The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza

  Javi stood on his toes to pull a stack of old DVDs off the shelf. “In fact, I am. Cristina invited a bunch of her friends over and I was keeping them entertained.”

  I motioned at his fingernails with my chin. “I can see that.”

  “It’s a good color on me, don’t you think?”

  “Your friends will love it.” I scanned the bedroom, decided we’d gotten everything, and moved into the living room. I was determined to exorcise our apartment of Sean Malloy by the time Mama brought Conor home from the hospital. “And speaking of friends, I have more than one.”

  “Yeah?” Javi asked. “Who?”

  “Mrs. Haimovitch.”

  Javi barked out a laugh so loud I was sure the neighbors had heard it. “I like Mrs. H., don’t get me wrong, but she’s five times your age.”

  “Don’t be ageist.”

  “Was it Freddie?” Javi asked. “I’ve seen her sitting with you at lunch. She’s hot. I’d totally bang her.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’d bang a warm sandwich.” Javi opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. “I swear to God if you make a mayonnaise joke I will shove you into that box and put you out with the rest of the garbage.”

  Javi held up his hands in surrender. “You got anything to drink?”

  “Fridge,” I said. “And bring the beer while you’re in there. I want it out of this house.” The tub still had room in it, but when I looked around, I saw nothing else that belonged to Sean. His entire life with us fit in one plastic container. I went into the bathroom, grabbed all of his toiletries, and dropped them in the tub as well. That was it.

  Javi was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a soda. Two six-packs of beer sat on the counter, and I grabbed them and set them with the rest of Sean’s stuff.

  “So, you and Freddie?” Javi said.

  I didn’t have the energy to argue. It was late and I was physically and emotionally exhausted. “She’s not into me,” I said.

  “Then she’s stupid.”

  “She’s not stupid.”

  Javi swirled the ice in his soda, watching it spin around and around. “She is if she’s not into you.”

  “That’s oddly sweet of you, Javi, even if it’s not true.”

  “Yeah it is.” Javi snorted. “If I could do it all over again . . .” He paused. “I’d make all the same mistakes, but I’d try hard not to because you’re kind of worth it.” I watched him for a few seconds, not sure what to say. “Truth is, I’ll probably end up like this asshole.” He motioned at Sean’s box. “Some girl tossing my shit in the middle of the night because I did something stupid.”

  “You’re better than Sean,” I said.

  Whatever self-pity Javi was feeling, it quickly passed. “Yeah, I am. And you’re better than Freddie. If she’s not into you, find someone who is. You deserve it.”

  “What I want and what I deserve are two different things.” I sat at the table and scrubbed my face with my hands. “Twice tonight I felt like she was going to kiss me, but she didn’t. And we can be talking and laughing and everything’s fine, and then she turns mean and tells me she’s not sure I should have saved her and that nothing matters.”

  Every time I thought back to the candy store and the moment in the car, I imagined what might have happened. How differently the night could have unfolded.

  “Why didn’t you kiss her?”

  I shook myself free of my thoughts. “She didn’t—”

  Javi cut me off. “Not what I asked. Why didn’t you kiss her?” He waited for an answer, but I didn’t have one. “You’re upset and you figure she’s not into getting down because she didn’t kiss you when she had the chance, but what if she was waiting for you to make the move? What if she’s sitting home in her little jammies thinking the same mopey shit you are? That you’re not into her because you didn’t kiss her when you had the chance?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. She knew how I felt about her, so I assumed that if anyone was going to break the awkwardness and make the first move it would be her.

  “Good point.” Which was a phrase I never expected to say to Javi. “But it’s complicated. Especially with all the other stuff going on.”

  Javi laughed. “You make everything complicated, Elena.”

  “I do not!”

  “You totally do,” he said. “World’s ending, right? You can do something about it, right? Then do it. You can heal people and you want to do it, then do it. You want to kiss Freddie, then fucking do it.”

