What do you think about me?
I think you wish you had my sniper skills.
I killed you last round in Ragnarok.
I mean as a person.
I’m going to punch you in the arm.
Ow.
This is totally meta.
I am trying to be serious here.
You are WEIRDING ME OUT.
If I kissed you, would that be a good thing?
What now?
You know, two people, with lips . . .
TYVM
How good a kisser are you?
Probably pretty terrible.
That’s okay. We’ll learn . . .
M
A
R
C
O
The first day back at school, I caught myself spotting the exits from every room, identifying at least two things to make into a weapon. Ironic, because now I know my lifelong theory that I could get jumped at any moment was crap. No one gets jumped at school. It’s always after, or elsewhere.
Besides, when half your face has been burned off and your hand shot through after surviving being quarantined in a death trap for a month, your average swinging dick is not going to mess with you.
Not only did school pose no threat for me, it held no interest. Just a teacher yapping at the front of the room—Let’s explore that question, Jimmy. What do you all think? I have a math problem coming at ya! In eighteen hundred and—who gives a crap?
After surviving the apocalypse, what are you supposed to do with the rest of your life?
I stop at my locker to grab my coat. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ryan. We’ve passed each other in the halls a couple of times. He raises his hand as if to wave. I slam my locker closed and get the hell out of there.
Outside, I stand close to the building, in the shadow, and close my jacket against the fresh air. When Mike’s BMW pulls into the driveway in front of the school, I shoulder my backpack and take the steps two at a time to meet him.
“Nice day at school, son?” he asks. It’s the same line every afternoon.
“Gee, Pop, I learned some real smart stuff!”
“You sound more authentic with every passing day.”
“Kill me now.”
He hits the gas and we just drive. There is no destination. New York becomes real country about a half hour north of West Nyack. Mike plugs in his iPod and we just go until the gas runs out, and then we fill the tank and go some more.
The album ends. I go to switch to another, but Mike tells me to hold on. He stops the car, then turns off the engine. It’s six o’clock and already dark. The orange light of the dashboard throws shadows across our faces. It’s the kind of light I like.
“My dad found this place in Arizona,” Mike begins.
“You’re moving?”
“For a little while,” he says. “It’s like a hospital.” He looks out the windshield at the dark.
“Dude, if they are committing you, let’s just go. Now. Hit the gas. We’ll go to Chicago. Vegas. Wherever.”
Mike snorts a laugh. “I’m committing myself.”
I’ve got nothing.
Mike continues. “I’m not okay,” he says. “I keep waking up and getting drunk and then passing out until I pick you up and then we just drive and all I want is to floor it off the Tappan Zee Bridge.” His fingers are white against the wheel. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”
Mike glances at me. “Say something.”
“What? That’s great. Have fun. Send a postcard.”
“I can’t send anything while I’m there. No email, no phones. Just like the mall.” He laughs like that’s funny.
I keep my eyes glued on the dashboard.
“They have places around here too,” he begins.
“Just take me home.”
“You should talk to someone.”
“Home, Jeeves,” I say. “Just take me home.”
We’re way out in the middle of nowhere Dutchess County, so we’re almost through Siamese Dream when we pull up at my house. “Sweet Sweet” is playing. How appropriate.
“I’ll be back in a month,” Mike says.
“Great.”
“You don’t have to be a dick about this.”
“I don’t?”
He reaches across me and opens the door. “Just take your little sad cloud self and go.”
“Fine.”
I snatch the top of my bag in my fist and haul ass. Mike guns it, slamming the door through acceleration and torque.
I will not cry over this bullshit.
The lights are on in my parents’ apartment. My mom lost her job because she sat outside the stupid mall praying for miracles. I told her that was a waste of time. She thinks I lived because of her prayers. I told her I lived because I was willing to fight to survive.
“Oh, baby,” she said, tearing up. “What did they do to you in there?”
I wanted to punch her face.
