It smells like his room used to when he lived at home, a faint vinegary reek that would cause Mom to break out the Febreze on a regular basis. After today I will never smell that again.
I’m taking his comic books. I don’t need them, but I don’t care. I’m taking them anyway.
Then, when I look up, Alyssa’s standing at the door. I don’t know how long she’s been there watching me.
I pick up the comic books and put them on the bed. I won’t let her see me pack them. This is between me and Brady.
“My brother was a real screw-up,” I tell her. “I mean, he uses up everything in the bug-out, doesn’t answer our calls, and then shows up at home just in time to get himself killed. If that’s not the definition of screw-up, I don’t know what is.”
“I’m sorry, Kelton.”
And then things start coming out of my mouth that I don’t mean to say out loud, but I can’t stop myself. “I don’t have a brother anymore. I might not have parents. I don’t even know what happens if I live through this. I mean, if my parents are gone too, what then? Do I go to Boise to live with my goddamn Aunt Eunice and her cats? How is that better than dying of thirst?”
“Tomorrow is going to have to take care of itself for a while,” Alyssa says. Then she adds, “Yesterday, too.”
I know what yesterday she’s talking about. I force myself to hold her gaze, no matter how raw and stupidly naked I feel in front of her—and make no mistake about it, this is the true meaning of nakedness. If I had no clothes on, that would be nothing compared to the kind of bareness that’s exposed to her right now.
“Saying I’m sorry for that thing I did in eighth grade feels stupid—because sorry isn’t enough. Sorry is almost an insult.”
“You’re right, it’s not enough,” she says. “People go to jail for stuff like that.”
“True. But I’m a minor,” I point out. “I’d have just gotten juvie and counseling—but yeah, I get your point.”
I look down at the comic book in my hand, which I’ve managed to spindle without even realizing it. I lay it flat and try to smooth it out. “I won’t even say, ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time,’ because even then, I knew it was a really bad idea.”
“But you did it anyway.”
“Haven’t you ever done something really stupid, and you knew it was stupid but did it anyway?”
She bristles at the suggestion. Maybe because she’s never done anything so entirely stupid and misguided in her whole life. I realize she has not once asked me why I did it. Maybe because she knows. The truth is, loneliness and hormones and parents who keep you like a fish in a bowl can do weird things to a person. Life through a fishbowl lens is only one step away from life behind the lens of a drone’s camera.
“It was the creepiest thing I’ve ever done, and I was so disgusted with myself, I never did it again.” I hope she believes me, because it’s true.
Then Alyssa asks me the last thing I expect her to ask.
“So what did you see?”
“Huh?” I say, not because I didn’t hear her, but because I’m not ready to go there.
“You looked, you saw. I want to know what you stole from me that night.”
I wonder what she’s expecting me to say. I wonder what she wants me to say. It doesn’t matter, because I just tell the truth.
“It was the week of that air-band contest at school—you remember that?”
She groans. “I try not to.”
“Anyway, you and your friends had been practicing a routine, lip-synching some ridiculous pop song, but I guess you couldn’t get the moves right because that night you were in your room by yourself. You turned on the song, and you were practicing in the mirror.”
“Really?” she says flatly. “Is that what you wasted your drone on?”
“You were using Kingston’s brush as a microphone, but dog hair kept whipping in your face, and it kept throwing you off. I remember thinking, Here she is, looking in the mirror, watching herself doing something so silly and so dumb, but she doesn’t feel dumb about it at all. But me? I can’t even look in the mirror and do anything without feeling like an idiot.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Kelton,” she says. “I did feel like an idiot. But I did it anyway.”
Then she asks me to stand up for a second, so I do. I’m facing her, not quite sure what this is about . . . until she suddenly hauls off and slaps me.
This is not your ordinary slap. This is like a Major League Baseball swing, with a wind-up and full follow-through. My head whips nearly around with the force of it. It leaves me in shock. I can’t even speak, and I know there’s going to be a puffy red handprint on my left cheek for a good long time.
Finally I find my words somewhere in the far corner of my rattled brain. “I guess I deserved that,” I tell her.
“Yes, you did,” she says.
“Are we even?”
“No, we’re not.”
I sigh. “I didn’t think so.”
“Part of your punishment is that we’ll never be even.”
And I get that. The worst part about doing something inexcusable is that you can never take it back. It’s like breaking a glass. It can’t unbreak. The best you can do is sweep it up, and hope you don’t step on the slivers you left behind.
But then she leans in and places a gentle kiss on my stinging cheek, like a mother kissing a little kid’s boo-boo. She leaves without a word of explanation—and I come to the grand realization that from now and until the end of the universe, if I live a hundred thousand lifetimes, I will never understand girls. And somehow that’s okay, I think.
PART FIVE
HELL AND HIGH WATER
37) Jacqui
My mouth is dry and tastes like I’ve been chewing the soles of old Nikes. It tastes like I’ve been sucking mud. Moist, glistening mud. It’s actually enticing. Never mind an ice-cold can of Dr Pepper dripping with beads of condensation—I’d definitely settle for mud right now. Funny how the needs of your own body redefine the parameters of what you’d settle for.