  “But what if she doesn’t want me to kiss her? What if the world isn’t really ending and I screw everything up?”

  “Then you move on and try kissing someone else. You fix the world another way. Or you don’t fix it at all because you’re not in charge of everyone and everything, and taking care of other people’s shit isn’t your problem.”

  “Freddie said I was scared of making choices and that I let others make them for me.”

  “I might’ve been wrong to call her stupid,” he said.

  “I just don’t want to make the wrong choices.”

  Javi stared at me. His eyes had these streaks of green amid the brown that I’d always thought were beautiful. “Guess what happens when you don’t make a choice?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Maybe you don’t fuck anything up, but nothing gets better either.”

  “Javi—”

  “I know you’ll never give me another chance, and I don’t deserve one, but I don’t want to be thirty, kicking myself in the ass, flipping through Snowflake or whatever fucking thing we’ll be using when we’re thirty, wondering what might’ve happened if I’d tried.”

  Javi pushed back his chair. “Come on. I’ll help you get this junk out to the curb, but then I have to get home. The girls were gonna teach me how to take care of my oily T-zone.”

  I stood and kissed Javi’s cheek. “You can be really sweet sometimes.” He was grinning when I stepped back.

  “Does this mean—”

  “Nope.”

  “Are you sure, ’cause—”

  “Not even if we were the last humans on the planet.”

  Javi shook his head. “Damn, Elena, no need to be so harsh.”

  I smiled and he smiled and I said, “Thanks. Not just for helping me with Sean’s stuff, but for everything.”

  “I got your back, Elena. Always.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  “THE POLICE LET him go?”

  I sat on the floor in Fadil’s bedroom, leaning against the side of his bed. Posters of his favorite soccer players hung from the walls and books filled the shelves, leaving room for little else. There was a warm, lived-in feeling to it that made me feel welcome. “Mama told them what happened, but even she had to admit Sean hadn’t meant to shove Conor. They offered to help her file for a restraining order, but she refused.”

  Mama had brought Conor home from the hospital that morning, and before Fadil had picked me up, a locksmith had arrived to change the locks.

  Fadil shook his head and sighed. “What’ll happen to him, then?”

  “I don’t know. Javi helped me clear all of his stuff out of the apartment, so he’s not living with us anymore. And I know Mama’s hoping he’ll check himself into rehab, but I don’t see that happening.”

  “You should have called me,” he said. “I would have been there in a second.”

  I smiled at Fadil. At the fierce gleam in his eyes. “I took care of it. Plus, you were out with Naomi and I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “That’s not what I meant when I said—”

  “Calm down. I wanted you there, but I didn’t need you.”

  Fadil leaned back in his desk chair and stretched his arms behind his head. I watched the conflicting emotions play across his face. On one hand, he wanted to be pissed off at me for not calling him when Sean hurt Conor, but on the other he couldn’t be mad that I’d respected what he’d wanted. Finally, he let out an explosive sigh.

  “So how did your date wi
th Naomi go?” I asked. “Does she ever stop talking long enough for you to kiss her?”

  “She kissed me, actually.”

  “Naomi put the moves on you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wait, was this the first time?”

  “It was.”

  “And?”

  Fadil crinkled his nose. “What was it like when you kissed Javi?” It was not the question I’d been expecting. Not even a little.

  “Frustrating.” I paused. “What was it like when you kissed Naomi?”

  Fadil pulled his legs up onto the chair and hugged his knees. “Boring.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I thought it would be different. I haven’t kissed a girl since freshman year—”

  “Olivia Appleby.”

  A far-off look took root in Fadil’s eyes. “At Tori’s pool party over the summer. Yeah.” He shook off the reverie. “I was bored then too, but I’d only made out with her because it was the stupid game.”

  “Tell me what happened with Naomi,” I said.

  “We were watching a movie at her house, which is huge by the way. She’s got her own floor, if you can believe that.”

