what you’ve been doing for the town. It’s impressive.”

  “I’ve been trying my best,” Gav said. His shoulders were still tensed, but he stayed where he was in the doorway.

  “There are a bunch of volunteers already helping out at the hospital,” I said, figuring the sooner he understood what I wanted to do, the better. “At least a few of them would be happy to take the time every couple of days to distribute food in town.”

  “We can arrange for you to have more vehicles, too,” Dad said. “As many as you need.”

  “Just like that?” Gav said, sounding skeptical. “No strings attached?”

  “Everyone at the hospital has been just as worried about the rest of the island as you are,” Dad said. “The only reason we haven’t done more is our hands have been so full here. Anything we can give you to make the job easier, we’re more than happy to offer.”

  “You and Warren would still be running everything,” I said. “You’d just need to tell everyone how they can help.”

  Gav eased into the room. His eyes flickered between us and settled on Dad. “Is that true?” he said. “No one here’s going to suddenly decide that because you gave us a couple cars, you get to start calling the shots? We’ve been doing this for weeks—we’ve got a system that works.”

  “You might be offered a little advice now and then,” Dad said. “If the hospital staff notice something that could be done more effectively. But frankly, we don’t have the time to take on something this big, even if we wanted to.”

  They faced off for a moment, Gav’s mouth tight, Dad watching him calmly, and then Gav’s expression broke into an awkward version of his usual smile. “Okay,” he said. “That sounds all right.” And I started grinning.

  We talked a while longer, about what could be done for the infected people still at home and the kids who’d lost their parents. Even though the hospital is overcrowded, it’s still the best place for anyone sick to be if we want to stop the virus from spreading.

  “With the extra cars, we could pretty easily drive people back here when we find them,” Gav said.

  “We wouldn’t want the healthy kids here,” I pointed out. “But if they were all together, we’d need fewer people to look after them.”

  “I might know someone who’d be willing to set up a home for the children who’ve been orphaned,” Dad said.

  By the end of the conversation, Gav was sitting easily with us, as if he’d never been concerned. He got up and nodded to Dad and said, “We’ll see if we can get this thing started, then.”

  He paused, and then he squeezed my shoulder, with a look on his face like he wanted to say thank you but didn’t know the right words.

  “I’ll see you, Kaelyn,” he said instead.

  Dad watched him go, then turned to pick up his laptop.

  “Dad,” I said, “will I have to stay here much longer? I don’t want to just lie here while everyone else does the work.”

  “We’ll see how you’re doing over the next couple days,” he said. “I don’t want you to push yourself too hard.”

  “But I’m definitely okay, right?” I asked, and a terrifying thought hit me. “I can’t get sick again, can I?”

  Dad sat down beside me. “Well,” he said, “your immune system should be able to fight off the virus if it encounters it again. But we don’t know what might happen in the future. The virus could mutate, and then your defenses wouldn’t necessarily be enough. So we’re going to keep being careful, all right? All the same precautions as before.”

  So right now I’m safe—as safe as a person can be. Maybe I’m not invincible, but I’ve got a lot less to be worried about than anyone else. The sickest patient in the hospital could sneeze in my face and I’d be fine.

  I have to see the fact that I survived as a gift, whether I deserved it or not. And I’m going to do everything I can with that gift. Today was good, but it was just a start.

  I’m free!

  Dad decided today that I’m doing well enough to leave the hospital. Gav had just stopped by when I got the news, and he offered to drive me over to Tessa’s.

  I hadn’t realized how much I’d gotten used to the pretty-much-quiet of my room. In the halls of the hospital, people are sitting on blankets or pillows or whatever else the volunteer staff have been able to find, coughing and sneezing into their face masks. They watched me as I walked by with Gav as my shadow. My face mask only filtered out some of the sour-sweat smell, and made each breath thick and humid. I pulled it down when we stepped outside, to gulp the cool air.

  On the street, it was quiet again. Dead leaves were blowing across the tops of all those cars no one is ever going to claim. Almost all the trees are bare. Litter drifted on the road, and the windows across from us were dark.

  I shivered and pulled my jacket closer around me. There’s no way to look at this town and believe our lives could flip back to the way they were two months ago.

  Gav had tugged down his mask too. “You all right?” he asked.

  It’s going to get better, I told myself. We’re going to make it better.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Just, you know, haven’t been out in a few weeks.”

  Gav’s car—or, as it turned out, his parents’ car—is a Ford hatchback that used to be white but now is more gray, with rust creeping along the edges of the frame like lichen. The inside stank of cigarette smoke. I wrinkled my nose reflexively, and Gav noticed.

  “My mom,” he said. “I’ve tried to air it out, but I guess that takes a while when the smell’s had fifteen years to sink in.”

  “She doesn’t mind you using it?” I said cautiously.

  His voice stiffened. “She’s not really in a position to care,” he said.

