The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza

  “I healed you because I wanted to, though sometimes you’re so frustrating that I wish I hadn’t.”

  “That makes two of us.” Freddie scrubbed her face with her hands. “I need to use the restroom.” She walked off before I could stop her.

  It was the second time Freddie had said she’d wished I hadn’t healed her, and I couldn’t help wondering if she actually meant it. Every time I got too close to the walls she’d erected, she started lobbing boulders at me until I retreated.

  “Trouble with your girlfriend?” The tall boy from the register stood over my table.

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  He laughed. “If you say so. I’m Tommy.”

  “Elena.”

  Tommy sat down without asking. “What’d you do to upset her?”

  “Why is it my fault?” I asked. Tommy had kind eyes and a bright smile that inspired trust. “Fine, maybe it is my fault. I made a choice that affected both of us, and now we’re dealing with the fallout.”

  “So,” he said, “basically life.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Life,” he said again. “Look, I made a choice once. Did what I needed to do for myself, and it hurt someone I loved very much.”

  “And?”

  “Some days I’m not sure if it was the right choice, but we do the best we can with the knowledge we’re given and hope we don’t fuck it all up too badly.”

  “What if we do?”

  “Then we live with the consequences and try not to make the same mistakes twice.”

  “What about the person you hurt?”

  “He made his own choices.” Tommy’s smile grew wider. “Did what was best for him. Went off to college in Colorado.”

  “You miss him?”

  Tommy nodded. “Every day. But I’m kind of hoping to fix that soon.”

  “How so?”

  “Going to visit him in a couple of months. I needed to see what my life looked like without him; I had to figure out my own path without his shadow cast over it. And I think I have. So now I’m going to see if he’s still interested in carving out a path together.”

  “I hope everything works out,” I said.

  “Me too.”

  Freddie walked toward us, returning from the restroom. Tommy saw her and stood.

  “But, hey,” I said. “Don’t wait a couple of months. Go now. The sooner the better.”

  “Why?”

  “Trust me, all right?”

  Tommy left, and I hoped he made things right with the person he hurt and that they were able to find their way back to each other before the end of the world, whenever it might be.

  “Who was that?” Freddie asked when she returned to the table.

  “No one,” I said. “You ready for the movie?”

  FORTY

  I CAN’T RECALL what movie we watched because I spent the two hours it was playing sitting next to Freddie wondering if she really didn’t care whether she lived or died. If Fadil had said to me what Freddie had, I’d have dragged him to his house, sat him down in front of his parents, and forced him to get help. But that was because it would have been out of character for him to say something like that. Freddie’s admission could have been a cry for help or it could have been hyperbole. The only way to know for sure was to spend more time with her, which I resolved to do.

  After the movie, Freddie and I walked around the outside mall. We didn’t talk much, but she kept bumping into me, which might have been one of those flirty things I was supposed to recognize but didn’t.

  We ducked into a candy store and grabbed plastic bags to fill.

  “Twizzlers?” I said, eyeing Freddie’s bag. “That’s it, we can’t be friends anymore.”

  “Are we friends?”

  “You tell me.”

  Freddie seemed to think about it. “I suppose my reputation can take the hit.”

  “Good to know,” I said. “But, seriously, we’ve got to talk about the Twizzlers.”

  Freddie laughed and held her hand to her chest like I’d stabbed her. “What’ve you got against the greatest candy ever invented?”

  “Aside from the fact that it tastes like ass-flavored earwax? Nothing, I suppose.”

  “Let’s see what you bought.” Freddie swiped my bag. “Gobstoppers, SweeTarts, and M&M’s?” She looked down her nose at me. “M&M’s? Really? All these sweets to choose from and you pick the most generic candy in the world?”

  I snatched my bag back. “They’re peanut butter M&M’s, thank you very much.”

