We Are the Ants(29)

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does.”

“We’re all going to die.”

“Which is why it matters.” Diego stood beside me -quietly for a few seconds before he returned to the blanket. “Hungry?” He tossed me a sub—roast beef with all the veggies. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I hated onions.

“Thanks.” I unwrapped it and ate it even though I wasn’t hungry. Diego didn’t know what he was talking about. He didn’t know Marcus, he didn’t know Jesse, and he didn’t know me. If he did, he’d understand.

“I met Jesse freshman year. I knew who he was; everyone knew Jesse Franklin. It wasn’t that he was popular, but he had this way of dominating a room. No matter how many other people were there, you couldn’t help noticing Jesse.

“Of course, he talked to me first. I never would have had the courage to approach him. It was during lunch. I always sat alone, reading, and he walked up to my table, all smiles and perfect hair, and asked me if my name was Daniel. I told him it wasn’t, but he insisted I looked like this guy Daniel he’d known from summer camp. Finally he asked me my name. But it wasn’t just Jesse standing there. It felt like every kid in the cafeteria was at my table asking. I’ve never done well under pressure, so when I opened my mouth to answer, I said, ‘I don’t know,’ instead.”

Diego snorted and laughed.

“Jesse gave me this crazy look and was like, ‘You don’t know your own name?’ and all I could do was nod, even though in my brain I was screaming, ‘Henry Denton! My name is Henry!’ Jesse eventually returned to his own table. I was sure I’d blown my only chance to get to know him.”

“But you hadn’t,” Diego said.

“No.” I felt a tear burning in the corner of my eye, but I refused to acknowledge it. I wasn’t going to cry in front of Diego. “I ran into him at the mall a few weeks later. Actually, he’d found out my name from one of his friends, and when he saw me with my mom shopping for shoes, he chased after me, yelling my name. My mom thought he was a lunatic, but all he wanted to do was give me his number.”

Diego finished his sub and tossed the crumpled wax paper into his duffel bag. “Your Jesse sounds like a cool guy.”

My Jesse. He wasn’t anyone’s Jesse anymore. “He was the best. We spent almost every second together, and when we were apart, it hurt—it physically hurt. My entire life revolved around Jesse, but in the end, it didn’t matter. He slipped a noose around his neck and hanged himself without saying good-bye. No note, no text, no last voice mail. The last thing he said to me was that I needed a haircut, like it was just another day. Only, it wasn’t any other day. It was the day before he committed suicide. If everything matters, wouldn’t Jesse have said something more meaningful? Wouldn’t he have wanted to do more than hang out and watch TV like we always did? Wouldn’t he have at least left me a note to explain why he felt he had to die, instead of leaving me here alone, wondering why. Why is Jesse dead? Why am I not?”

I waited for Diego to answer. I wasn’t sure how he had expected this night to go, but I doubted it was this. There was nothing he could say that would change my mind, but I waited for him to try. Instead he said, “Do you think we could see them with the telescope?”

“Them?”

“The aliens.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay, sure.” A moment later he said, “I believe you, you know.”

“I don’t need you to believe me.”

“I know. It’s one of the things I like most about you.” It caught me off guard, and I didn’t know how to reply. Diego stood up, brushing the sand off his shorts. He peered through the telescope again. Maybe he was looking for the sluggers, maybe he just wanted to see the stars and dream of a world beyond this one while I sat on the blanket and remembered Jesse. Dreams are hopeful because they exist as pure possibility. Unlike memories, which are fossils, long dead and buried deep.

We stayed at the beach for a while longer but, no matter how much we fiddled with the telescope, the stars never seemed so far away.





30 October 2015


Sometimes I wonder if the sluggers sent Diego Vega to Calypso to test my resolve. It makes more sense than his persistent attempts to be my friend when everyone else at school barely notices me. His reluctance to talk about his past coupled with the fact that I haven’t been abducted since Marcus’s party makes me seriously consider that this is simply an elaborate experiment and Diego is nothing more than a variable in a slugger equation. For all I know, it might not even matter whether I press the button. Not that I’ve changed my mind about that.

? ? ?

The Friday before Halloween, Principal DeShields allowed students to wear costumes to school, though the list of prohibited items was extensive and included:

Masks

Weapons (real or fake)

Excessive cleavage

Wearing underwear on the outside of clothes

Fake blood (or bodily fluids of any kind)

Glitter

Vampire teeth (which may or may not have fallen into the weapon’s category)

Clown costumes of any kind

I didn’t wear a costume, but Marcus showed up as Captain America, and I overheard Audrey claim to be Joan of Arc, which was fitting. Ms. Faraci was supposed to be an oxygen molecule, but her outfit—pieced together with coat hangers, duct tape, and cardboard—carried the unfortunate whiff of homemade desperation. It’s both cool and mortifying to have a teacher so passionate.