CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MAY 14: BEFORE THE FIRST STORM
It’s not like I was expecting senior prom to be the best day of my short life, but maybe Mom had spent so much time talking about hers when we were little that I expected it to be at least somewhat life changing. The whole thing is just so symbolic that I figured once the day actually arrived, something profound would have shifted in my soul and made me excited to go. Excited to put on a tight-fitting black dress and don a pair of too-high heels and hobble my way through a bougie New Jersey event space with tickets that cost over a hundred dollars.
But my stomach is filled with insurmountable dread as I hike up the hem of my dress and slide into the back seat of a Jeep that belongs to someone I’ve never met before. This isn’t how I imagined this going. This isn’t how it was supposed to go at all. My friend Mia is sitting shotgun in front of me, mooning over Finn, her newly acquired boyfriend, who can’t manage to find his car keys. He has one of those boy band–esque swoops of wavy brown hair, and his navy-blue suit fits him well. He also doesn’t seem all that peeved that I’m third wheeling on what might have otherwise been a romantic prom date, even though he definitely has the right to be.
Mia was supposed to be my date tonight. We were supposed to complain about the lackluster dating scene that our high school has as we ate extra desserts and watched people dance. And then we were supposed to head out early and go get ice cream before spending the rest of the night watching movies. It was supposed to be fun, until she deserted me for this guy I’d never heard of until last Thursday.
Through the windshield of the Jeep I can see Thea getting into another car with her boyfriend. Benji runs around his convertible to open the door for Thea. It’s a fumbled attempt at chivalry, but she smiles anyway and sweeps her hair away from her face. It’s not actually his convertible, but apparently it took a lot of persuading to get his dad to lend it to him, and that’s all that counts. Thea emptied an entire can of hair spray trying to make sure that the drive to the venue wouldn’t ruin her updo.
Benji grins at her, cracking some joke as he puts his key into the ignition and the car rumbles to life. Thea smiles in response. In our Jeep, Mia is turning up the music in front of me until I can feel the bass vibrating through the car. Her date says something I can’t make out, and she rolls her eyes, turning to look out the window. Young love.
As Thea and Benji pull away from the curb, our car finally starts to move. Thea disappears around the corner, her hair stiffly flying out behind her, despite her vain attempt at defying physics.
Mia turns to me, mouthing something that I don’t hear over the pounding bass.
“What?”
She purses her lips and turns down the volume a few notches before repeating herself.
“You okay?”
I nod quickly. “Of course I am.”
• • •
Thea and Benji descend on me while I’m holed up in a corner consuming my third chocolate cupcake of the night. My sister walks over with a cocked eyebrow and a I-don’t-know-what-words-are-going-to-come-out-of-your-mouth-but-I-already-don’t-believe-them look on her face as Benji follows her. In the distance, I can see Mia’s and Finn’s heads bobbing up and down in the throng of people on the dance floor. I tried to stay with Mia for as long as I could, but then my feet started to hurt, and I didn’t know the song that was playing, and I remembered how horrible I am at dancing in any situation, but especially in a form-fitting black dress.
“I told you that you could sit with us,” Thea says once I put down my half-eaten cupcake and acknowledge her presence. “You didn’t have to do…this.”
And that’s true, she did, and sure, her friends are nice, but I didn’t want to intrude or feel like I’d been hastily wedged into another social situation where I don’t actually belong. But Thea cares, even though she doesn’t have to tonight. I feel like prom is the one night where all sisterly responsibilities are forgotten, even if Thea doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo.
“I know,” I reply. I think about lying and saying that I got hungry, or that Mia is in the bathroom, but I know that Thea would see through that, and then Benji would probably offer to go find Mia for me, and then everything would unravel. It would be even sadder to lie than to just accept my embarrassing existence. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
There are a few moments of silence as Thea processes this, wondering whether to state the obvious—that I wouldn’t have bothered her—or just ignore the statement entirely. “Do you want to leave?”
