This Is Where the World Ends(37)

“What—what’s going on here?”

I raise my head to see Micah’s dad coming through the doorway, haggard from work. Behind him, my mom, twisting her earring. I put my head back down in the pillow because the sun is too bright and I can’t do this right now or ever, I can’t, I can’t.

“Your son is in bed with Janie,” I hear my dad yell. “I told you, Karen, I told you that boy was a horrible influence, I told you this would happen. Janie, go downstairs. Get in the car right now or—”

“Or f*cking what?” I scream, and everyone flinches and goes still. I’m on my feet, on the bed, the tallest person in the room and also the smallest, shaking so hard that my edges might be blurry. “Or what? You’ll ground me? You’ll send me to bed without supper? How the f*ck is that going to help? How the f*ck do you think you’re protecting me?”

“Get in the car, Janie, or so help me—”

I’m running. Not to his car but to mine, and I hear them all calling after me, and then I can’t hear anything anymore as I tear out of the driveway. I make like the universe and don’t give a shit. Not a single one.

My favorite metaphor is “between a rock and a hard place.” I also like blind men and elephant, bread and circuses, and shooting the messenger.

My favorite Virginia Woolf quote is “Fear no more.” I also like “And I said to the star, consume me,” “Art is not a copy of the real world; one of the damn things is enough,” and “She was off like a bird, bullet, or arrow, impelled by what desire, shot by whom, at what directed, who could say?”

My favorite class is English, though my highest grade is AP Bio. My favorite fairy tale is “The Little Mermaid,” and my least favorite is “Sleeping Beauty.” My favorite Skarpie has bite marks on both the cap and the end. My favorite matchbook looks like a tiny copy of Fahrenheit 451. My favorite Metaphor rocks are the ones worn smooth by the water. My favorite art project I’ve done this year is my teapot, even though the spout is too low and looks phallic. My favorite color is red, my favorite season is fall, my favorite food is shrimp, my favorite band is Florence + the Machine.

Something else they don’t tell you about sex is that it doesn’t change you. Your favorite things are still your favorite things. Isn’t that strange? It can be such a small thing if you want it to be. I wanted it to be.

But if I move too suddenly, it hurts and I still get whiffs of him. How is that possible? But it is.

I go through the list again and again. My favorite metaphor is “between a rock and a hard place.” My favorite Virginia Woolf quote is “Fear no more.” My favorite class is English, my favorite fairy tale is “The Little Mermaid,” my favorite Metaphor rocks are smooth.

I really did like him.

I liked him a lot. I liked that his favorite book is Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, even though it’s probably because he hasn’t read anything since fourth grade. I liked that his favorite sport to watch was soccer even though he was a wrestler, I liked the way he wore dark V-necks that hugged his arms, I liked the way his eyelashes curled naturally, I liked the way he always stretched out when he really laughed.

We knew each other to our fingertips. No, that’s not right. We only knew each other in our fingertips, and that was nothing at all, and for a while that was okay. We could have been a love story, a fairy tale, an indie film about high school and selective insanity featuring a boy of angel parts and a girl made of dreaming. We could have been all of the best things: bracelets sliding down arms while shots slid down throats, laughter and crashing music in dark and flashing rooms, kisses that started hesitant but didn’t stay that way.

We could have cropped out the part where I didn’t like his alcohol and hated his music and wanted the kisses to stay soft. We could have deleted the parts no one wants to see. We could have stopped. We could have stopped.

Hello, Metaphor.

You are. You are getting smaller.

I’m almost gone too.

There never was a third reason that I named it The Metaphor. I just didn’t want to end at two reasons. I wanted Micah to pretend with me, back then and now, that this was the center of the universe, where it started and where it would end. There’s no metaphor here, and soon there won’t be a Metaphor either.

I sit there and stare at it for ages and ages, until the sun is high in the sky. It brightens and burns and something inside me splinters. My hands are full of stones and I’m winding up when Micah catches my arm from behind. I know it’s him before he even touches me, and by then I’m already turning to sob into his jacket.

We stand like that for a long time.

“It’s like half the size it should be,” I say into his chest, muffled and wet.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “They’re grinding it into gravel and using it for the roads. They voted on it a few weeks ago. That’s what my dad said, anyway.”

I look up at Micah. His eyes are wide and tired, and he stands like he doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t really belong here or there or anywhere. And there, there it is—that’s the real reason that we are us—because the earth is really just a bunch of body holes waiting to be filled, and neither of us can ever find a place to fit except with each other.

“Why aren’t you more worried?” I ask.

He ducks his head and shrugs, but his shoulders don’t go all the way down. He scrunches, he’s always scrunched and apologetic. My Micah. Mine. “Are you worried? Won’t you do something to stop it?”