This Is Where the World Ends(41)
“Look, I’m just saying,” Dewey is saying as I get closer, “that’s who she is. Hell, she’s been—that for so long that she probably doesn’t even f*cking remember what the truth is. She didn’t f*cking change, Micah. The two of you are just so goddamn parasitic that you can’t even see it. Get your head out of your ass. Just because she flirts with you doesn’t mean you stand a chance. She flirts with everyone.”
Quick, can I get away? No, Micah has already spotted me. His cheeks go red so fast it’s almost funny. My breath catches a little, but I force it out.
I drop my tray next to Dewey and say, “I don’t flirt with you.”
“Yeah, well, there’s that whole thing about me not being into girls,” he says. He doesn’t even try to look embarrassed about seeing me. He takes another bite of pizza before he talks again, and not to me. “Do whatever you want, dude. But I’ll be waiting with the I TOLD YOU SO sign when she f*cks you over again.”
Metaphorical sign, I tell myself. They don’t have a real sign.
Do they?
“Shut up,” Micah mutters. He doesn’t look at me. Why doesn’t he look at me? I prod him with my soul. He still doesn’t look up. But he does talk in my direction. “What are you doing here?”
“She’s here because no one back in there wants to sit with her,” Dewey says. Does he always chew with his mouth open? Pepperoni pieces and wet pizza dough between his gnashing, gnashing teeth. “Same reason we’re out here. Right? Cameron’s been telling everyone that he dumped you because you had sex and then you shouted rape because you regretted it in the morning. That true?” He looks straight at me.
I didn’t exactly mean to dump my lunch tray over his head.
“Fuck you,” I say. My voice is perfect—so cold, so wonderfully hollow. “Get a life, Dewey, and stop chasing Micah around. He doesn’t love you back.”
He loves me.
Then I walk away. Just kidding. I sprint the hell out of there. I go straight to the parking lot, and I dig out my phone and start Googling directions on hot-wiring a car. Micah can find another ride home. I’m stealing his.
I’m scrolling through the Wikipedia page, holding my breath because I just have to keep it together until I’m in the car driving away, when suddenly—
“Janie.”
I yelp and drop my phone and close my eyes and take a moment to tell my heart to freaking chill, because it’s not Ander and it’s not Dewey, it’s just Micah. Just Micah.
He bends down to get my phone, and his eyebrows furrow. “You were gonna steal my car?”
“Yeah.” I sigh. “but it’s a lot more complicated than nineties chick flicks would have you believe.”
“No shit,” he says, and gets in the car. “Come on.”
I slide into the passenger side. “Metaphor?”
“Sure.”
We drive in silence. I study my palms. There are four perfect half moons where my nails dug in, and a fate line that looks normal. Perfectly straight, average length. I used to think that destiny was fluid, because isn’t that the point of every Disney movie and Saturday-morning cartoon? You make your own choices. You decide how life goes. I always thought that your fate line would change if something happened, bam, something goes wrong and the line on your palm goes all wonky to reflect that. Nope. It still looks fine.
Well, f*ck you too, fate.
I dig my nails into my palms again and look ahead. Staring contest, glaring contest. Let’s go, universe. You and me, right here, right now.
Micah pulls to a stop farther away than normal, and the Metaphor looks even smaller. I get out of the car. Slam. He closes his door as quietly as he can, as if that’ll make my slam less offensive. I shove my hands into my pockets and start toward the quarry, and he follows, and we stop right at the edge of the rocks. I don’t even need to tilt my head back to squint at the top anymore.
“You know,” I finally say, “it’s actually really f*cking ugly.”
“Yeah, I guess,” says Micah.
“It’s really just a pile of shit.”
But Micah isn’t looking at the Metaphor anymore, he’s looking at me. His eyes are all wide and worried, and he says my name, and I look at the sky and wonder, How many times can a person explode?
Here’s some metaphorical resonance for you: I don’t want to look up at the Metaphor anymore. You should not look up to shit. You should not want to f*cking climb to the top of something that shouldn’t even exist, and this isn’t how I wanted to reach the top anyway. I wanted to reach the top of a mountain. This is barely a pile anymore. It’s a disappearing heap of rejected rocks that should have drowned with the rest of the quarry.
“Janie, what are you—Janie, what the hell? Janie, stop, Janie—”
I dig my hands in and I pull. I grab, I throw, I kick, I plunge again and again and I swear, I swear, I f*cking swear, I will tear this thing to the ground.
I don’t know when I started crying, but I don’t care anymore, I don’t care that I can’t stop, I don’t care that I can’t see. I don’t need to see. I just need to get rid of it. I need to break it apart. I need—I need—
And then Micah is pulling me away and I might be screaming, a whirlwind, limbs and fists and bursting, but this time he knows exactly what to do with his arms, and they’re around me. My face is in his coat and his coat smells like Dewey’s cigarettes and rain and maybe a little bit like pot, but mostly it smells like him, like wood polish and honeycomb and mine.