We Are the Ants

  Mom rested her hand on Nana’s shoulder. “Mother, it’s the middle of the night—”

  “What’re you doing in my house? Get out of my house!” Nana didn’t see us. She saw people, but not us. She fixated on the song, her arthritic fingers hunting recklessly for the next note.

  “Nana—” I tried, but she screamed, “Leave me the hell alone, all of you!” and slammed the keys. Mom’s shoulders shook. I stood helplessly, unsure what to do. I was worried Nana was going to hurt herself.

  Charlie brushed past me and sat on the bench beside Nana. Without speaking, he began to play. Haltingly at first but, as his confidence grew, each note flowed from the one that preceded it. Charlie’s song, though different from Nana’s, stoked her memory, and she began again. He played a joyful counterpoint to her plaintive dirge—his notes light and hopeful to drive back the desolation of the future. I’ve never heard anything like it and doubt I ever will again.

  Nana sighed as the song ended—the final note lingering in our ears—stood, and shuffled back to her room.

  I’m not sure whether we were more stunned by Nana’s behavior or Charlie’s. Zooey kissed his cheek as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “We’re going back to bed. I have to work early.”

  I can’t help thinking that if we live long enough, we’ll all eventually forget the lives we’ve lived. The faces of people closest to us, the memories we swore we’d hold on to for the rest of our lives. First kisses and last kisses and all the passion between the years. We have to watch Nana’s life slipping away from her like a forgotten word. I thought I understood what’s happening to her, but this isn’t like being robbed a penny at a time. Memories aren’t currency to spend; they’re us. Age isn’t stealing from my grandmother; it’s slowly unwinding her.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” Mom said.

  I held her hand. “You won’t have to.”

  10 November 2015

  Mathematics rules the universe. The earth orbits the sun, traveling at an average speed of 107,200 kilometers per hour. The actual speed can be determined at any point in the earth’s orbit by using the distance to the sun and the specific orbital energy. The earth also completes one full rotation every 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.09 seconds, and has an axial tilt of 23.4 degrees. Because of the constancy of the math that governs these events, I can tell you with absolute certainty that on May 1, 2091, the sun will rise over Calypso at exactly 6:45 a.m. and will set at 7:57 p.m.

  Scientists even theorize that if you could take the position, speed, trajectory, and mass of every object in the universe and feed it into a supercomputer, you could predict the future of everything.

  Predicting my routine over the days after the attack was far easier. I lost myself in the minutiae of life. Charlie drove me to school each morning, and I watched him grow more comfortable in his shirt and tie, and more confident in his role as a father-to-be, though he still found time to torture me—his new favorite game was to stick his finger in my mouth every time I yawned. Diego and I continued to eat lunch together. Sometimes we skipped the cafeteria, but most days we found the quiet end of a table and pretended the other seats were empty. I still haven’t figured out why he’s wasting his time on me when he could easily fit in with any clique he wanted. He’s a chameleon that way. He seems to change personalities the way he changes styles, and that makes it difficult to figure out who he is. The only times I catch a glimpse of the real Diego Vega are when he’s talking about books or art.

  Sometimes I think about pushing him to talk about his family, about why he moved to Calypso from Colorado, but my goal is to simply survive until the world’s end, and that does not include antagonizing Diego.

  Nana officially resigned from lunch-making duty, and on Tuesday, Mom packed leftover fried chicken, which I shared with Diego. I offered him the thigh and kept the leg for myself. He peeled off the skin and ate it first, savoring each bite. “This is killer.”

  “My mom uses ground unicorn horn and the blood of virgins for the coating.” In truth, I don’t know what’s in her chicken, but I love it. Laughter drew my attention away from Diego, toward the lunch line where Audrey Dorn stood with her arms extended like she was frozen mid-pirouette. I didn’t understand what was happening at first because her scoop-neck shirt was brown, and I couldn’t see the spilled soda until the rivulets reached her white pants. All the kids at the nearby tables were cracking up, but Adrian Morse was doubled over. I hoped he pissed himself.

