CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The next morning, I wake up before Maeve and rush to throw on a shirt, unable to shake the memory of the stranger outside. It’s like I’ve been possessed by the spirit of Nancy Drew as I make my way down the stairs, careful to put my weight only on the sides of each step, where the foundation is strongest. (I did, in fact, learn that from a Nancy Drew book, although I can’t remember which one. There are ten thousand of them.)
I’m not sure what I’m looking for as I step outside. Maybe some reassurance that I’m not totally insane. Maybe a weed with a broken stem, trampled by the figure from last night. Maybe muddy footprints by the side of the building, even though it hasn’t rained recently.
I pause by the front door, just to make sure that my wild ideas about poetry and portrait drawing weren’t somehow correct. Maybe it’s a letter for me. Maybe it doesn’t all have to be horrible. But no slip of paper waits for me. Nothing at all.
I walk toward the center of the street, peering up at my bedroom window as I try to approximate where the person was. And as I get closer, I notice something trapped in the gap between the road and the sidewalk. So wedged in that I might not even notice. But I do notice.
A small, wooden pencil.
I’ve circled the perimeter of the bookstore enough times to know that pencil wasn’t there before. I’m not making this up. There was someone out here last night. I feel relief that my suspicions have been confirmed, though any triumphant feelings are soon cut through with dread. I was right. The figure watching the store was real. That then leaves me with the question: Why were they here?
Before I can think too hard on that question, I hear Maeve call to me from upstairs. I stoop down and pick up the pencil lying discarded on the road. After glancing at it one last time, I slip it into my pocket and return inside.
• • •
That night, Maeve and I sit across from each other at the kitchen counter, both of us perched on stools as I thumb through a copy of The Penderwicks. There used to be only one stool up here, and one was enough for me, but I trudged downstairs and grabbed the metal one from behind the desk. It belongs up here, I’ve decided. The days of sitting on the floor and perching on the armchair are over.
“What do you want for dinner?” I ask, even though I’m a lousy chef. It’s not like I need to be a young Gordon Ramsay right now, but I just wish things tasted a little better. I’m also secretly trying to get a conversation started so that the reveal of my early morning discovery seems less abrupt. I’ve held the news in all day, and the pencil is beginning to burn a hole into my pocket.
Maeve pretends to be deep in thought as she slowly rises from her seat and opens the cabinet to reveal our freshly stocked pantry.
“Hm. Looks like our options are soup, noodles, or beans.”
“Oh, the variety!” I muse.
“I promise I’ll lay out that trap before The Storm,” Maeve replies. “We can salt the meat and dry it and keep it with us once we leave the bookstore. Have some good food for once.”
She’s trying to goad me, but I won’t take her bait. I don’t want to argue with her about leaving. Not right now. Not when she just mentioned it a couple of nights ago. There are more important things to think about, so I nod.
I riffle through one of the kitchen drawers, looking for the book of matches I could have sworn I saw Maeve drop in there yesterday. This is one of those drawers that exist in every house, filled with the stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else. Old wine corks and broken pencils with the erasers that barely work and leave behind streaky messes. Some scrap paper, but it’s already been used, and the takeout menu for every single restaurant in a thirty-mile radius.
As I stand there, leaning over the drawer, tendrils of reddish hair sweeping over my face, I can feel two hands and ten long fingers spread across my back. Maeve leans closer, mouth by my ear, her breath tickling my face.
“It’s a little hot for a warm dinner, don’t you think?” she asks.
“And you want us to eat this cold?”
She laughs. “C’mon. I’ll make it appetizing, I promise.” She pushes me to the side, practically herding me into the bedroom. “Go, keep yourself occupied while I whip something up.”
I pause, unsure whether now is the right time to tell her. But I have to tell her. There might never be a right time, right? I reach into my pocket and wrap my fingers around the pencil, just to make sure that it’s still there before turning to Maeve.
“I think someone’s been watching us,” I say matter-of-factly.
I half expect Maeve to laugh and tell me that I’m ridiculous. She doesn’t.
“Really?”
“I thought I was making it up, but they came back last night. They dropped their pencil too.” I place it on the kitchen counter for emphasis. “And unless we’re both hallucinating the same pencil, that means that they’re real.”