I sling the backpack over my shoulders and walk past my house. It’s so cold my balls are freezing, but I keep going. I cross from my crappy side of town by the water up into the hills where the nice, rich people live. The houses are castles, so big, I could fit my family’s apartment in them five times over. From the sidewalk, their blank faces look down on me, as if ready to send my ass packing should I loiter too long.
Screw these people. Screw everyone.
The wind picks up. The scar on my face tingles. It was warm in the mall. This cold feels like a personal insult. My parents allotted me a measly five grand out of the many thousands of dollars in settlement money the government forked over to spend on myself. I bought a leather duster. The government assholes took my other one. This one is nice, but the thin skin doesn’t do crap against the cold.
I decide to hit a diner. The trek downhill is a hell of a lot faster than the one up, and in what feels like no time I’m in a plastic booth with some terrible, weak coffee staring at me. It’s so easy to get food out here.
Everything is either too easy or too fucking hard.
“You order cheese fries?” the waitress asks. She’s too old for this job. Her eyeliner’s bled down into the cracks around her eyes.
“Yeah.”
She drops the plate on the table and moves on.
The bell on the door jingles and I hear girls laughing. Can anything ever be as funny as some girls’ laughter makes it out to be?
“I still can’t get over that thing you and Ariel did.”
Lexi. Of all the diners in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.
“It was actually something Maddie had made up at a sleepover in like fourth grade.”
I know this voice too.
“Well, whatever it was, it was funny. Best thing in the whole talent show.”
They walk by me—well, the one girl walks and she pushes Lexi, who is in a wheelchair.
I can’t make up my mind whether to say something.
“Marco?”
I look up from my fries. They both have stopped at the end of my booth.
“Hi,” I manage.
Lexi is withered, but alive. Still alive.
“Don’t look at me like that!” she says, flapping a hand. “I can walk. The wheelchair’s just until I get my strength back.”
“Oh. Good.” I saved her. I did that.
“You hurt your face?” she asks.
“It’s better than it looks.” It looks bad enough that that has to be true.
The other girl has this weird smile on her face. “The last time I saw you, I was ready to kill you.”
Now I know her. She was just on TV. Gave a totally bizarre interview about the quarantine.
“What held you back?”
“Her,” she says, indicating Lexi.
Lexi blushes. “I hear you saved me.”
I can’t believe it. The girl told Lexi. “I owed you that much.”
“It’s not your fault that weird guy with the chicken kissed me.?
??
She kissed Drew? Well, that clarifies everything.
“It’s kind of my fault,” I say.
Lexi shrugs. “I guess it kinda is.”
I’m not sure what else to say. “You want to sit?”
Please, god, don’t let them sit.
Lexi shakes her head. “We’re meeting people.”
“Oh.”
The other girl—Ginger, that was her name—pops a hip. “Lexi’s boyfriend. Darren. And some other people from school.”
“Great.” Like I needed to hear about Darren.
“It’s good to see you,” Lexi says as Ginger wheels her chair toward where the waitress left their menus.
“Yeah,” I say.
I watch her roll away from me. She looks back once over her shoulder, gives me a smile, then turns away. The bell on the door rings again and there’s more laughter and chatter as a ton of popular-looking kids in designer clothing fill Lexi’s table to overflowing. A guy who looks kind of pale and nerdy, like he does not belong at all, strolls in. Lexi waves her arms like crazy. The guy’s face lights up.
I leave a Hamilton on the table, shrug into my coat, shoulder my bag, and get the hell out of there.
It’s gotten even colder, if that’s possible. I watch the gaggle of people at Lexi’s table through the window for a while anyway. They are silent on this side of the glass, a TV show on mute. Lexi looks happy.
I could go to a movie, or the Starbucks up the block, but it’s late and I’m tired and freezing my ass off, so I just head downhill toward my apartment building. The central stairwell is filled with the sounds of the families on the lower floor, TVs blaring noise. I hop up the steps, then stop at my door to dig my keys from my bag.
“He’s so sad,” I hear my mother say.
No one answers, so I assume she’s on the phone.