  “Even worse!” Freddie’s smile basically lit up the entire store. It was the kind of smile that made me think kissing her might be nice. Of course, I doubt she had a single facial expression in her repertoire that I wouldn’t have considered kissable. I also assumed there was less than a .00005 percent chance of Freddie actually wanting to kiss me, which put a damper on my feelings. “M&M’s are the leftover scraps of better chocolates, mixed together, shat out into a ball, and coated with a crappy candy shell.”

  I reached into my bag, scooped up a handful of M&M’s, and tossed them into my mouth. My cheeks bulged, and I think a SweeTart had gotten mixed in.

  “But they’re so delicious,” I said, syrupy drool leaking out and diving for the floor.

  “Hey!” called the woman behind the register. “You can’t do that!”

  Freddie and I both broke into fits of laughter, and I nearly choked on the glob of gooey chocolate. When I’d swallowed, I said, “Next I suppose you’re going to tell me your favorite candy bar is Snickers.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I knew it!” I said. “Also, you’re wrong. The only candy bar worth eating is a Butterfinger. Anything else may as well be a sweetened poo log.”

  Freddie tried to look serious, but she couldn’t erase her cheeky smirk. “I think our differences in what constitutes candy may be too vast for this friendship to work.”

  Okay, I know I said there was an almost zero percent chance of Freddie wanting to kiss me, but there was this moment when she was looking at me with her beautiful brown eyes, and she bit her bottom lip, and I swear she was leaning in to do it. I might have imagined it, but there’s an electrical charge that fills the space between two bodies in that inevitable second before they kiss—an energy that draws them together—and I felt that. My entire body tingled. I forgot the names she’d called me and how she didn’t seem sure if she deserved to live or deserved to die and about the end of the world and all of it. All I saw was Freddie.

  And then I blinked and cleared my throat. “Yeah,” I said. “If we can’t overcome the Great Candy Divide, we don’t stand a chance.”

  The woman at the register was dancing from one foot to the other. Either she really needed to pee or she was working up the courage to ask us to leave.

  The electricity between us had dissipated. “I should get home,” I said.

  “Cool. Have fun walking.”

  I slapped her shoulder. “Jerk.”

  “It’s a good thing I’m cute, then.”

  “You’re not that cute.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m pretty adorable.”

  We paid for our candy—the cashier added a couple of dollars for the M&M’s I’d eaten—and walked to Freddie’s car.

  FORTY-ONE

  FREDDIE DROVE ME home in silence. We’d had a moment—this brilliant, beautiful moment when we’d laughed and had fun and forgotten everything else—but it had felt stolen. Unearned. We had no right to be carefree and happy when the world might be ending and our lives were in shambles.

  Freddie parked in front of my apartment building and idled, waiting for me to get out.

  “I’m not sorry I healed you,” I said. “But I am sorry if I’m the reason David shot you.”

  “You’re not.” Freddie’s voice barely rose above a whisper.

  “But if I was,” I went on. “And I also don’t care that you know I had—have—a crush on you, though to be honest, you’ve really tested its
limits, especially considering your irrational love of Twizzlers.”

  I was afraid bringing up my crush would upset her again, but Freddie laughed. Her entire face brightened. Her cheeks rose and her nostrils flared and the laugh lines around her eyes deepened to depthless trenches. She was always beautiful, but in that moment she might have been the most beautiful girl in the world.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” Freddie said, still laughing. “Just, you’re this miracle girl. Your birth was a miracle, you can perform miracles, and you hear voices that have given you the responsibility for deciding the fate of the world. Why would you even be worried about a nobody like me?”

  I wrinkled my forehead. “Because you matter. Isn’t that obvious?”

  “Everyone matters, Elena.”

  “But don’t some people matter more than others?” I asked. “I mean, if we’re talking about saving humanity, doesn’t it make sense to save the best and brightest of us?”

  Freddie’s laughter had faded. “So you’re saying it’s better to save a world-famous physicist rather than say, a modest merchant who was a partner in a bed feathers company.”