I climb behind the wheel again. Whether Alyssa likes it or not, I’m the one who has to drive, because Henry sure as hell isn’t. And as neither Kelton nor Alyssa are anywhere close to having a license, they have no other choice. It’s either that or walk.
“My father felt I needed to earn the privilege of driving,” Kelton says as we get in. “But I think he was afraid of giving me too much freedom.”
Alyssa’s reason is more self-imposed.
“I put off getting my license because of soccer practice, homework, and the fact that I know my parents couldn’t afford to get me a car right now, so what was the point?”
“For people who want to survive,” I tell them both, “you made some pretty useless life choices.”
“Oh,” Alyssa snaps, “and your choices were good ones?”
“Just shut up!” yells Garrett. “Everyone just shut up!”
And so we do. Because grumbling at each other isn’t helping anything. And besides, our voices are all beginning to sound raspy. Pushing air across my vocal cords is hurting more and more, and I know it can’t just be me.
“When this is over,” Henry says, as I start the car, “I hope we’ll all be able to let bygones be bygones.”
“When this is over,” I tell him, “it will be my absolute pleasure to never see any of you ever again. But you especially.”
I put the car in gear and turn on the useless fan. I’m not exactly sure of the time, but it’s much hotter than it was when we arrived. Ten in the morning, maybe? Eleven? Kelton points out that even nonfunctioning air-conditioning makes us burn gas faster, and I tell him where he can shove his useful information. Gas is not the problem anymore—we have more than enough to get us where we’re going. The problem is, we’re facing a classic example of You can’t get there from here. The map showed that the road we took into the forest turns away from where we need to go, so the only way to get to East Fork Road is to either
backtrack twenty miles, or go through the woods, which, according to Kelton, is only a four-mile trek.
One of the maps Kelton brought shows elevation and the steepness of the terrain, so we know how to get there without falling off a cliff. Unfortunately, it doesn’t show trees and boulders. We have to meander like a Mars rover to forge our way through the woods, weaving a slow and unpredictable path.
“I don’t even know if we’re going the right way anymore,” I say—only realizing after it’s out of my mouth that I’ve said it out loud.
“We are,” says Kelton, although he doesn’t sound too confident.
Then, halfway down the next slope, a bright yellow plane rips overhead. My first instinct is to jump out of the car to shout and wave like a deranged island castaway, but before I can give in to the impulse, the plane is gone.
“That’s a firefighting craft,” Kelton says excitedly. “See, didn’t I tell you? It’s going the same place we’re going—which means we’re headed in the right direction!”
It’s the first bit of encouraging news we’ve had in a long while.
We continue to zigzag up and down the hills. Every bump hurts. Not just my head, but my bones. Whatever it is that lubricates joints I think must be in low supply now, because every moving part aches. My fever’s gone, so I know it’s not that. It’s the thirst. Has to be.
“Watch out!” Alyssa yells.
I slam on the brakes and turn left to avoid hitting a tree that seemed to have leaped suicidally into our path. Yes, I know it must have been right in front of me, but I’m just not seeing things right. It’s not that my vision is blurry, it’s just that my brain isn’t doing a good job of creating the full picture. As slow as I’m going, I’m going to have to slow down even more. Suddenly it seems like going back to Charity would have been the better idea. But it’s too late now. At this rate, we might not reach the road until dark—and the thought of that fills me with such misery, I have to fight it with fury. How dare this forest be so hard to navigate? I think to the parts of it that are burning down, and although arson is not in my personal bag of issues, I have no sympathy. Right now trees and nature are the enemies.
38) Henry
My wrists hurt from the plastic tie cutting into my skin. What do they think I’m going to do if I have my hands free? Strangle someone? Well, maybe I might. Now.
I’m up against the right side door. I could try to lift the lock when no one’s looking, open the door, and throw myself out, but what good would that do? No, my fate is tied in with everyone else in this truck. Until the moment it isn’t. I must keep my wits about me, because there are always opportunities. Even when all options seem to be gone, fortunes could change at any time. I must be ready to seize the moment when they do.
39) Kelton
Headache, rapid heart beat, exhaustion, burning eyes, dizziness. I know the symptoms of acute dehydration. We could go maybe six or seven more hours without water now. Then we fall into a coma. Then we die. Simple as that. How much water will it take to save us? More than a thimbleful, less than a cup. It won’t really hydrate us, but it will keep us from dying. It will give us time. But I don’t think there’s as much as a cup of water between here and our destination. We have to get there. Period.
Right now, our lives depend on my ability to navigate and Jacqui’s ability to drive. But what if I’m wrong, and the San Gabriel Reservoir is as dry as the rest of them? Do we just lie down on the cracked, dried mud of the lake bed and call it a day?
