This Is Where the World Ends (10 page)

Yes,
fine
, I still feel guilty. What? I do have a heart. A big, messy, bleeding-like-a-volcano heart. If you pulled it out of my chest, it would be covered in escaped butterflies and black holes and weeds that look like flowers.

It has been six days since I've talked to Micah. That has to be some kind of record.

And tomorrow is our
birthday
.

Sure, Ander fills me full of butterflies that get all tangled in my heartstrings, but Micah adds gravity to all of my black holes. He waters my weeds.

He hasn't even
looked
at me since regionals. And he has such nice eyes.

Insert grumble here. Oh, all right. They could almost even be called bedroom eyes. Maybe.

So, I don't know. Maybe it's guilt or maybe it's just that I want him to talk to me again or maybe it's
our freaking
birthday tomorrow
, but I skip school today, after my parents climb into their cab to the airport arguing about who was in charge of printing out the boarding passes, to set up a treasure hunt for him. I write a note in ink with a pen that has a real nib (which is totally not the one that Mr. Markus is still looking for), and I stain it with coffee and burn the edges and everything. I sneak into his house through the door on his deck and leave it on his bed, along with an ancient Walkman with a CD inside and earbuds wrapped around, and a note that says
BRING ME
. I swipe his binoculars from inside his desk too, because I couldn't find mine, and settle in his bushes to wait.

And wait.

And wait and wait and freaking wait.

Oh, hurry up, Micah. I'm chilly. There's a whole pile of burned matches next to me and still no luck. It's the eve of our
birthday
. Don't do this to me. But it seems like he just might. It's getting late. I'm about to sneak back into his house and grab the note before he can see it and spare myself some horrible humiliation and also maybe give up on the kind of friendship that keeps the whole freaking world turning—

Yes! There he is! Ninja to mission control: subject is driving onto premises. He pulls into the garage and I raise my (his) binoculars. A minute later, the light in the
kitchen comes on, and then the lights in his room. I tiptoe out of the bushes so I can creep on him better. I'm getting a cramp in my neck and I can't stop thinking about how much easier this was when I was across from his window, but at least I can see him rubbing his eyes before he flops out of sight onto the bed—NOOOO! My note! Oh, come on, Micah, it's barely ten. You can't go to bed yet. Roll over. Damn it, I spent so long on that note! Get up. Get up—oh, okay, I guess that works. He rolls onto his side, and the note—oh, my poor baby—must crinkle or something, because he sits up, confused, and feels around for it.
Finally.

He reads it, and then he crosses the room and opens the window. I'm almost too slow diving into the bushes. He looks around and just stands there for so long that I'm already deflating, because of course this wasn't enough, of course he's still annoyed, and he and I will never talk or look at each other again just because of that one stupid fight at regionals, and our soul will wither and crumble—

His shoes! He's looking for his shoes! His lights are out! He's going back to his car!

And now I'm rushing too, and I can't stop grinning. My half of the soul is dancing, my half is light, and I dive into myself and tell it to shut up, because Micah's half is totally going to feel it, and the surprise will be ruined. Nope nope
nope. I won't allow it. I spent too much effort on this. On us.

Keep quiet.

Tiptoe through the freaking tulips, soul.

Micah starts up his car, which probably starts an earthquake in Australia. I count to sixty, and then I run after him.

I run three blocks over to where I'm parked. The world is wide, and the moon is rising.

I put my hand in my pocket before I start the car and squeeze.
Fear no more
—I don't even need the reminder, or even the Skarpies or matches. Tonight, tonight, there is nothing I have to black out. There is nothing I have to set on fire.

The note had read, “Once upon a time, there was a boy and a girl who found a tree and fell in love with it, until the witch cut it down.”

Micah's car is nowhere in sight, so I don't even know if he's going in the right direction. I think he knows, I think he remembers. He has to. I turn down the street, freeze, and throw the car into reverse. Oh, thank god. He did remember. And he didn't look back.

Ninja mode activated. And maybe just one more match.

I park my car behind some willow trees and send a silent sorry to Ms. Capaldi's lawn. I mean, she's pretty
old. Maybe she won't see the tire tracks.

