When the Sky Fell on Splendor(67)
“Are you kidding?” Arthur laughed harshly.
“Stop,” Sofía hissed. “This isn’t helping anything.”
“You’re a shoplifting addict who never even lets us past his front door,” Arthur cried at Nick. “We don’t even know your birthday! Every story you tell is about nine percent factual, Nick! You lie more than you tell the truth, and we all pretend not to notice, so that you can continue in your delusion that you’re just a normal guy with a normal life, and not a teen caretaker for a stay-at-home hoarder!”
After five years, the laws of our private universe had been violated, and now the fabric of us was set to come apart.
The Ordinary was teetering, ready to shatter in a way that it could never be put back together.
“You’re damn right!” Nick shouted. “I take care of my mom! And if something happens to me, that’s it! She’s got no one else. She’ll die under a box of used batteries she’s saving in case she ever gets around to recharging them, and no one will think to check on her for weeks!
“You think you and Franny have it so hard trying to get your parents’ attention, but guess what, man: Assuming an alien doesn’t kill you or the FBI doesn’t cart you off, you’re leaving in a week. You’re getting out, and you don’t even have to feel bad about that, while I’m here getting shit-talked for life. I might as well have just stayed in twelfth grade for five more years! That’s as close to a life as I’m getting, staying in this dump, but there’s nothing I can do about it, because someone needs me here.
“Sorry your life matters so little that all you can do is fill up the void with bullshit schemes and—and Amazon packages and toys and freaking slumber parties”—he waved a hand toward Levi, who went red-faced and staggered back—“just so you don’t have to be alone with yourself for thirty seconds, but some of us have people counting on us and actually have to work for our money!”
“Nicholas!” Sofía shouted. “That’s enough!”
“Oh please!” Nick said. “Don’t go all defender of the weak on me—turn yourselves in to the FBI or don’t, but leave me out of it. I’m done, like I should’ve been from the beginning. I’m done.”
The ground felt like water under my feet. Actually, my whole body felt like water, like my skin was as thin as a balloon and any second, everything in me might come rushing out.
“Of course you are,” Arthur said. “Just walk away from the most important thing that’s ever happened to you.”
“Wake up!” Nick said. “We’re nothing kids from a nothing town. You think we were chosen? We were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“The right place!” Arthur slammed a hand against the car. “We might be nothing kids from a nothing town, but that’s not enough for me, and I know it’s not enough for you either! Aren’t you tired of being the leftovers? I know we’re the kids they don’t look at. We’re like—shadows burned onto the ground by the accident. Maybe this thing chose us because we’re survivors, or maybe it’s that we were just the only pathetic option it had, but we’re the ones with the gifts! We have a chance to matter!”
Nick shook his head and took a few steps back. “I’m done.” He turned and stalked down the road through the blaze of Remy’s headlights, and the energy was still building in me, crackling inside my skull until I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t parse out the accusations and demands hurtling back and forth around me as everyone broke out at once, shouting over one another.
“How could you keep this from me? I’m your cousin!” Levi was saying. “Why do you always choose her over me?”
“Because Nick’s right! Everything’s just a game for you, Levi! We’re just more of your accessories!”
“How would you know? We never even talk anymore! You spend half your time with girls I never even meet and the rest whispering with Franny like I’m not even here!”
“Please, stop!” Sofía pleaded. “We need to figure out what to do next.”
The whole world was coming apart.
The island we had built for ourselves. The place where none of the ugly shit was supposed to be able to intrude, where the ash from the accident wouldn’t fall and the things we feared were never said.
My whole world was coming apart, and I had caused it.
By telling them the truth. By needing them when they could barely withstand the pressure that was already on them.
It was my parents’ fight in the kitchen all over again. It was Mom crying behind closed doors, begging Dad to understand. It was the Voyager pulling away from our driveway, two weeks after Wayne Hastings moved in behind us, Arthur’s fists whaling against drywall.
It was my model of the solar system on the table, Mom’s windbreakers in my arms the day we filmed “Kite Chasers.”
“I’m done,” I said, barely louder than a whisper, but under the cousins’ arguing no one heard.
I took a deep, painful breath. “Take me to the station,” I shouted. “I’ll tell them it’s in me.”
The arguing stopped. Remy, Levi, Arthur, and Sofía all looked at me
“I’ll show them,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. “And I’ll tell them about the visions. I’ll just say I had them.”