This Is Where the World Ends(44)

I just keep getting distracted by the fairy tales, reading them once upon a time to happily ever after, and it’s hard because I’m not finding many miracles anymore. There’s a lot of people who never get saved. There are a lot of people who get toes or heels cut off, who are stuffed in barrels studded with nails and rolled down hills, who are cursed or burned alive or forgotten. Guess how many of them are women.

(Lots.)

“They’re coming along” is all I say. I pick at my nails. I’ve never been much of a nail biter, but they’re pretty mangled at the moment.

“Janie,” Mr. Markus says in his sandpaper voice. “What do you need?”

I almost cry.

So many people have asked me if I’m okay without really wanting an answer, or they ask if they can do anything without meaning it. Carrie and Micah and the girls at our lunch table when I pass them in the halls with my face permanently red from holding my breath. No one has asked me what I need. Not even Micah.

There are a lot of things I’d like. I wish my parents would help me and I wish I hadn’t taken those last couple of shots. I wish I had been born with endings, I wish I had been born with good ones, I wish I could finish the wings, I wish I never had to see Ander again, I wish the Metaphor wasn’t disappearing. I want time to pass faster and I want it to stop altogether, but need? Need is a very different question.

“I need to know the key to happiness,” I say. “I can’t wait until graduation. I need to know now.”

For a second I think he’s going to refuse. But then he leans back in his creaky swivel chair and folds his hands over his stomach. “I didn’t plan on being a teacher,” he says.

I wait.

“I was going to be a stockbroker.”

For a second I am quiet. And then I sigh. “Really? This is the key to happiness? The world really is made of disappointment, isn’t it.”

He laughs.

Mr. Markus has an amazing laugh—it’s a full-body experience. He throws back his head and you see the air move through him, and for a moment, I thought, That’s it. That’s the key to happiness.

“I finished business school, and I was getting ready to move to New York. I had a job lined up, and the van was packed. I was ready to catch my plane when the mover stopped me.”

“Why?”

“He told me not to tip him,” Mr. Markus said. “He told me that money probably couldn’t buy happiness, but I’d need all I could get to try, because I was going to be miserable for the rest of my life. Then he drove off with the van, and I drove in the direction of the airport, but I didn’t take the exit. I kept driving.”

We sat there in silence for a solid minute.

“I don’t get it,” I finally said. “And what happened to all your furniture?”

“I have no idea,” Mr. Markus says. “But happiness is a choice. That’s the key. A choice.”

Is it, though? Is it really? Maybe.

Maybe, for the lucky ones.

I am not one of the lucky ones. I can fill my pockets with stones and mark myself everywhere and set the entire universe on fire, but it’s not going to change anything. I am not one of the lucky ones.

So here is what the unlucky ones choose between: prude or slut. Angel or devil. Maybe choice isn’t the right word—you’re always one or the other.

Damsel or villainess. That’s what it comes down to.

I guess the question that really matters is: which one gets the real happy ending?





after


DECEMBER 16


The journal I start is not like hers. There are no magazine cutouts and collages and sketches, there are no plans, there are no promises. There are lists. Words. Sounds. Anything I can remember. Anything that might be real.

Most of them make no sense, or not enough of it. Dewey, punching me. Water, rising. Fire, fire, fire.

I’m failing online school. I spend all day sitting at my desk staring at the journal and trying, trying to put it all back in place.

I write everything down, but most of it doesn’t help much.

Rumor is they’re just waiting on the arson analysis to arrest me. No one tells me anything.

I would say that I wish I cared more, but that is false.

In my journal, I write.

Carrie Lang’s yard. Balloons. Caleb Matthers not in school next day—hives. Allergic to latex.

Janie and Ander flirting across the room. Him looking at her journal and her face going cold.

The apocalypse. Music.

Wrestling. Ander pummeled.

The note on my bed that smelled like coffee. Adults in a tiny-ass boat.

Metaphor disappearing.

Janie in my sweatshirt.

Piper running and crying.

The bonfire. More than one?

Janie’s wings.

I had a match.

Why did I have a match?

Water, fire.

What happened to Janie Vivian?

Why.





THE JOURNAL OF JANIE VIVIAN

Once upon a time, a princess was playing with a key near the water. She threw it in the air, caught it, and threw it again, and caught it again, until . . . she didn’t.

It fell into the water, down and down and down, and the princess supposed she would never see it again.

But then—miracle! A frog leaped out of the water and landed in her lap. He made her dress dirty, but he had her key in his mouth.