  “That’s a really odd comparison, but yeah.”

  “Except no,” Freddie said. “That merchant and his wife would go on to birth and raise Albert Einstein.” She paused dramatically. “Hermann and Pauline Einstein might not have seemed like anyone special at the time, but their son changed how we look at the universe.”

  “That’s one example.”

  “Here’s another. Who should you save? A genius mathematician admitted to Harvard at sixteen or a single mom living on welfare?”

  “This is a trick question.”

  “Are you allergic to answering questions, or what?”

  “The mathematician,” I said.

  “Ted Kaczynski. Otherwise known as the Unabomber. And that single mom would go on to write Harry Potter.”

  I raised my hands in surrender. “Fine. I get it.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. Everyone deserves the chance to survive. And that includes you.”

  “Forget me for a minute. You can’t judge someone based on who they are right now, because you never know who they’ll become or who their children will become.”

  “The voices saved David Combs after he’d shot you. Are you really okay with the boy who attempted to kill you being among those who’re saved?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even if he didn’t think you deserved to live?”

  Freddie opened her mouth, closed it. Opened it again. “I . . . I don’t get to judge, Elena. And neither do you.”

  “First nothing matters, and now everyone matters? Make up your mind.”

  “You do realize it’s possible to hold two opposing ideas in your head at one time, right? I can believe all this stupid bullshit is pointless and simultaneously believe it’s not my right to decide who matters.”

  “Why not? Why shouldn’t we get to decide someone like David Combs doesn’t deserve to be saved over someone like you?”

  “Because,” Freddie said, “the moment we forget that even the evil among us are still human is the moment we forget that even the most human among us are capable of evil.”

  “You sure have a lot of opinions on life for someone who thinks it’s bullshit.”

  “I have a lot of opinions on everything. Most of them are crap.”

  “What’s your opinion on me?” I asked.

  Freddie reached across the emergency brake and took my hand. I froze, not sure what to do. I was pretty sure Freddie had made her feelings—or lack thereof—for me clear, and I didn’t want to read more into her holding my hand than might really be there, despite what I’d felt in the candy store.

  “I like you, Freddie. Though you don’t make it easy.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you like me?”

  “I think . . .” She paused. Slipped her hand out of mine. “I’m not sure.”

  I wanted to kiss her. To lean across the distance between us and press my lips to hers. I wanted to forget the voices and the world ending. I wanted her to kiss me back. I wanted a miracle for myself.

  Light blasted through the darkness and someone was yelling and I turned to see Sofie in her pajamas running down the stairs and banging on Mrs. Haimovitch’s front door. I fumbled for the handle and scrambled out of the car.

  “Sofie? What’s wrong? Sophia!”

  Sofie grabbed my hand and tugged me back toward the stairs. “Conor’s hurt, Elena! Hurry!”

  FORTY-TWO

  I STOOD BESIDE Mama while Dr. Berko explained that Conor had a concussion but was going to be fine. That he was resting and they were going to keep him overnight for observation. She had a soothing voice that gave me hope that Conor really was going to be all right and that she wasn’t sugarcoating it to keep us from freaking out. She told us a nurse would be out soon to take us to Conor’s room.

  “You should have let me heal him,” I said to Mama when Dr. Berko had retreated back behind the double doors.

  Mama shook her head. “I’d already called 911. There would have been too many questions. And, see? He’s okay.”

  She was being far too calm about all of this.

  “Was it Sean?” I asked.

  “Mija . . .”

  “That son of a bitch,” I said. “I want him in jail.”

  Mama sank into the hard plastic emergency room chair and buried her face in her hands. “It was my fault—”

  “You did this to Conor?”

  “Sean spent the grocery money on pain pills. His back has been hurting him so much lately. We got into a fight and Conor was in the way and Sean didn’t mean for it to happen. He’s not a bad man, Elena.”

  “Like hell!”

