This Is Where the World Ends(58)

“He’s going to get away with it,” I say, “and I was a shitty friend.”

“And she was a manipulative bitch. And I chain-smoke and never gave her a chance. And neither did anyone else.”

“Apocalypse,” I say. My lips make the shape but I can’t hear the words. I stare and stare at the match. “Entropy. I just want it to be over. I just want it all to end. Okay?”

“Why the f*ck would you want that?” he asks.

I blink. I look up at him, and he stares back.

“I let her go,” I say, and I hear it this time. More. Her blurry voice behind me. Her breath catching and never coming out when she didn’t answer my questions and I didn’t ask again. Her heartbeat in her fingertips and her fingers around my wrist and her nails digging into my palm.

He takes another step. “Yeah, we’ve gone over that. You were shitty. I was shitty. She was shitty.”

“It’s all going to shit. So it should all just end.”

The ice is bright with moonlight under my feet and all I can think of is Janie under it. Walking into the water with her pockets full of stones.

The fire is at my fingertips and it begins to burn.

But then somehow Dewey’s there, and his hand is on my elbow, and he’s pulling me away onto solid ground, and the match the match it slips

and falls

not onto the ice

but onto the rocks

where Dewey steps on it.

He looks at me hard in the eyes and says, “Well, that’s stupid.”

My hand is empty. No fire. No digging nails. “Huh?”

“Just be a better friend, you idiot.”

There is no imbalance this time. It’s not the earth that tilts; finally, it’s just me.

I wake up on the ground with rocks digging into my cheek and a match beside my face. My glasses are cracked again, but the world is rebuilding itself and Dewey is talking fast into the phone to what sounds like my dad.

I wait for them to finish, and clear my throat. Dewey comes over. He crouches beside me, elbows on his knees.

I look at him and say, “There was this thing she wanted to do. Well, there were a lot of things she wanted to do. But there was this trip to Nepal, this volunteer trip, for women’s rights.”

“Okay,” says Dewey.

“I bought her a plane ticket for our birthday,” I say. “I think I’m going to use it. I’m going to go.”

“Okay.”

“You want to come with me?”

He looks at me for a moment, a moment passing. And he nods. And I nod. And then I reach into my pocket for Janie’s rock, and stare at it. Maybe I’ll give it to Piper. I no longer need the reminder. There is nothing left to remember.

I am not afraid.