  “I do.” I didn’t know what Naomi’s parents did, but she lived in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Arcadia, so I’d assumed they were loaded.

  Fadil kept talking like he’d barely registered my response. “She wanted to watch Star Wars, which we’d both seen a million times, and I took that as a sign she was more interested in not watching a movie. Mr. Brewer had just peeked in to make sure we had enough popcorn, and we were cuddled up together and I was thinking about how to make my move, when she pulled my face to hers and kissed me.”

  “Maybe her taking the lead threw you off your game?”

  “I kissed her back,” Fadil said. “There was tongue and heavy breathing and all the stuff that’s supposed to happen. But I spent the whole time wondering how Obi-Wan doesn’t recognize R2-D2 when he spent three freaking films with him.”

  “Are you sure you’re really into her?”

  “I thought so.”

  “I used to create mental to-do lists when I was making out with Javi.” I stretched my legs out in front of me. “Sometimes lists of the chores I needed to do, sometimes lists of all the places in the world I wanted to visit.”

  Fadil climbed down off his chair and crawled over to sit beside me. “Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”

  “Wrong with you how?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s weird that she kissed me and I was thinking about Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

  It didn’t actually seem that weird to me, but my only comparable experience had been with Javi, so I wasn’t the best person to judge. “Were you thinking about old man Obi-Wan?” I asked. “Or were you thinking about hot Ewan McGregor Obi-Wan?”

  “I’m pretty sure I’m not gay,” he said. “When you told me you were bi, I got curious and looked at some naked guys online. They didn’t do anything for me. Not even a twinge.”

  “Maybe you’re not into sex or making out. There’s an Archie character, Jughead, who’s asexual and aromantic, and so is Kamal Jean at school. I met him in the GSA last year. You could talk to him.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that.” I kept trying to catch Fadil’s eyes, but he seemed so distant. “You are who you are, Fadil. And it’s okay if you’re not sure what that means yet. Anyone who says they’ve got it all figured out at sixteen is a liar, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

  “You know who you are.”

  “Ha!”

  “I’m serious,” he said. “You knew you were bi in eighth grade.”

  “Mama knew before I did.”

  Fadil perked up. “Really?”

  I nodded. “We were at Target and I guess I’d been checking out this girl, though I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing, and she asked me if I was gay. I didn’t think I was because I’d had a big-time crush on Cody Reynolds the year before, and I told her so. She didn’t say anything else about it while we were shopping, but afterward she took me to Starbucks and explained what bisexuality was and that she’d suspected I might fall somewhere on that spectrum. It made sense to me. I’d never had a word to describe how I’d felt, and when Mama gave me that word, I just . . . knew.”

  “What if I don’t know yet?” Fadil asked. “What if none of the words fit?”

  I took Fadil’s hand and held it to my chest. “Then you keep looking until you find one that does. Keep being you and you’ll figure it out when you’re ready.”

  Fadil and I sat quietly for a while. In a way, I felt like a terrible friend for not recognizing his confusion sooner. That’s the problem with living in a world where everyone was assumed to be heterosexual until proven otherwise. He’d talked about girls, so it had never crossed my mind to ask if he was queer. But it should have. I should have asked.

  “Do you think I should tell Naomi?” Fadil’s hand was sweaty. “It seems unfair to lead her on if I’m not into her the way she’s into me.”

  “Do you like her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you enjoy spending time with her?”

  “Definitely.” A smile brightened Fadil’s face. “She’s a manga encyclopedia. And did you know she taught herself to code?”

  “I did not.”

  “She’s working on this app to help connect people who suck at certain subjects with others who are good at them. Kind of like a dating app but for schoolwork.”

  Only Fadil would get excited about something like that. “Tell her what you want to tell her when you’re ready,” I said. “If she’s as cool as you say, she’ll understand.”

  “Thanks.”