  He said she was sick the day he came by to teach me and Meredith those self-defense moves. Which means she was probably dead by the time I woke up in the hospital. He never said anything.

  “How’s your dad?” I asked.

  “The same as her,” he said, in a tone that suggested he’d rather not talk about it, and turned the key.

  The engine rumbled to life more smoothly than I expected, given the look of the car. It seemed terribly loud in the stillness as we cruised toward Tessa’s house. The only sign of life I saw was a cat scampering through a pet door as we passed.

  “Doesn’t look like I really needed an escort,” I said, not because I minded, but because talking made the situation feel a little more normal. “Pretty quiet out.”

  “For now,” Gav said. “You’ve got to be careful. That gang Quentin got in with, well, they’re pretty rough. The last couple helicopter drops, they grabbed all the supplies, and I heard they shot at the people from the hospital who came to collect it. And…”

  He hesitated, and shut his mouth. Something he’d decided not to say. Something even worse?

  I felt colder than I had outside in the wind. “They’re taking all the food and the medicine?” I said. “Then how are we managing?”

  “The last shipments the hospital got, your dad says there’s some left over from those,” Gav said. “And we’ve got the food we held on to from our stash. And there just…aren’t so many people left still needing to eat.”

  He said the last bit quietly, as if that would make it less true. I remembered the list Warren had made, all those houses. How many do they still stop at? How many have
anyone left to open the door?

  “I know,” he went on, when I didn’t say anything. “I should have been paying more attention. I should have caught Quentin and them before they took off on us. Then we’d have twice as much food, at least. And if they didn’t have the truck, maybe they wouldn’t be able to take everything from the drop-offs.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “You had a lot going on.”

  “It is,” he said. “I was in charge. I was supposed to be keeping an eye on everyone. And look how things ended up. We were managing the whole operation by ourselves, and now we have to go begging for help because of my screwup.”

  He pulled over in front of Tessa’s house with a jerk of the steering wheel. His hands were tight and his eyes dark as he stared through the windshield.

  “You can’t really think you screwed anything up,” I started.

  “Of course I did,” he said before I could finish. “If I hadn’t—”

  “Listen!” I said, so loud I startled both of us. His mouth snapped shut and he finally looked at me.

  “Quentin’s a jerk,” I said. “He’s been one as long as I’ve known him. I bet there wasn’t a single thing you could have done to stop him from joining that gang. And if he hadn’t gone to them with the key, they’d have broken the warehouse door down, and you wouldn’t have had any warning, and they’d have taken everything instead of just half. So even if we totally ignore all the things you’ve been doing to help, even if we pretend none of that counts just because it didn’t go exactly the way you planned, in what universe could you have made sure not one piece of food got stolen?”

  I hadn’t meant to give a huge speech, but once I got going I couldn’t stop until all the words had spilled out. It’s just so ridiculous that Gav, who’s been doing so much, is beating himself up over one little thing he probably couldn’t have changed anyway. Let Quentin beat himself up for being a selfish asshole!

  When I finished, Gav was still watching me, and still looking kind of startled.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted.

  “Well, there you go,” I said. “That’s because there wasn’t anything you could have done to stop it. So give yourself a break, okay?”

  He let out a breath, long and slow, and then he smiled for the first time since we’d got in the car. “Right,” he said.

  It seemed like the conversation was over, so I reached to open the door. Then he said, “Kaelyn,” and I turned back toward him, and something in his expression made my heart start thumping.

  He was looking at me, but he’d been looking at me already. It just felt like his focus had sharpened, like before at least a little of his attention had been on other things, and now every single thought in his head was centered on me. He’d shifted forward, and his hand was resting on the side of the passenger seat, a few inches from my shoulder. His lips were parted like there was something he was going to say once he figured out the words.

  I don’t know what I thought he was going to do.

  No, that’s not true. I thought he was going to try to kiss me. I don’t think I realized in the moment, and I don’t know if I wanted him to, but I braced myself, and my heart kept pounding.

  And then it didn’t matter, because he didn’t. His hand dropped to his side and he glanced out the window, and when he turned back to me, his gaze wasn’t half as intense.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  It took me a couple seconds to remember what he was thanking me for, and then I shrugged and smiled like there hadn’t just been this potentially awkward moment. “Happy to help!” I said, way too brightly. I reached for the door again, and he didn’t stop me.

  One of us said something like, “See you around,” and the other one agreed, and then I was standing at Tessa’s door, hearing the Ford’s engine growl as Gav drove away.

  Tessa is probably the only person who could look totally composed while the world is falling to pieces. When she opened the door, she had her hair pulled back in a smooth ponytail, and even though a few smudges of dirt marked the knees of her jeans, otherwise her clothes were clean and unwrinkled.

  “Your dad called to let me know you were on your way,” she said. “We were just making some lunch. Are you hungry?” Totally calm, like I hadn’t almost died since the last time she’d seen me. It was kind of nice not to be treated like a miracle.

