This Is Where the World Ends(35)

I nearly told her that it was okay, but didn’t.

I nearly said scientists were working pretty hard on the bee problem, but didn’t.

I did what I always did. I waited until she moved away, until her eyes were a normal brightness and her breath was regular again, and I waited for her to take my hand and pull me after her.

Her hand was cold and sweating.

“I’m having a bonfire,” she said. She reached up to push my glasses back up my nose, and kept her hand on my face. “I have marshmallows. Everyone’s coming. You’re coming, right?”

I hadn’t really planned on it. Janie’s “everyone” had little overlap with my “everyone.” But she didn’t let go of my hand until we were in her car, until she stuck her key in the ignition and looked at me, hard. By then my fingers going white in her fist.

“More than anything,” she said.

“More than everything,” I replied.

On the night of the bonfire, the air was at odds with itself. The wind hurt and the smell of beer was heavy. The cold was sharp and the smoke kept growing.

People were shouting. People were chasing each other with shots and torches.

Janie was curled against me, and her hair kept making me sneeze. In the morning she would pretend this never happened and I would read too much into it, as always.

“Micah?” she said. Her voice was sudden, hitched, almost a gasp, almost a whisper. “Do you think there are things that can’t be fixed?”

The fire was in her eyes. The fire. No one was paying attention to the fire. But it was growing in her eyes, and spitting.

“What do you mean? Do you mean us?”

All of a sudden she was upright. Her tailbone dug into my thigh; I winced and tried to move away, and she wouldn’t let me go. “No. Not us. Not ever.”

On the night of the bonfire, it rained too late. The water pasted her hair to her neck and shoulders. It soaked through my sweatshirt.

She screamed my name.

She screamed, “Do you hear me? More than anything, Micah. Anything.”

On the night of the bonfire, there was a match between my fingers.

This I remember clearly: the match, burning toward my fingertips. I remember the heat on my nails, and then the burning. I remember the flame, teased high by the wind, made clear by the cold.

I remember letting go.

I remember the match falling.

“Everything,” I said as it hit the ground.

What a night to forget.

What a night to remember.





THE JOURNAL OF JANIE VIVIAN

What do you think happened to Sleeping Beauty’s bed?

No, really. I want you to answer.

Do you think she ever slept in it again?

She couldn’t get up for a hundred years. She was stuck there, tangled in the covers, crushed into that f*cking mattress for a hundred f*cking years. She couldn’t get up. She wanted to, she fought and kicked and clawed and couldn’t get out of that hundred-year nightmare.

Do you really think she could ever fall asleep there again?





before


OCTOBER 11


There are a lot of things people never tell you about sex. They say it’s romantic and life changing or whatever, sometimes they even say that there’s blood and it hurts. But no one tells you about how heavy he is, or how he leaves the condom on your floor. No one ever tells you about the smell of him, sweat and body and unfamiliarity, that never goes away. You can stand under the shower and let it go from scalding to hot to lukewarm to cold to freezing. You can throw your sheets and blankets into the washer and the smell will still seep up from the mattress.

Did you know that? I didn’t.

I use an entire bottle of body wash. I scrub until my skin is so numb that I can’t feel how cold the water is, and then finally, finally I shut it off. The silence is complete, and I slide onto the floor and just lie there, feet together and hands folded. I think of the time Micah and I went to the cemetery with our fists full of dreams. I think of how wide the sky was.

I lie there and cry until I puke. Then I kneel there and puke until my throat is raw.

Then I turn on the water again and wash it all down the drain, tears puke dreams. I clench my fists tighter and tighter. I will use them next time.

Next time?

And—damn. There I go. I’m crying again.

I whisper f*ck until it loses all meaning, not that it had much in the first place.

I don’t really know how long it takes me, but I do peel myself off the shower floor, eventually. I’m dry by then, and I go to my room in the stupid new house that I f*cking hate, and I look around. My makeup is spilling out of my underwear drawer. The wall behind my desk is splattered with paint and nail polish and Skarpie. There are rocks everywhere.

My bed is a queen and completely stripped right now, so it’s hard not to look at. I do my best.

I look at the mirror instead. I remember every single place where he kissed me—every single one—but they have not burned me; I am still whole. If he’s bruised me, the bruises have yet to appear. I’m fine. I’m fine.

I make myself look for another five seconds before I sprint to the bathroom again and puke all over again.

Stop crying.

It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m going to be okay.

I just need a plan.