  “Don’t you know that girl?” Diego asked.

  “Audrey?”

  “Looks like she’s having a rough day.”

  Audrey shook the soda from her hands, not caring who she flung the drops on, and stormed out of the cafeteria, leaving her lunch tray on the floor. Adrian stood up and did a fairly accurate impression of her stance and walk. Possession of the mask hadn’t been sufficient proof for Principal DeShields to link Adrian to my attack, but harassing me with it had earned him a three-day suspension. He’d returned more vicious than before.

  “I don’t want to sit through study hall,” I said, trying to change the subject.

  “It’s better than PE.”

  “True, but Mr. Weiss spends the entire period posting on Brony forums—”

  “That should surprise me, but doesn’t.”

  “And Chloe Speedman smacks her lips when she chews gum, which she does constantly. If I have to spend another hour there, I might consider self-immolation as a form of protest.”

  Diego leaned over his tray, his arms resting on either side, and poked around his lunch for any crumbs he might have missed—he was the only person I knew who ate faster than Charlie—but there was nothing left. “Let’s ditch.”

  “And do what?”

  “Whatever.”

  “I hear whatever’s fun this time of year.”

  Diego rolled his eyes. “Come on, man. Don’t you want to get out of here?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “How can you make an informed decision about whether to save the world if you never leave your tiny part of it?”

  The bell rang, but we didn’t move. Diego was staring at me so hard, it was like he was trying to force his thoughts into my brain. I know it was only my imagination, but I felt like I could hear a chorus of Diegos encouraging me to say no to class and yes to anarchy. Diego was one variable no equation could predict. Being in survival mode for the next seventy-five days didn’t have to mean I couldn’t have fun.

  “Fine, but we’re not going to the beach.”

  • • •

  Diego and I loitered on the side of the math building while we waited for the final bell to ring. Vice Principal Marten patrols the parking lot between classes, making sure only students with passes escape. He locks the gate the rest of the time, but it’s hardly a deterrent, since all you have to do is hop the curb and drive around it.

  VP Marten cruised the lot for a couple of minutes after the last bell before heading back toward the administration building. Diego grabbed my arm and motioned for me to follow.

  “Who gives their kid an eighty-thousand-dollar car?” Diego asked. He was eyeing Marcus’s Tesla, though he could have been talking about any of the cars. The parking lot was full of Lexuses, BMWs, and Mercedes.

  “The McCoys.”

  Diego raised an eyebrow and glanced again at Marcus’s sleek ride. Even though I hated him, I couldn’t deny it was a beautiful machine.

  We reached Diego’s car, and he breathed a sigh. He stuck the key in the ignition and turned; nothing happened. Not even the car’s characteristic wheeze that I’d come to know well. “Come on. Please Start, please start, please start.” Diego cranked the ignition again, but Please Start refused to. “Maybe the battery’s dead.”

  While Diego tinkered under the hood, doubt gnawed at my resolve. Mr. Weiss wouldn’t care if I snuck into study hall a few minutes late. I could’ve lied and told him the cafeteria burritos gave me stomach cramps, even though I’m smart enough never to eat thos
e cheesy laxative bombs. This was a stupid idea. Skipping class wasn’t going to change my mind about pressing the button. It wasn’t going to bring back Jesse or make Marcus and Adrian disappear. Even if we found something to do, my shitty life would still be waiting for me when the fun ended. I was about to say so when Diego slammed the hood and said, “She’s toast.”

  “I guess we should go to class.” I tried to sound crestfallen as I grabbed my bag and got out of the car. That’s when I saw Audrey speed-walking toward us. It was really more of a trot.

  “Problems?” she asked.

  “We were planning to ditch,” I said.

  Audrey glanced nervously over her shoulder. “Were?”

  “Car trouble,” I said.

  “I hate to break it to you, but Marten’s headed this way.”

  Diego sighed. “We’re not going anywhere in this thing.”

  I swore I could hear the predatory whirr of Marten’s golf cart approaching.