  I hugged Fadil and then we worked on our homework for a while. It was difficult to think about assignments and romantic entanglements when I still had the fate of the world looming over me, but the world ending didn’t mean that our other problems disappeared. We could push them aside for a while, but we dragged them behind us everywhere we went. Whether or not the world really was ending, I was still going to have to make up my mind what to do about Freddie. Fadil was still going to have to figure out what to say—or not say—to Naomi. Sean was still going to have to choose between his family and drinking, and if he chose us, Mama was going to have to decide whether that was enough.

  “Do you really believe the voices come from God?”

  Fadil looked up from his chemistry worksheet. “Yes.”

  “Just like that?” I said. “You don’t want to take a minute to think about it?”

  “I don’t need to.” The uncertainty written across Fadil’s face when we’d been discussing Naomi had vanished, replaced by a calm determination that I admired.

  “I thought if I understood why David Combs shot Freddie I’d understand why the voices took him—why they deemed him worthy of saving—and then I’d know that I could trust them.”

  Fadil set his pencil aside. “David did what he did because he made a choice. We may never know why he did it, but that doesn’t necessarily matter, because it will never justify the choice he made.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I have to make a choice too. Save the world or not. Do what the voices tell me to or not. I want to make sure I’m making the right choice for the right reasons, and knowing why David did it, knowing why the voices saved him, might help me.”

  “Or it won’t,” he said. “And then you’ll still have to choose.”

  “I’m scared of doing the wrong thing, Fadil.”

  Fadil chuckled. “You should be.”

  “That’s not helping.”

  “Look,” he said. “I don’t know for sure whether the voices you hear are Allah, if they were sent by Allah, or if they’re something else entirely. I know what I believe, but you have to make up your own mind. Don’t forget, the voices made their own choice. They chose you. And I believe with all my heart that they made the right choice.”

&nb
sp; “What if you’re wrong? What if I screw up and the world burns?”

  Fadil shrugged. “Then I’ll buy the marshmallows and we’ll watch it burn together.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  I DIDN’T KNOW many things for certain, which bothered the hell out of me. I liked certainty. Two plus two equals four no matter where you are or what’s going on, and that comforted me. I could find myself on the dark edge of the universe, and two plus two would still equal four. If I threw a billiard ball into space, it would continue traveling in a straight line and at a steady velocity until acted upon by another force. No matter what I did, Fadil and Mama would always be there for me. Those were the constants I relied on to keep me anchored.

  Unlike everything else in my life, which was mutable or unknown. I didn’t know if the voices I heard were telling me the truth. I didn’t know if humanity was in danger. I didn’t know if the voices were really taking the people they “saved” to a better place. I didn’t know why David Combs had shot Freddie.

  Despite Fadil’s faith in me, I didn’t know that I would make the right decision when the time came. How could I when I didn’t have a complete picture? How could I when I was forced to doubt the information that I did have? The number of people who’d vanished now totaled 10,938. Stories of their disappearances had cropped up on the news. It was only a matter of time before the Homeland Security agents Deputy Akers had warned me about appeared on my doorstep to question me. And they’d be right to ask, wouldn’t they? If I couldn’t be sure where the people “saved” were going, how could I make that choice for them? If I didn’t know whether I was really healing people or just rotating them out to another world, how could I keep doing it?

  What I was doing was wrong. I was deciding people’s fates without giving them a chance to make up their own minds. But if I didn’t, and the voices were right about the end of humanity, then I was dooming them to death instead.

  And who the hell were the voices to coerce me into this impossible situation? I had to admit the possibility that they’d engineered the shooting to force me to heal Freddie and set me on this path. How monumentally screwed up would that be? They’d decided that Freddie’s life was less important than the life of David Combs, whom they’d “saved” with their ridiculous beam of light. Hell, they’d practically rewarded him for shooting Freddie. There was no world where that was acceptable. Yet that was the decision the voices had made, and it forced me to question them and everything I’d done since the day of the shooting.