“What? No. I’m fine.” I’m not going to ruin this for her. “Mia’s still gallivanting with Mr. Wonderful. I’ll wait until she’s done.”
But Thea shakes her head. “You don’t have to. We can drive you back.” She stares straight into my eyes, hammering in the sincerity of her offer. “We want to leave anyway.”
Benji nods at this, a grin appearing on his face. “I should probably return the car. It’s getting late.” He pauses. “We can just watch some movies or something. Whatever you want.”
I think about the convertible and their romantic car ride and how I might be ruining another couple’s romantic evening if I accept. I think about how they probably have plans for the rest of the night that don’t involve me. But I also think about Mia and Finn and the Jeep and the three cupcakes I’ve already consumed. I think about how prom technically isn’t over for another hour and a half and how my toes hurt and I forgot my Converse at home.
“Yeah, that makes sense,” I reply, rising to my feet. I leave my cupcake wrappers on my plate and follow Thea around the dance floor.
She lets Benji lead the way as she walks by my side. As we make our way out the front door, she leans toward my ear and murmurs, “You know it’s my job to take care of you, right?” Like she’s sensed the guilty feelings swirling in the bottom of my stomach.
“But you don’t have to.”
“I want to. You’d do the same for me.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
We pause by the side of the road after almost an hour of walking in silence, sitting down on a rusted barrier, blocking the sidewalk from the long-gone traffic. Maeve retrieves Becca’s gun from her pocket, rubbing the tarnished metal with her thumb. I’ve never seen a real gun before, I realize. Only in crime thrillers and action movies. Never in real life.
I have too many questions I want to ask, most of them containing expletives. They ring in my ears and hide in the crevices of my brain. I wonder if she wanted to kill Becca. I wonder what would have happened if she’d been successful. Part of me is angry. Angry with her for lying. Angry with her for putting both of us in danger. But another part of me wants to say: Thank you for not leaving me alone. Thank you for staying. Thank you for saving my life.
“You could have told me” is all I say. “About those people.”
Maeve stiffens slightly. “I didn’t want you to think I was dangerous.”
“You broke into my house. I already thought you were dangerous.” It’s meant as a half joke, but it doesn’t sound like one when I say it.
“I know; I’m sorry,” she says, her voice so deflated that I’m not sure that I can be angry. Maybe now it’s my turn to take care of her. We’ve both done things that we regret. We’ve both hurt people—that’s one thing that we share.
“It’s okay.”
I think about what Becca said. That I didn’t know Maeve at all. That Maeve had managed to weasel her way out last time. And I think about how it ended this time. Maeve didn’t hesitate to stab Becca when it came to saving my life. I can’t help but wonder if she’s done it before.
Maeve continues to fumble with the gun, pausing only when the magazine slides out. A breath escapes from her throat as she inspects the part, peering into it. Her face pulls taut as she holds it out toward me, showing the nothingness that lurks inside.
“It’s empty,” she murmurs, not daring to look me in the eyes. “There was never anything in it.”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to fix this for her. “You didn’t know that, Maeve.”
“I didn’t have to hurt her.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
With shaking fingers, she slowly slides the magazine back into the pistol, handing the entire weapon to me.
“I didn’t have to do anything. You would have been safe either way.”
She doesn’t wait for a response, slowly standing and moving back toward her cart. She continues down the road, not looking back to see if I’m following. I look down at the gun in my hands and swallow before tossing it into the grass beside the road. Maeve doesn’t need this weighing on her conscience. She doesn’t need to be haunted by this object.
It takes me a few moments to catch up to her, but when I do, I pretend that nothing has happened at all, guiding our conversation in a different direction.
“Is this what it’s always like?” I ask as we pass a deserted football field, a jersey and water bottle still sitting on a bench. The field is completely overgrown, weeds up to my knees with moss and ivy strangling the bleachers. A scoreboard looms in the distance, a few degrees from falling over completely. Maeve looks ahead, like she’s trying not to acknowledge what happened. Like maybe, if she doesn’t move her gaze, she won’t meet my eyes, and I won’t be able to ask her anything about Becca. “Is it always this empty?”
