This Is Where the World Ends(17)

Micah snorts. He’s a disbeliever. He still won’t look at me, either, so that’s annoying. He’s doing it on purpose.

“I’ve decided that I’m going to get it early,” I tell him. “I don’t care what it takes.”

“I’m sure you will.” It’s not a compliment.

I leap to my feet. I give up. I don’t want to leave and I don’t want him to leave, but right now the friction on our soul is making me itchy. I glare at the Metaphor.

You and me, I think, and begin to climb again.

The stones do the same sliding thing, and there’s nothing to hold on to. The whole thing is crumbling as I climb, so I climb faster. I use our soul as an anchor and a rope—friction is useful that way. The Metaphor crumbles, and I climb faster. The rocks fly all over, but I keep going, and—

“Janie? What the hell are you—holy shit.”

And that makes it all worth it. I’m not at the top—not yet—but I’m higher than either of us has been before, and I beam down at Micah before I spread my arms and shout, “Right here.”

“Right here what?” asks Micah.

I drop my arms and blow him a kiss. “Don’t you feel it? Just listen. Don’t you feel it, Micah? This is where the world is going to end. I’m giving you a front-row seat to the apocalypse. So what do you think? Music, Micah. Everything needs a good soundtrack. The apocalypse most of all.”

He thinks for a long time. That’s one of my favorite things about Micah—he always takes these kinds of questions seriously. He always thinks that I deserve an answer. “Rachmaninoff, maybe? ‘Prelude in G Minor.’”

“Really?” I say. I can almost touch the sky. I’m stretching so hard that I feel the tension in every cell, every atom. “I would have gone with the Beatles. ‘Let It Be.’”

He watches me and I watch the sky, and I smile because it doesn’t feel like the world is ending at all.





after


NOVEMBER 24


I’ve been thinking a lot about being a suspect. Some about how I’ve never been one before. Some about how it could be true.

Dewey only has to remind me of that a few times before I can remember on my own. I’m starting to remember better, I think. The police help too. I know now that the fatter one is Gibbs. I’m still working on the other one.

They are at school the day I go back. The doctors said my memory probably wouldn’t get better anytime soon because they can’t figure out why I keep forgetting things. They think it might help if everything just goes back to normal. I guess that’s okay, because I’m bored of Metatron.

It’s a Monday when I go back. It’s raining. I don’t remember much else. I probably go to English and calc, and it doesn’t matter that I don’t remember because I wouldn’t have learned anything anyway. The police are here and pulling people out of class for the arson investigation. It’s official now. They can only talk to people over eighteen who want to talk back. Dewey tells them I don’t want to, but that isn’t true. I do want to help, because I can’t stop thinking about being a suspect.

Mostly I wonder if Janie is ignoring the police like she is ignoring me. I text her every day and she never responds, and I guess it must be because she doesn’t get service in Nepal or something. I wish she would just talk to the police so they know that we didn’t do anything. I wish she would just come back and help me remember. I wish she would just come back.

I asked Dewey if she can even refuse to talk to the police when they’re investigating arson, if she’s even allowed to be out of the country, and he told me to shut up.

He also told me that Ander is a suspect too, because he’s Janie’s boyfriend and because they traced the gas purchase to his credit card. Wes Bennet swears they had already left the party when the fire started, and Ander says he lost that credit card before wrestling regionals. But nobody knows whether or not they should believe them yet.

I don’t remember wrestling regionals, but Dewey tells me we lost.

The less fat detective tells me that it took less than ten minutes for the house to burn.

Gibbs tells me that it started on the second floor. It didn’t spread from the bonfire like everyone thought.

He tells me that someone spilled and spilled gasoline there, so much gasoline that there is nothing left of her room at all.

He tells me and watches me for a reaction, as if these things will help me remember.

He also tells me that I’m a good kid, but I figure if I really did start the fire, that won’t matter much.

He also asks me what I knew about Ander and Janie.

“Nothing,” I tell him. “I knew she liked him. She had this plan to get the two of them together. It worked, huh?”

“Was he ever violent? Specifically with Janie,” he asks me.

I blink. “I don’t know. Was he?”

Gibbs shifts and looks uncomfortable. “We talked to some of her friends. You know, Carrie Lang, Katie Cross. They said—” He pulls out a notebook and flips through it. “They said that she was upset. Maybe afraid. They think he might have hurt her.”

“Oh,” I say. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

Gibbs sighs and closes the notebook. “Her parents don’t know anything, either, so we can’t do anything if he did.”