Before we got the guts to leave the neighborhood, before we found the Metaphor and the rest of the world, we used to come here all the time. It must have been second or third grade. We came every day, because Ms. Capaldi had this fantastic tree in her backyard—a real tree, not the wimpy toothpicks you see on everyone else's lawns. The trunk was so wide that when Micah and I hugged it on opposite sides, we couldn't get our hands to meet. The lower branches were too heavy to grow upward anymore, and there were places where gravity took them back, and they rooted there and grew again. I never climbed, really, but Micah did. No, he scurried. He pulled himself higher, higher, and I stayed on the ground and kicked the trunk because my climbing skills were pathetic.

I used to think this was the most beautiful place in the world. I used to think that this was the place where the world began. But then in third grade, we came after school and the tree was in pieces, hacked and ripped and ruined, and I burst into tears. Ms. Capaldi explained that the tree was dying, but I didn't care. It was freaking tragic. Micah had to drag me away, and I cried all the way home.

So Ms. Capaldi ruined my childhood and I just ruined her backyard. I call it even.

Now there's a stump, and when I peek around the side of
the house, Micah is sitting on it with the next clue in his lap. Is he smiling? It's too dark to tell. I think so. I hope so.

It's a flashlight and a calendar page from the September of our freshman year and a bottle of peach vodka.

He's too far away, but I feel him relax. I feel his laugh, even if I don't see it—I feel the air shift, but only between the two of us. He clicks the flashlight on and casts it around, and I slam myself against the side of the house and suck in my breath. The light passes and I put my fingers behind my back. No shadow puppets tonight.

The light clicks off. Then on. Off on, on, pause.

Morse code?
Code!
I
knew
making him learn it would come in handy one day!

You're the world's biggest idiot, Janie Vivian.

And I'm grinning like it.

I hear his engine a bit later, and I tiptoe back to my car and follow. There are three texts from my dad telling me that he and Mom have checked into their hotel and to call them when I can. Improvement! Usually, there would be a few phone calls and a voicemail or seven. There's hope for him after all. I send him a quick “I will later!” and drive to St. John's Cemetery.

Which is actually, as far as cemeteries go, really pretty. Not overly groomed. Overly groomed cemeteries are so
wrong
. Cemeteries shouldn't have lawn-mower tracks. They
should have wildflowers and dandelions and wishes and tears. And tonight, under the angel with the wide, wide wings for a certain Michael van Pearsen, 1920–1977,
I HAVE LOVED THE STARS TOO FONDLY TO BE FEARFUL OF THE NIGHT
, there is also a clue.

(It was only the most perfect epitaph ever. I Googled it later—it was by Sarah Williams, and I am
sososososo
jealous because I didn't die quickly enough to claim it first.)

We first came here two nights before the start of freshman year. I slid my bookshelf across the space between our houses and climbed into Micah's room with a slim bottle of peach vodka that I'd (over)paid Beaver Rossily from across the street to get for me, and we walked 1.58 miles to the cemetery and got drunk for the first time.

I hadn't wanted my first time getting drunk to be, I don't know,
sweaty
. I didn't want it to be at a party with people I didn't know. I actually wanted champagne, but Beaver said I didn't have enough money. It was fine, though. The peach vodka had
burned
, but we choked it down and laughed fire out of our noses.

I remember that the stars were huge. Enormous. They were worlds, and that night, ours was as bright as any of them.

I remember that it was endlessly funny that we were in a cemetery. I remember that we lay down under the
angel and laid our hands over our stomachs like we were dead, but then Micah slid his hand into the space between our bodies and I took it, and it was warm and sticky with vodka. I remember threading my fingers through his and pressing our life lines together.

I remember planning our funerals. I wanted blue flowers, all kinds. Forget-me-nots and cornflowers and bellflowers, irises and pansies and hibiscus. I wanted them anywhere, everywhere, in my hair and on my coffin and on the tables at the reception afterward.

I had asked him if funerals had receptions.

No, Micah told me, weddings do.