Maeve grips the handle of the cart tightly. “If people left home, they didn’t take someone else’s. If you’re lucky, you’ll find mold and the smell of rot in the buildings that are left. If you’re unlucky…you find death. Nobody wants to encounter a dead body, halfway rotted. They come up with other solutions for shelter. Away from the leftovers of society.”
“So it’s all just hidden away?” We round the corner and pass a deli that’s a block from the bookstore, the Open sign still hanging in the window. The rest of the building has all but crumbled to dust, the front wall the only one left standing. It looks like a poorly made stage set, dull and one dimensional. Behind the shattered glass door, an ice cream freezer lies on its side, mold blossoming inside. I don’t get a sense of the outside world from my patrons. I’m too busy focusing on their past, their stories, to understand how the world functions now. And sure, I know that there are groups, but Becca and the man in the woods talked about protocol. I didn’t think anything that organized could happen in a year.
I think about the bookstore, about people lurking outside. Hopefully no one has run off with all seventy-eight copies of The Giver that we have left. One of my coworkers accidentally ordered three hundred copies instead of thirty when preparing for a school order, and we’ve been stuck with oodles and oodles ever since. I haven’t managed to get rid of a single copy in the past year. Surprisingly, people don’t seem to have an appetite for dystopian literature after the end of the world.
“There are things that still run,” Maeve is explaining when I snap back to reality. “Like your bookstore. There are groups. Like the one in the woods. Some are more dangerous than others. You just have to know where to find them.”
“Do you know where to find them?”
“I used to,” she manages.
“Used to?” But Maeve doesn’t respond. She looks away, picking up her pace.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
A pang of realization passes through me, and I stop, waiting until Maeve looks me in the eyes. I realize I never actually saw Maeve’s broken tent. And I understand. I know what it’s like to be left behind. Banished. That’s what the man had said. “Maeve, tell me the truth. Did your tent really break?”
I watch as conflicting emotions flick past on her face. “No,” she finally admits. “I was alone, and I didn’t know where else to go. I couldn’t keep running from them. I needed shelter, and when I saw the bookstore, it seemed like as good a place as any. I didn’t know anyone was living there.”
I don’t know what to say in response. I’ve never known what to say in situations like these. I’ve never known how to properly comfort anyone, except to give a lackluster hug. I look at Maeve’s clenching jaw. She stands there, tense, like she wants to run the last block to the bookstore. I understand the impulse, but I don’t let her.
Instead, I shrug off my backpack and walk over to her, wrapping my good arm around her neck and holding her close. She doesn’t pull away. I stay in this position, not knowing if I should stop, but then I feel two hands around my back, hugging me tight. She exhales, her warm breath filling my ear.
“You can stay as long as you need,” I say. It’s the least I can do. She’s saved my life, twice.
She speaks so quietly that I can barely hear her. “Thank you,” she whispers.
• • •
Eventually we continue down the block, making our way back home. Maeve tugs her cart over the asphalt carefully, trying to avoid spilling any of the water we collected. Her pace is slow and deliberate as she plods toward the bookstore. Each step seems to take just a bit more energy than it should, like she’s running on an almost empty tank. Something about the way she carries herself tells me that this is the true Maeve. No overwhelming energy, no grating confidence, no biting humor.
Although I want to ask if she’s okay, I don’t. I know she won’t tell me the truth. No one ever tells the truth when asked that sort of question.
But then Maeve stops short a few feet away from the curb, sucking in a jagged breath.
“You good?”
“It’s not me,” Maeve replies, dropping the cart handle to point at the side of the building. “It’s that.”
At first, I don’t even notice. At first, I knit my eyebrows and wonder what Maeve is going on about. But then I see it. The dead tree beside the building has fallen, taking down most of the wall with it.