The Edge of Everything (Untitled #1)(50)

Dallas asked if they could still hang sometimes—as friends, or whatever. He said it very simply and genuinely. Zoe said of course. Dallas grinned and told her that there was another girl at school he was kind of into anyway—and that he was pretty sure if he asked her out she’d say yes. He said Zoe was probably “too complicated” for him anyway. The air cleared, Dallas then turned his attention to the comments card and the miniature-golf pencil that had been left on their table: How was your meal? Let us know! Dallas reflected for a moment, and wrote, Solid salad bar! When Zoe left, he stayed behind to apply for a job.

Today, Zoe swung the Struggle Buggy into the parking lot that connected the schools. She was an hour late, thanks to Jonah’s meltdown. She gathered up her books and bags, and slammed the car shut—a complicated process that involved pulling the handle up and to the right because the door had been sideswiped by a snowplow and now sagged several inches too low.

No one at Jonah’s school even looked at Zoe sideways when she told them that he’d be out sick. Everyone knew that Zoe’s family had slipped into a dark tunnel. She’d always been an A student, but lately her grades had been sliding. Given the awful stuff that had happened, she found it harder and harder to believe that there was really an earth-shattering difference between an A and a B, or even between a B and a C. Today, Jonah’s vice principal, Ms. Didier, asked if Zoe was doing okay with so much compassion—with so much eye contact—that Zoe knew rumors must be circulating about what had gone on at the lake with Stan. God only knew how the story had been twisted in the retellings.

“I’m okay, yeah,” Zoe told her. “Jonah’s kind of … not.”

“Well, look,” said the vice principal, “this is incredibly scary, upsetting stuff. There’s no handbook. But we will do whatever your family needs. Let Jonah know we’re thinking about him. Who’s with him now?”

“Our friend Rufus,” said Zoe.

“The chain-saw guy?” said Ms. Didier.

“Yes,” said Zoe. “But he’s—”

“Oh, no, no, I love Rufus,” said Ms. Didier. “I didn’t mean to sound critical. He made a moose for me.”

By the time Zoe got to the high school, the only period left before lunch was Spanish. Zoe sat between Val and a girl named Mingyu, who penciled little wings at the corners of her eyes, dressed in layer upon layer of black, and drew pentagrams and 666’s on the undersides of her wrists during class. Mingyu played bass in an all-girl punk band called the Slim Reaper and claimed to be a Satanist. Zoe didn’t believe the devil-worshipping part. But sitting down next to Mingyu now, she wished the girl actually was a Satanist, so she could freak her out.

Hey, Mingyu, guess where my boyfriend’s from!

The Spanish instructor, a slender woman named Ms. Shaw who had what Zoe and Val agreed was by far the best teacher hair, rapped her wedding ring on the Smart Board to get the class’s attention. Zoe raised her hand four times in the first eight minutes, so she could spend the rest of the period staring out at the mountains and thinking about X without being called on.

She tried to imagine where he was now. Had he found Stan or was he still hunting him down? All she could picture was the model of the Lowlands that he’d built with Jonah, so she imagined him talking to a Revolutionary War soldier while an orc from Lord of the Rings waved a club nearby. Zoe was terrified for X, but she told herself that she would see him again. She would. Meeting X had convinced her that things were possible. She didn’t even know what things, but it didn’t matter. Things!

She’d take him swimming in Tally Lake—not just at the dinky, roped-off pebble beach, but in the big blue bowl of the water. She’d go huckleberry picking with him. She’d take him hiking on the Highline in Glacier National Park. She’d tell him all the names of the wildflowers. She’d ask what his tattoos meant. She’d ask if he had ever kissed anyone but her. She was pretty sure he hadn’t—his lips had trembled just the slightest bit.

His lips were so warm. Had hers been too cold? Had he noticed? Was he disappointed?

Okay, she was seriously losing it. When she surfaced from her daydream, Val and Dallas were making bug eyes at her and motioning toward her desk. Zoe looked down, and saw a quiz she was supposed to be taking.

As soon as the bell rang, Val rushed up to her, but Zoe floated past her and spent the rest of the day in a daze.



In the Struggle Buggy after school, Val started up again.

“Okay, what were you high on in Spanish? You know that quiz counts, right?”

“Counts how?” said Zoe. “Counts toward what? My total life score? Esta quiz no es me importa para mi!”

“Yeah, see, even that was terrible Spanish,” said Val.

Zoe laughed.

“Sí, usted eres razón,” she said.

“Ugh, just stop,” said Val. “You’re mauling a beautiful language.”

They were crossing farmland on a long roller coaster of a road. The car shook and rattled. The windshield had a spiderweb crack—there was still a rock, about the size of a blueberry, wedged into the center—and the floorboard on the passenger side had rusted through so that, if you moved the rubber mat, you could actually see the ground fly by underneath.

By the time the Buggy sputtered up the driveway, Zoe had told Val as much as she could about X, though she substituted “aspiring musician” for “supernatural bounty hunter.” It was what she’d told Rufus when he’d shown up unannounced that day. And it seemed plausible, if nobody pressed too hard about why an aspiring musician was on a frozen lake in the middle of a blizzard—and how he’d fought off a murderer.