Then I want blue flowers at my wedding too.

What else?

I want rain, I told him. I want thunder and sobbing. I want cursed wifi so people who use it will grow nose hair so long they trip over it. I want a hot minister and a church full of people and chocolate, honey cookies, and cinnamon candles and handkerchiefs the color of the sky.

For the wedding or the funeral?

“Both,” I said. I want it all, I want everything.

Micah had wanted the normal stuff. A coffin, a hole in the ground. But he wanted a yellow tie. I remember that specifically, because I remember picturing it: a tie made of sunshine.

I wonder what Micah remembers. I wonder if he remembers the same things, or if he remembers the other parts. There must have been other parts. We must have walked back—what had that been like? Stumbling and laughing all the way back under streetlights. I should ask him later. We'll lie on X-marks-the-spot and piece together the memories.

That had been a good night.

Tonight will be a good night too.

I don't even get out of the car. The next one is a fast clue, just a bunch of sparklers. Besides, Micah is all jittery around cemeteries now. I don't think he'll stay long, and he doesn't. I see him half jogging out of the cemetery and jumping into his car. I take a breath that pulls all the air in my car into my lungs, and then I roll down the windows and follow him.

Down the road, to the school, and farther. To the forest on the far side of the quarry that was supposed to be cut down and made into a nice neighborhood full of picket fences, but they ran out of money almost as soon as they started. So now it's just this cluster of trees that desperately wants to grow into dark fairy woods, and once in junior year, Micah and I went there with a bunch of sparklers. No reason, really. It was finals week and we needed something beautiful. We sent them high, and the
embers rained down and burned our bare shoulders.

By the road to the quarry, Micah goes straight and I make a left. He'll go to the forest and find a pair of paddles sticking out of the ground and a rock from the Metaphor balanced on top, and he'll know where to go. I have to beat him there.

It's dark now, aggressively dark, and I open my window and stick my head out to make sure there are stars. It's freezing and I'm prepared to be annoyed, to huff and puff at the sky and blow the clouds away, but no, there they are! Baby stars blinking and waking and stretching. Don't be shy, baby stars! You can shine. You can even fall, if you want. Just not tonight. Tonight is mine.

I take a deep breath. I feel the darkness in my lungs and it feels right. I start toward Old Eell's barn, filled to the brim with the night. The barn is farther down the shore than the Metaphor, and it's unfamiliar territory in the dark, and unfamiliar is terrifying, so I pee before I go.

What? Fear makes my bladder wonky.

Old Eells is the ghost who lives in the barn and drowns the faint of heart, and I know he's not real because Alex Brandley always brings girls here on first dates and he should have drowned a thousand times over by now. He brought me here sophomore year and tried to go through three bases in a minute, and I told him I'd kick him in the
balls but they were too small to find.

But he did show me the boat, so I guess it was worth it. I've taken over the barn now. Micah and I have a stash of alcohol behind the rusty tractor, and it makes me feel terribly grown up. I ignore that tonight, since Micah is bringing the special peach vodka I left for him. I go to the back corner instead, where the boat is. It's not heavy, but it's still heavier than I'd like it to be. I kick it and lug it and then something rustles over by the tractor and it's probably a starved wolf so I
run
, hauling the boat behind me, until I'm at the edge of the quarry. I leap into the boat and wrap my arms around my legs and squeeze my eyes closed. No spiders no rats no snakes no bats no wolves. Nope nope nope.

“Janie?”

I scream.

Micah yelps too, and he drops everything he's holding, and I'm out of the boat and his flashlight is in my face and I'm screaming again, screaming, “Did you break the vodka? Is the bottle broken?”

“Jesus Christ the vodka is fine I am having a fucking heart attack!” he yells back, and then we're in the grass and laughing, and everything is okay, okay, okay.

“You took forever,” I tell him when I can breathe again.

“Yeah, I wandered around that goddamn forest for a
while. You couldn't have done this, like, during the day?”

Well, we could have, if you were home.
But I don't say that. I say, “But it was more fun in the dark,” and he shakes his head and smiles and says, “I guess.”