  Audrey fidgeted with her keys. She kept looking behind her, her eyes wide and dodgy. “Listen, I’ll give you a ride off campus if you want, but we should hurry.”

  “It might be safer to go back to class.” I’d agreed to skip school with Diego; catching a ride with Audrey hadn’t been part of the plan.

  Diego snorted. “No way. Marks will give me detention. I don’t do detention.”

  “Now or never.” Audrey took a couple of steps toward her car and disarmed the alarm.

  I wasn’t paranoid. I could definitely hear the golf cart’s motor. I’d earned some sympathy because of the attack, but I doubt I’d be able to weasel out of a detention if Marten caught me trying to skip. “Fine. Let’s go.”

  Nobody said much as we left campus. Vice Principal Marten chased us out of the parking lot, but he couldn’t catch Audrey’s V8. I wasn’t sure what Diego and I were going to do without a car after Audrey dropped us off. Ratting out Adrian for the mask didn’t make us even. She pulled into a CVS and parked.

  Diego hopped out and stretched his legs. “Thanks for the save.”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled.

  Audrey looked at me in the rearview mirror. “I never pegged you for a skipper.”

  “You’re one to talk.”

  I noticed she’d changed out of her soda-stained clothes, and into jeans and a tank top. “I . . . yeah . . . I needed to get out of there.”

  “I know the feeling.” Diego wandered to her side and offered her his hand through the open window. “I’m Diego Vega, by the way.”

  “Audrey Dorn.”

  “Henry’s told me nothing about you.”

  Audrey flashed him a wry smile. “I bet.”

  “Seriously,” Diego said. “All I know is that you used to be friends.”

  “It’s . . . whatever,” I said. We’d managed to escape school, but we didn’t have a car, and I didn’t want to spend the rest of the day in a drugstore parking lot. “Where were you headed?”

  “Home, probably,” Audrey said. “Me and Leah and a couple of other girls had plans to go to the fair tonight, but they’ve been avoiding me lately.”

  Diego perked up. “Fair?”

  “It comes around every year,” I said.

  “Is it far? I haven’t been to a real fair ever.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we could go this weekend.”

  “What else are you going to do today?” Audrey asked. “It’s not like you’ve got a car.”

  Diego was so excited, he was practically bouncing up and down, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. Hanging out at the fair with Audrey wasn’t how I’d planned to spend my afternoon, but she had a point.

  “Come on, Henry,” Diego said. “It’ll be fun, I promise.”

  “Do you think you can stand hanging out with me for a few hours?” Audrey’s lips hinted at a smirk I knew well.

  I sighed dramatically. “You did sort of save my ass—”

  “Twice.”

  “So I suppose I can make an exception.”

  Audrey shrugged. “Then I guess we’re going to the fair.”

  • • •

  The last time I attended the fair, Audrey and I were still friends, and Jesse was alive. I thought Jesse was happy, though in retrospect, the signs were there that he was going to fall apart. It wasn’t any one big thing; it was the way all the ­little things added up and compounded. He didn’t kill himself because of a single overwhelming problem; he died from a thousand tiny wounds.

  Audrey walked ahead of me and Diego, moving with the line, which was longer than we’d anticipated. Clearly, we weren’t the only ones skipping the last two classes of the day, but it still wasn’t as busy as it would have been on a Friday night or Saturday afternoon.

  “There’s no way you survived living in a house without Internet.” Audrey’s head was cocked to the side, and she jutted out her hip. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  Diego shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “Wish I could.”

  Diego had been telling us about life in Colorado to kill time while we waited to buy the bracelets that would let us on every ride at the fair. He’d casually mentioned having to go to the library to check SnowFlake, which led to the conversation we were having. “Next you’re going to tell us you didn’t have cable, either,” I said.

  “No TV at all,” Diego said, a shy smile on his face that made me wonder if he was messing with us.

  Audrey inched forward with the line. “Were your parents Amish?”

  “Nope. Just poor.” He said it with a simplicity that expressed no regret and asked for no pity. It was just a statement of fact.

