We Are the Ants(18)

“Do you think this is funny for me? Having to call the guy who humiliates me one second and gives me boners the next to rescue me from the middle of nowhere at three in the morning? Do you think this is my idea of a good f*cking time?”

The light turned green, but the car didn’t move. Marcus looked at me curiously, but I had no idea what he was thinking. “I’m glad you came to my party.”

“What?”

Marcus shrugged. “I should have invited you, but I didn’t figure you’d come. I’m glad you did.”

That wasn’t even remotely close to what I’d expected Marcus to say, and I didn’t know how to respond. Moments of sincerity from him are rare, but he can be sweet when he thinks no one is watching. That’s the only thing that kept me coming back, but it wasn’t enough anymore. Marcus finally drove on and, when we’d gone a bit farther, I said, “You called me trash. You made me feel like trash.”

“Chill, Henry. You need thicker skin.” Marcus glanced at me, but I refused to look him in the eyes. “Anyway, I tried to find you to apologize, but you’d left.”

“Whatever.”

Marcus cut the wheel and pulled into a Taco Bell. The pink-and-purple lights cast a garish glow on the empty parking lot. He parked the car, unbuckled his seat belt, and turned toward me. His smile was gone, replaced by an earnestness that unnerved me. “It’s more than sex to me, you know.”

“What is?”

“Us.”

“Are we an us?” With Jesse I’d never needed to define our relationship. From the beginning, we’d felt like a unit. Jesse was my parallel subject—I always knew he was on the other side of the ampersand—but I didn’t know where I stood with Marcus. Was I his object or something more?

Marcus ground his teeth. His jaw muscles twitched. He was looking at me like having to answer a simple question was beneath him. Like I was beneath him. “Henry . . .”

I got out of the car. We were only halfway home, but it was closer than I’d been. “I’ll walk from here.”

“Get in the car, Space Boy.”

I slammed the door as hard as I could, relishing the hollow thud, but Marcus ruined it by rolling down the window, so I gave him the finger in case he hadn’t understood me the first time.

“Come on, Henry. I got up in the middle of the night for you. Doesn’t that prove something?” His voice betrayed no sarcasm, no condescension. It was almost enough to make me believe he cared.

“It proves you thought you could trade a ride home for a hand job.”

Marcus gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He wasn’t used to people telling him no. He grew up surrounded by people who convinced him he deserves everything he wants and that no one should refuse him anything.

A red pickup truck barreled into the drive-thru, the modified exhaust announcing to the world that the driver had a micro-penis. I noticed the Calypso High bumper sticker at the same time Marcus did. “Get in the car, and we’ll talk about it, Henry.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Once the truck reached the pickup window, the driver would be able to see Marcus. They’d see me standing next to Marcus’s car. After a moment’s hesitation, he peeled out of the parking lot, leaving me stranded again.

I walked the rest of the way home, sticking to the shadows to avoid catching the attention of cops on patrol. Calypso is a quiet town, and the police often have nothing better to do than pester anyone who looks like they don’t belong, and that includes teenage boys walking home in the middle of the night wearing kissing-whale boxers and a running singlet.

This is my life. A parade of humiliation and suffering. Before Jesse, I could deal with being Space Boy. He knew about the abductions but never made me feel like a freak. Before Jesse, I knew that no matter what happened to me, I could soldier on so long as we were together. But I’m living in an After Jesse world where I ache from missing him and nothing makes sense. My boyfriend and best friend both abandoned me. Marcus was using me for sex. I am a punch line at school, a ghost at home.

I hate Jesse for leaving me behind. If he asked, I would have walked into the air with him.

I was wrong to believe that the sluggers had given me freedom. Going to the party changed nothing. If anything, it made my life worse. I no longer cared why they’d chosen me to decide the fate of the earth. It didn’t matter.

By the time I reached my house, my feet cut and sore, I decided I would never press the button.

Fuck it. Let the world burn.





22 September 2015


After the party, I kept to myself and counted down the days until the end of the world—129 for the math-impaired. Almost two weeks had passed since Marcus ditched me at Taco Bell, and he hadn’t tried to apologize. No texts, no notes, no gropes in the restroom during lunch. The only thing that changed is that he calls me Space Boy twice as often, which only toughens my resolve not to press the button.

If the sluggers were looking for someone to save the world, they chose the wrong guy. Marcus would press the button to save his own ass, Audrey would do it because she honestly believes every person on the planet deserves to live, and I’m sure even Charlie would do it, but only because the button is red and he likes bright things.

I’m not sure what Jesse would have done. He had this way of seeing the truth about a person. He understood people in a way I never could. Maybe he would have saved the world because it deserved to be saved, or maybe he wouldn’t have pressed it because he figured we’d only wind up finding some other way to annihilate ourselves. Whatever choice he might have made, it would have been the right one. Jesse was the best of us. Definitely the best of me.