“Shit,” Maeve murmurs, forcing a laugh. “Just another tally on the side of Let’s get out of here.”
She says it like it’s a joke, but I know what she’s getting at. It’s like she’s not even listening to what I’m saying, purposely missing the point so that she can back up her own beliefs. It’s not quite the reaction I was looking for, if I’m perfectly honest. I frown. “Who do you think they are?”
“I—” She pauses, thinking of the correct way to phrase her sentiments. “I don’t know. Let’s talk about this later, okay? Once I’ve had time to think. But for now, let me focus on dinner.”
“What?” Her nonchalance is dumbfounding, and my mouth hangs open slightly. “Don’t you care?”
Maeve huffs. “I do care, Liz. But let’s talk about this once we have food in our stomachs, okay?”
That doesn’t make sense. I would have expected Maeve to get angry or leap into action, coming up with the perfect plan to get to the bottom of everything, but her reaction is foreign. No part of my mind can make it compute.
“What has dinner got to do with anything?” I ask. “No, Maeve. I’ve waited too long to talk about this. I’ve kept it to myself all day, and I’d like to talk about it with you. Can you spare five minutes?”
“Fine, Liz,” Maeve says, not turning to face me. “You want to talk about things? Then we can talk about leaving, too, right? If we’re talking about big, pressing issues.” She says it like I’m a child, which then makes me feel like a child, a sense of elementary-school playground indignation rising up inside me.
“That’s not fair, Maeve.”
“It sounds perfectly fair to me. We talk about what you want to talk about, and so we talk about what I want to talk about too. Even Steven.”
I press my lips together and glare. We’re not talking about leaving. Not now. Not again, because it’s not happening, and Maeve should know that. She should understand by now.
Eventually, Maeve crosses her arms. “Now let me get dinner ready, please.”
With no other choice, I shuffle back into my room as Maeve shuts the door behind me. I sit down on the mattress and fiddle with the bandage on my arm, carefully pulling it out of its sling. I slowly unwrap it, one piece after the next, uncoiling it like I’m some deranged mummy. I’ve done this before, checking on the wound when I can, but that doesn’t make it any less unsettling. I slide the stick out as my skin starts to appear, puckered and scarred from where Maeve pressed her hot metal knife. I can still hear my muffled scream echoing in my ears. I think about how I buried my face in an old T-shirt, until all I could smell was sweat and must. I think about Maeve’s hand on my back, doing everything and nothing all at the same time. I think about the stranger outside. Does Maeve know who they are, or is she just worried like I am? She has to know them, I think. There’s no other way to explain her reaction.
I tell myself to wait until she has time to think, and not to let the distrust in the back of my mind melt into something else. She needs a moment to process before she comes clean. Everything will be better then.
My knuckles are healing slowly, even though I still can’t move the fingers attached to them. I feel removed from it all as I stare at my hand. It doesn’t look like it’s mine. It doesn’t feel like it’s mine. It’s like the way people say they know something like the “back of their hand.” Now I don’t know the back of my hand at all. I used to know the curves, the valleys, the places where my veins pushed up slightly against the barrier of my skin. The shape of my nails and the angles of my thumb. The way these fingers cascaded over piano keys, and clutched a pencil, and strummed a guitar. I wonder if this hand will ever play, or write, or touch again. And I need it now, even more than I did before.
After inspecting my lump of arm meat for long enough, I carefully wrap it back up, positioning the ruler in the same place. I check one last time for signs of infection, even though I don’t know what I’d do if I found any. Then I slide my arm back into its sling and try to forget about it completely. I look out the window at the glowing sun, almost disappearing beneath the tree line. It’s a pretty view. I’m always surprised to find beauty these days. The aesthetics of the apocalypse aren’t always appealing, but this sunset is gorgeous. It’s Pinterest-board-worthy. A Pinterest board for the end of the world.
I’m jolted back to attention by a knock at the door.
“You better get out here, Liz!” Maeve shouts. “Hurry up! It’s not going to last that long!”
I want to ask her what she could possibly be talking about, but then the door swings open and I see it, sitting on the kitchen counter.
A can of beans sits there, open and hardened enough for a matchstick to stick out of it, all lit up. At first, I’m confused. Beans and a matchstick? Is this some sort of inside joke between me and Maeve that I’m too preoccupied to remember?