  That lasted about five seconds, because then footsteps came charging down the hall and Meredith flung herself at me.

  “You’re really okay!” she said. “I was really, really worried, Kaelyn. Are you going to come stay here with us? Tessa says you can. I wanted to bring your stuff so I could set it all up for you, but Uncle Gordon wouldn’t let me go in your room. I’m sorry.”

  I hadn’t heard her say so much all at once since Aunt Lillian left. I got a lump in my throat, and for a minute I couldn’t say anything. So I just hugged her and kissed her forehead.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” I said, after a bit. “My dad was right—you’ve got to be really careful. I need you to stay healthy.”

  She nodded. “I know,” she said. “I’m staying inside where it’s safe. And I’ve been looking after the ferrets for you!”

  She grabbed my hand and dragged me over to the guest bedroom, which was stuffed full with her suitcases and toys and the ferret cage. Mowat and Fossey scrambled up the bars to see me, nuzzling my fingers. They didn’t look any worse for my absence. I opened the door and let them clamber over me.

  “Tessa doesn’t really like them,” Meredith whispered to me. Once she’d gotten over her excitement, she was really quiet again.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  She looked at her feet. “I thought it’d be fun to take them into the greenhouse,” she said. “But Fossey tried to dig under one of the bushes, and Mowat knocked over a pot.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m sure Tessa isn’t upset with you.”

  Tessa called us for lunch, which was canned ravioli. Meredith was almost silent, and Tessa was awkwardly polite, speaking to Meredith the way I might have talked to a friend of my parents I didn’t know that well. I guess she hasn’t spent much time around kids. She was trying, though; don’t get me wrong.

  So this is us now. We’ve formed some strange new sort of family. I felt almost happy until I looked at the three empty chairs, and thought that Drew ought to be sitting in one, and Mom in another, and a familiar ache filled my chest.

  Three weeks sick and I feel like I’ve missed a century.

  So now I know what Gav didn’t tell me yesterday.

  This morning after breakfast, Tessa said she’d take me over to the house to grab my things. I wanted to go by myself, but I’m not sure where Dad has our car, and even if Tessa would let me borrow hers, it’s a stick shift, which I don’t know how to drive. Walking was out because I still get faint sometimes. We had a hushed discussion about Meredith, and in the end decided it was safer for her to stay in the house with the door locked, since we didn’t know who we’d run into. God, am I glad for that.

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?” I asked as we drove. “That we’re, like, moving in with you? Meredith and I could stay at my place now that I’m out of the hospital.”

  “Your dad said he didn’t know how safe your house is, right?” Tessa said. “Because you and your mom were both sick in there? No one’s been sick at my place. It makes sense for her to stay there and for you to stay with her. There’s lots of room.”

  “But it’s your house,” I said. “You don’t have to let us just because it makes sense.”

  She hesitated for a moment, and then she said, “I kind of like having someone else around. The house gets really quiet sometimes.”

  She always seems so unflappable, I forget to think she might be lonely. But of course it’s been weeks now since she could talk to her parents, or to you, Leo—since the long distance and the internet went out. If it were me, I’d have gone insane by now.

  “Okay,” I said, “then it
works for both of us,” and she smiled.

  As we drove, I noticed a couple houses that reminded me of the gang Gav had talked about. The doors were swinging open and the front windows smashed. When we turned onto my street, I was suddenly terrified my house would look the same. But it was fine, everything as it should be.

  I told Tessa I’d rather go in on my own, both because the virus might be hanging around and because I wasn’t sure how emotional I’d get. But when I went in and looked around, I didn’t know what I’d been worried about losing. Tessa had told me they’d already moved all the food to her place, so I went straight to my bedroom. I stood in the doorway for a few minutes, wondering if I cared enough about any of my belongings to risk the virus traveling with them.

  In the end I stuffed a garbage bag full of the clothes that seemed the most useful and sealed it up so I could throw them straight into the wash when we got back to Tessa’s. I tossed my iPod into my backpack with my coyote notebook and a couple other journals I’d been writing observations in, a guide to surviving the wilderness I’d gotten as preparation for research expeditions, and the framed photo of the four of us, Mom, Dad, Drew, and me, that Aunt Lillian took down by the beach a couple years ago. I looked at Mom and Drew a little too long, and had to blink hard as I was putting the photo away. Then I hemmed and hawed over my computer and finally burned a disc of pretty much everything on the hard drive.

  So there you have it. That’s what my life comes down to now: some clothes, a few books, and a DVD.

  “Okay,” I said when I got back in the car. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We were about halfway back to Tessa’s house when a woman ran in front of us.

  Tessa hit the brake so hard I jolted against my seat belt. The car stopped just a few inches away from the woman, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “It’s so good to see someone!” she said. “Where are you going? Can I come with you? I don’t think I can stand being alone another second!”

  Her face was flushed, and she sneezed as she waited for us to answer, refusing to budge. Tessa backed up a little, and the woman followed us.