The Last One(88)

I called the one who left Bumbles. I named him that.

Self-revulsion slams through me.

Did any of them survive? Did Cooper? Heather or Julio? Randy or Ethan or Sofia or Elliot? The sweet young engineer whose name I can’t remember? I need to remember his name, but I can’t.

Brennan shudders in my arms and sorrowful wonder brushes through me: I thought he was a cameraman. I thought—

“I’m sorry about your mother,” I say.

I feel the tacky skin of my chin prickle and tear as the boy pulls away from me. “Why did you act like it wasn’t real?” he asks.

Thirteen. I want to tell him the truth. I want to tell him everything, about the show and the cabin and the love I abandoned for adventure, but it hurts too much. I also don’t want to lie anymore, so I say, “Can you blame me?”

He sniffles a laugh and I think, What a remarkable child.

Soon we’re walking again, slowed by our respective aches and injuries. My right hand is swollen, useless. I can’t move my wrist or fingers. I’m concerned Brennan might have a concussion, but he seems steady and I don’t see anything wrong with his pupils, so I think he’s okay. Unless there are signs I’m not seeing, signs I don’t know to look for.

Eventually he asks, “Have you ever killed someone, Mae?”

I don’t know how to answer because I think the answer is yes but I didn’t mean to and I don’t want to lie anymore but I can’t tell him everything. I can’t speak everything. But he needs an answer because he’s thirteen and he stabbed a man. A man who was going to kill me and likely him too, but even so. I think of the rabid coyote. I still remember seeing gears, but I also remember seeing flesh, like two versions of that day both exist, equally true. And for a second I think, Well, why not—maybe I’m wrong and that was still part of the show. Maybe it didn’t become real until later—but the thought is sour and forced, and I know I’m reaching.

Brennan is waiting for an answer. His puppy eyes watching me.

“Not like that,” I tell him. “But there was someone I think I could have helped, and I didn’t.” My throat is closing; the last word barely escapes.

“Why not?” he asks.

In my memory the mother prop has green eyes I know from mirrors and I don’t know if that’s real, if her eyes were open or closed.

She wasn’t a prop.

“I didn’t know,” I croak, but that’s not right. “It was a baby,” I say, “and I thought…” But I didn’t think, I panicked and ran, and how can I explain something I’m not sure I remember? “I was confused,” I try. “I made a mistake.” Not that that excuses it, excuses anything.

“I don’t regret it,” says Brennan. “I feel like I should, but I don’t. He was going to kill you.”

The soreness at the base of my throat, where Cliff’s arm pressed. Bruising I can feel but not see. Why did he attack me? If this is the world, why would one’s instinct upon meeting another be aggression? Why would—

His hand on my shoulder. I remember his hand. His breath. But that’s all: a stench.

The first blow, was it mine?

“Mae?”

Was he defending himself from me?

He was. He touched me, but he didn’t strike me. I can’t remember his words. I try to clench my fist; a pulse of pain, but my fingers don’t move. Brennan’s guilt, that’s my fault too. But he didn’t know and he can’t know—that I brought it on myself. That he didn’t have to.

“You have nothing to regret,” I tell him.

But I regret everything. All of it.

Their blood, meaningless. Their cries behind us, meaningless. All this death, meaningless. A meaningless observation. There is no why, no because. All there is is is. Systems colliding, wiping out existence, leaving me, an unlucky outlier. Worlds end, and I’m bearing witness.

“Thank you for saving my life,” I tell Brennan. I’m not thankful for it, but he did; he shouldn’t have, but he did. He’s been left behind too, and at least he doesn’t have to be alone, at least I can carry this burden for him—this burden that I caused.

I’m sorry.

We soon cross the bridge, ducking through an E-ZPass lane, and break into an historic tollhouse to spend the night. I know what dreams will come, so I don’t sleep, and I shake Brennan toward wakefulness periodically because I think that’s what I’m supposed to do. He seems more annoyed than grateful, and I take that as a positive sign.

After my fourth time waking Brennan I sneak outside and sit, leaning against the tollhouse beside the door. My clothing is heavy with dried blood; the weight of it pins me to the earth.

“I miss you,” I whisper.

Our children would have been born with blue eyes. But would that blue have turned to green or brown, or surprised us both by staying blue? Hair black or brown or blond, maybe even that beautiful auburn shade your mother wears in pictures from when you were young? No way to know. Roll the dice, have a kid. Cross your fingers that the genes are good. What if. Who knows. Questions become statements in this cowardly new world. Our children will never be. But that loss is nothing, nothing compared to the loss of you.

The door beside me creaks open. I look up and feel the sting of my eyes, the pressure in my chest. I feel myself quaking. The physicality of knowing.