Maeve beams at me as she stands beside her handiwork. Her smile is almost brighter than the flame.
“Happy birthday,” she says, her voice strong and hopeful.
It’s my birthday. It’s my birthday? Already? Somehow it doesn’t feel right that a whole year has passed, and I’m now a whole year older. We’ve officially slipped into August without me even realizing. I watch the matchstick, the flame getting smaller and smaller, on the cusp of extinguishing completely.
“How?” I ask, not managing to complete the sentence.
“It was on a calendar in your kitchen. I hope you don’t mind that I—”
“No,” I interrupt, forcing a smile onto my lips. “This is great. You—” My voice breaks off as I realize that I don’t know how to explain the way I feel. I’m not even sure that I truly know how I feel. Maeve doesn’t seem to mind, though. “I forgot about it,” I admit at last.
She nods in response. “It’s hard to celebrate when you’re alone, right?”
“I can hardly remember what day it is, let alone keep track of my birthday.” But it’s so much more than that. I can feel a typhoon of acid welling up inside me, reminding me of what happened. Reminding me why I’m alive, and why I don’t deserve to be. It’s like there’s a time bomb etched into my bones, and it’s only a matter of seconds before I explode. Dear god, I need to explode. I need the shame and the tiredness and the desolation that weaves through my brain to overwhelm me and then finally dissipate. I need to feel normal again and quiet the ever-present voice in the back of my head whispering that it’s all my fault.
“Blow out the candle,” she urges, and I move closer, sliding onto the nearby stool. She follows suit, sitting down across from me.
I stare at the makeshift birthday candle, flickering ever so slightly as the wooden shaft chars, the match evaporating before my eyes. It’s like when I was a kid, sharing a cake with chocolate frosting and trying to beat Thea at blowing the candles out. Her small smile visible through the warm glow, my mother trying to capture it all on camera.
Maeve smiles expectantly, nodding her head as if she’s nudging me along. That’s it, you’re almost there! Just blow.
With a huff, the flame is gone, phantom-like smoke slithering up and up, fading into nothingness. I’m left with Maeve’s eyes boring into mine.
“Are you okay? Did I do something wrong? I swear it was just supposed to be nice.” She puts her hand on my shoulder, and I flinch. It’s so small, barely even noticeable, but Maeve still curls away, her arm retreating to a comfortable, safe place in her lap, her tattoo still visible in the darkness. The moon stares up at me from her skin.
“I’m fine,” I say, even though I feel like my bones are being hollowed out.
“It’s okay if you’re not.” And just like that, every ounce of energy I have is sucked out of me. Something I didn’t even realize was there in the first place.
“I—” I can’t speak. No matter how perfectly my thoughts line up in my brain, they won’t come out. So I take a shaky breath and start again. “I had a sister.”
The truth hangs in the air between us, sucking every ounce of energy out of the atmosphere. I wait until Maeve clears her throat.
“Oh.”
“Her name was Thea.” I realize that this is the first time I’ve said her name out loud since it happened. I can feel something warm, something weak, lurking behind my eyes, ready to burst forth. Not yet. “I had a sister, a twin sister.” With that, a gasp springs forth, and the tears start rolling down. “She was better than me. And stronger than me. People cared about Thea, you know?”
“I care—”
“She’s gone and I’m here and it’s my fault. It’s my fault that she’s dead.” I curl my legs in, trying to disappear entirely. “Today is her birthday too.”
I shouldn’t be here. It hits me like a punch to the gut, sending vibrations all the way up my body. I shouldn’t be here if she isn’t. I shouldn’t be here if my parents aren’t. I shouldn’t be here if so many other people aren’t. And my sister was so good. So much better than me. She deserved so much better than this.
Maeve places her hand on my thigh, a soft and encouraging touch. Her nose wrinkles from the smell of smoke.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she says, voice firm. “I know it hurts. I know how this feels, this drowning feeling. I know how suffocating it is.”
All I can do is nod, gulping down air as tears stream down my cheeks. I must look like a fool.
“But you’re here. With me. Okay? And I wouldn’t trade that for the world. Or what’s left of it.”
I run my hand under my nose, attempting to pull myself together.