  Audrey began to stammer. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t mean . . .”

  Diego patted her arm. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Seriously . . . I . . . I . . .”

  “Her family wasn’t always rich,” I said. “Her mom invented this recyclable paper coffee cup that holds in heat but keeps the outside from burning your hand.”

  “Seriously?”

  Audrey blushed and glanced at the trampled grass under her feet like she was considering digging a deep hole and crawling into it. “My . . . my mom’s a genius.”

  “My mom knits sweaters for cats.” Diego’s deadpan delivery was so good that I didn’t know whether he was telling the truth, and I busted up laughing at the image of grumpy cats in ugly sweaters. Audrey relaxed; I was in awe of Diego’s ability to always know the right thing to say.

  At the front of the line, Audrey and I got into a fight when she tried to pay for all of our tickets. Diego stealthily paid the admission while we were arguing, causing me and Audrey to join together in righteous indignation. But all was forgotten and forgiven by the end of our first ride on the Pirate Ship.

  We stared at our twisted reflections in the mirror maze, ate powdered-sugar-dusted elephant ears, banged out our aggression on the bumper cars, and got sticky fingers from cotton candy. I was sweat-soaked and flushed, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed so loudly or smiled so often without having to fake it.

  Diego grabbed my and Audrey’s hands and pulled us toward the flying saucer with the garish blinking lights. “Whatever that is, I want to ride it!” His curiosity was insatiable, his joy infectious. He approached everything he did like it was both the first and last time he was ever going to get to do it.

  Audrey glanced at me knowingly, and not because of the obvious UFO reference. The last time I’d ridden the Gravitron was with Jesse. He killed himself sixty-eight days later. I said, “I’m okay,” and we crowded onto the ride, shoving past some preppy parents who dragged their whining, disinterested brats alongside them. The dark, muggy interior was a nineties fossil, a dream frozen in amber. The ride whirled around and tilted up and down, but it never moved forward. We ­shuffled to our narrow slats along the wall and leaned against the cracked and taped vinyl panels. I tried not to think about the parade of filthy people who had previously stood in my place, sweat matting their hair, soaking into the headrest. br />
  “All right, partners!” shouted the lanky-haired, metal-­band reject at the center of the Gravitron. “Let’s get this thing a-movin’ and a-shakin’. Yee-haw!”

  “I bet he drinks heavily to smother the shame of what his life has become, and dies of liver failure by forty-three,” I said. Diego laughed, and I wanted to preserve the sound in a jar for the days when laughter was scarce.

  “Yeah, right,” Audrey shot back. “Two funnel cakes says that’s you in ten years!”

  “In ten years, we’ll all be gone.”

  Audrey gave me a perplexed look, but Diego shouted, “Fuck that! I’m gonna live forever!” as the ride fired up and the room lurched into motion. Diego howled—earning us glares from the preppy parents who probably presumed we were drunk—and the wave of bad music continued to assault our ears as Creed blurred into Nickelback.

  The trucker-hat-wearing scarecrow at the controls continued yee-hawing like anyone cared. We were swept up in the spin and in the smell of metal and vomit and bleach. I was swept up in Diego Vega. In the way he sounded like he honestly believed he’d never die despite my telling him the whole world was on borrowed time; in the way he looked at me like I was someone other than Space Boy, a way that was impossible and endless. Diego looked at me and saw me. No one had seen me since Jesse.

  The ride spun faster, so fast that gravity squatted on my chest and pushed the air from my lungs, and then faster still. Jesse fought the centrifugal force and flipped onto my panel, straddling me, his curly blond hair hanging in my face, his body pressed against mine. Audrey glared at us, disgusted, and the conductor yelled for Jesse to return to his slab. Jesse ignored him. Rules didn’t apply to Jesse Franklin, and I loved him for it.

  We were whirling around so fast that Jesse couldn’t hold his head up any longer and buried his face in my neck, his chapped lips grazing my skin. He was insane, and I told him so as I wrapped my arms around him so tightly that nothing would ever tear us apart.