I find myself thinking about all of the second- and third-place ribbons and trophies in my room. Everything from robotics to marksmanship to chess boxing. My father said it was okay to have a few of them up, but didn’t want me to display the rest. He felt all those nonwinning awards would be “a shrine to mediocrity,” and such a thing was beneath me. But my mother overruled him, so the wall was enshrined. On good days I could look at it and see the accomplishments. On bad days it was a reminder of all the ways I am deficient. So I guess they were both right.
But when it comes to survival, all I know is that there are no second- and third-place trophies. There’s just the gold, or the ground. And I don’t think the others realize how close we are to the end of the line.
40) Garrett
Where are you, Mom and Dad? Are you as thirsty as we are? I think I’m gonna die. But if you’re already dead, I’m not so scared. Except I am scared—but not so scared if you’re there and you’re waiting for me. And if there’s water.
Or does thirst follow you there? What if that stupid longing for something cold and wet doesn’t go away even after you die? I could swallow a river right now. I could drink Niagara Falls.
My eyes are open, and they hurt when I close them, and they hurt when I open them again. The corners where tears come out feel like someone stuck a pin in them, they’re so dry. So I squint, trying not to open my eyes too wide. I see the windshield and I think, for a moment, that it’s a TV screen and I’m just watching TV. All of this is someone else’s pretend life. It’s like I fell asleep in front of the screen with my eyes open. And that’s a good feeling. And so I let the feeling linger until it feels a little bit true and I feel a little bit better.
There are people talking now, but I don’t think there’s anyone actually speaking, and that’s how I know I’ve started dreaming—but I’m still awake, too. I don’t know what that means, but then I think maybe, just maybe, this is what it’s like when you start turning into a water-zombie.
41) Alyssa
Just don’t think about it. Make yourself not think about it. I remember hearing somewhere that the human mind can only hold three things in conscious thought at any given time. And if I fill up all three spaces, I won’t think about how thirsty I am.
Think about the reservoir. No, because that will just make me think of the water I don’t have. Think about school and that last bit of homework I never did. And biology. Mitosis. Meiosis. Protein synthesis. It all requires water. Not helpful.
Subject one: soccer. I’m driving toward the goal. Passing back and forth. And wonder of wonders, Hali actually passes the ball to me instead of hogging it. Good. Good.
Second subject. Geography. I think of states. Countries. My father got me a geography coloring book when he found out that the asinine California school system decided they didn’t need to teach geography anymore. A coloring book? Really? And yet it was great. I would think I was procrastinating, when in reality, I was memorizing the geography of the world. France is green and looks like a man with a goatee and his nose in the air. Egypt is a yellow trapezoid with one right angle, and looks like the cornerstone of a pyramid. Greenland is blue, just to be ironic. So soccer and geography. Good.
Subject three. What is subject three? Spanish. Si, Español. Pedro tiene la bolsa de Maria. ¿Donde está el baño? ¡Quiero agua! ¡Por favor, agua agua agua! This isn’t working.
I turn to see that Henry is watching me. I wonder what he’s thinking, and then I realize I don’t care. Soccer. Geography. Spanish. That’s all I can care about right now.
“I’m not the terrible person you think I am,” Henry tells me. “If you met me in the real world, I know you would have liked me.”
“But we never would have met, so why does it matter?” I point out. “You live in a mansion in a gated community and go to an expensive private school. What are the chances that we would ever have met?”
“It’s not a mansion,” he says. “It’s just a house. And we might have met if you came to visit your uncle.” He looks off into space as if imagining that alternate reality. “If we had met, I would have asked you out to a fancy dinner, and I’d be sweet and considerate, and listen to everything you said. And when I wasn’t listening, I’d be charming you with my sparkling wit.”
“Sparkling . . . ,” echoes Garrett wistfully, and I know he’s thinking of something cold with bubbles.
“You would have liked me,” Henry says again.
“I did like you,” I remind him.
/> Henry sighs. “Past tense. Maybe I can make it present tense again.”
I don’t answer him. Right now I have no interest in connection with anybody. The only thing I want to connect with is liquid across my lips. I could fall in love with a glass of water much more than a human being right now.
Jacqui suddenly stops the car.
“Are we there?” Garrett says weakly. “Please tell us we’re there.”
“Quiet!” Jacqui says. “Do you hear that?” She rolls down her window the rest of the way. The stench of smoke is stronger now than before. I wonder if the winds have shifted in our direction. Now, with the windows down, we can all hear what she heard. There’s music. Someone’s playing music!
42) Kelton
This could be a really good thing, but there’s a voice inside of me—most likely my father’s paranoid voice—telling me to be careful. That things that seem too good to be true always are, without exception, too good to be true.
“We should check it out,” says Alyssa.
“I’ll go,” I tell everyone, before someone else volunteers.
“Always the Boy Scout,” sneers Jacqui—and although I expect her to argue, she says, “Fine. The rest of us will stay here and enjoy the nonexistent air-conditioning.”
It’s an indication of how much the thirst is getting to her, if she’s willing to let me take charge of a situation. But volunteering for this has nothing to do with my being a Boy Scout. It has to do with caution over curiosity—which I have right now much more than any of the others. I am just paranoid enough to hedge my hope, and that could be something that saves us.
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