“Thank you.” I pause, wondering where this should go next. “You know I’m eighteen? We would have been eighteen.” Laughter erupts from my lungs, and it feels right. It feels like I might spontaneously combust if I don’t laugh right now. “I should be getting lottery tickets, or something. I should be going skydiving. I should be, I don’t know, legally purchasing fireworks.”
“Sure,” Maeve replies, moving her hand and reaching out toward mine. I feel a jolt of electricity as our fingers touch. “I know.”
It’s a slow approach, each move a hesitation, but when our lips touch, the warmth radiates through my body. As her lips press into mine, they feel soft. They feel familiar. They feel like something I never knew I was missing. It feels like home. She places her hand on the back of my head, pulling me in closer, her lips parting around mine. When we finally pull apart, something electric wavers between us. I’ve never kissed someone before.
I’m blushing and realize that Maeve is too. “I’m sorry,” I mutter, not sure what else to say. “I just thought that…”
“No. It was fine!” Maeve interrupts. “It was good!” Her voice breaks off as she pauses, searching for the right thing to say. I watch as heat rises to her cheeks. Maeve, embarrassed? Never. “What I’m trying to say is I liked it.”
When she says that, a weight is lifted from my chest and I can breathe again. “I did, too,” I manage.
“Okay.”
“Good.”
We stare at each other for a few more seconds before Maeve lets go of my hand and plucks the matchstick out of the can of beans. The awkwardness is palpable, but for once it feels good. It feels real. It feels right. All I want to do is kiss her again.
“Bon appétit,” she offers.
“I thought you were going to make it appetizing.”
“That’s what the matchstick was for.”
I nod as Maeve fishes around in a drawer for two spoons.
“So,” she says. “Tell me about your sister.”
A small pang ripples through my chest. “Are you sure?”
“I wouldn’t be asking if I wasn’t.”
I decide to start from the beginning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“I pushed my sister into a radiator when we were little.” This is what I start with. It’s an odd choice, but it feels appropriate. It feels like the beginning, because as far as I know, that’s the first memory I have of my sister. Pushing her into a radiator at the age of three.
“We had this chalkboard in the corner of the dining room, and it was winter, so the radiators were on full blast. It was our old house, not the one you saw—and it was from the Victorian era—so there weren’t really any safety features on it,” I explain. “She was using the chalkboard, and I wanted to use it to draw something pointless, so I pushed her out of the way and right into the radiator. She had burns all over her leg. My parents thought she’d be scarred for the rest of her life, and even though they eventually went away, she never let me live it down. She always reminded me. She could hold a grudge; that’s for sure.”
I hesitate, but Maeve stays silent. She’s given me the floor.
“We were always sort of an odd pairing. No part of us really fit with each other. Everything she was good at I wasn’t, and the things I was good at she didn’t like. I mean, there was some overlap, but for the most part…She never read The Hunger Games because I was so obsessed that I basically spoiled the whole thing for her. She was a field hockey star, and I was completely inept, even though my mom enrolled us both every season.
“We weren’t the sort of siblings that went everywhere with each other. Some twins we knew were inseparable, wearing matching clothes and hanging out with the same friends. We weren’t like that. We always gave each other space. She had her friends and I had mine, and we’d bump into each other sometimes in the halls at school. We were individuals, and we liked it that way, but we were still close.
“We told each other our deepest, darkest secrets. We complained about our parents. We’d do each other’s homework in middle school. When I came out, she was the first person I told, and she told me that she’d known for years. She probably knew before I had even figured it out. I think we knew each other better than we knew ourselves.
“She just cared so immensely about me. No matter what was going on, she always made sure that I was all right, and yet there I was pushing her into radiators.”
I pause, feeling the tears welling in my eyes once again. “I didn’t deserve that sort of love.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Maeve finally murmurs. “She cared about you for a reason.”
“She was just so good” is all I can manage to say. “She was so good, and I was just…”
“You’re good, too,” Maeve whispers, grabbing my left hand and holding it tight. “You’re the best person I know.”
I don’t know what to say in response, so I don’t say anything at all. She doesn’t know half of it. If she did, she might hate me. She might leave me, too, and I don’t know what I’d do then. I’m not sure how I’d keep going.