  “It was an accident.”

  “Are you—” I stood and walked away from my mother. Already the nurse at the window was giving us side-eye, and I didn’t want to complicate matters even more. When I’d taken a few deep breaths, I returned to my mother.

  “You can’t defend him,” I said. “I get that he’s Sofie’s and Conor’s father, but you can’t carry him forever, Mama. He’s dragging you down.”

  “We don’t abandon the people in our lives when things get difficult.”

  “The way your parents did with you?” I leaned my head on her shoulder. “You’re not them. They threw you out because you got pregnant. Kicking Sean out because he’s a loser who hurt Conor isn’t the same thing. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, but he does.”

  Tears had welled up in the corners of her eyes. Her face was a battlefield, and the creases that etched her skin and the deep circles under her eyes were the scars of a war she would either win tonight or lose forever. If she threw Sean out, she’d feel responsible for anything that happened to him. If she let him stay, she’d blame herself if he hurt Conor again or Sophie or me.

  “No matter what you do, someone is going to wind up getting hurt. Sean made his choices, and he should have to live with the consequences.”

  “I care about him.”

  “But does he care about you? About us?” I took her hand and squeezed it. “When the police come to question you, tell the truth. Promise me you’ll do that, at least.”

  A nurse strode through the double doors. “Mrs. Malloy? I can take you back to see your son now.”

  Mama stood, but I gripped her hand tightly. “Promise me.”

  She didn’t speak, but she pursed her lips tightly and nodded.

  FORTY-THREE

  I STOOD IN the center of my mother’s room trying to decide where to begin.

  “We could burn it all.” Javi stood in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing Power Rangers pajama bottoms and a tank top, and his fingernails were painted bubblegum pink.

  “It’s definitely an option,” I said. “But not a good one.”

  Javi shrugged. “You want me to start in the closet?”

  “Yeah.
Grab whatever looks like his and pile it in the plastic tub.”

  It might have seemed like Javi was the last person I’d call to help me, but he was actually the best person for the job. Freddie and I didn’t know each other well enough for me to ask her for this kind of favor—plus, I wasn’t sure what might have happened in that car if Sofie hadn’t interrupted, and I needed some space to figure it out—I didn’t want to bother Fadil on his date with Naomi, and Mrs. Haimovitch was watching Sofie, whom I didn’t want around while we rid the house of Sean’s belongings. Javi, however, worked fast, didn’t ask a lot of questions, and if Sean was stupid enough to return to the apartment, Javi would kick his ass, chop his body into tiny pieces, and make sure no one ever found the remains.

  I went through the dresser, pulling all of Sean’s clothes out, grimacing when I had to touch his dingy, nasty underwear, and tossed it all in the plastic tub. For someone who’d lived in the same house as us for nine years, he didn’t have a lot of belongings.

  “You look nice, Elena.”

  “Focus on what you’re doing.”

  “I’m serious.” Javi was staring at me, letting his eyes wander up and down. I was wearing tight jeans and a thin light-blue hoodie that I had thought looked fabulous when I’d dressed to go out with Freddie earlier. “You look hot.”

  “Well, at least someone noticed,” I said under my breath.

  Javi chuckled and shoved a bunch of dress clothes into the tub, not bothering to fold them neatly. “You stepping out on me, Mendoza?”

  “We’re not dating.”

  “Who’s the lucky dead man or woman? I’m an equal-opportunity bruiser.”

  Though I still didn’t trust Javi’s motivations, it was different now that we definitively were not and would never be a couple. Talking to him was easy in a way that talking to Freddie sometimes wasn’t.

  “It was nothing,” I said. “I went out with a friend.”

  “You only have one friend, those are the jeans you think your ass looks best in, and you don’t care what Fadil thinks of your ass.”

  I swiped Sean’s cologne bottles and other junk into the box. “Well, you look like you’re dressed for a slumber party,” I said, dodging the question.