“He’s your brother, linda,” she says. “You should talk to him.” She’s talking to Gaby. Maybe they’re planning to sue me.
I jangle the keys in the lock, then open the door and yell that I’m home. I hear my mother make her excuses to Gaby and get off the phone. She makes it a point to always greet me when I come in.
“Mijo,” she says, wrapping her thick arms around me.
“You don’t have to wait by the door for me,” I say.
“I know.” She lets go of me. “I want to wait for you.”
“I just want you to know, I don’t expect it.”
“You never expect anything,” she says. “You’re a good boy like that. Not like Frida, ha! She would make a mess of this place, clothes everywhere! And did she think she had to clean it up? Never! You remember?”
The place was always a disaster when my sisters lived here. Dad had a better job, so Mom didn’t have to work so many hours, but no one could have kept up with the mounds of laundry and dishes and junk mail.
“I was glad to have my own room.”
“Well, you were the baby,” she says. “You got special privileges. I made some arroz con pollo for your father to take with him. You want a plate?”
I don’t want to piss her off, so I say yes. I’m actually kind of hungry. The cold just sucks energy out of you.
She watches me as I shovel the warm rice and chicken into my mouth. My mother is an amazing cook. I forgot how good her food was. With how much she’d been working, she never had time to really cook. Now it’s all she does. Clean house and wash clothes and cook. I don’t like to admit how much I love it.
I scrape the plate clean, and she takes it and puts it in the sink.
“You want to watch a program?” she asks.
“Sure,” I say.
We find some insipid sitcom. It’s so mindless and formulaic, I can follow the storyline even as half asleep as I’m feeling. My mother chuckles where the writers wanted her to. It’s really easy to make my mom laugh.
When it’s over, my mother yawns. “I think I’ll turn in,” she says. “You?”
She has this hopeful look on her face. I guess she’s noticed that I haven’t been sleeping. I’ve been playing EVE late into the night, trying to claw my characters back from the hell my not playing for over a month sent them into. It’s not even fun, but it’s something to do.
“In a little bit,” I say.
She nods, but looks like I just told her I was going to execute some puppies.
“I’ll try to sleep,” I add.
“Please try,” she says. “We all love you. You know that, right, mijo? Everyone, we all love you so much.”
For some reason, I’m crying. Thank god it’s dark. My mother would lose it if she saw me crying.
There’s nothing on TV, so I go to my room and open my laptop. There’s a chat window open from where Mike and I were talking last night. I see he’s online.
Check your tires, I write. You left a trail of rubber an inch thick on the street outside my house.
I thought you were going to say you knifed them.
I smile. First thing on my list.
You have a list now?
I’m writing one as we speak. First, knife Mike’s tires. Second, find new ride.
Sorry, he says. Hadn’t thought about how I’m leaving you without wheels.
I still have like three grand from the part of the settlement my parents gave me. I get my license next month. I’m thinking it’ll buy me a sweet beater.
Maybe over Christmas you can test it out on Route 66.
Nurse Ratched allow visitors?
I’ll drug her tea.
Then I’ll be seeing you at the back entrance at dawn.
At dawn, then.
I close the laptop and stretch out on my bed. I’m still not used to luxuries like a pillow. Using my toes, I rake first one sock, then the other off my feet. I dig my way under my comforter, then lie flat on my back.
Out the window, the stars are brilliant. I tuck my hands behind my head and watch them shimmer as they streak across the sky. The next time I open my eyes, the clouds are pink and I smell sausage and coffee.
“You’re going to miss the bus, Lazybones!” I hear my mother shout from the kitchen.
Holy crap. I slept.
“I’m coming!” I yell.
“Come faster!”
“Geez, woman. You told me to sleep, I slept!”
I jump out of bed and see that I’m still in clothes, so I just go out into the hall and make for the bathroom.
“Change your shirt,” my mother says.
“Yeah, yeah,” I say.
When I get into the kitchen—clean shirted with book bag packed—she has a plate ready for me.
“You comb that hair?” she asks, picking at my cowlick.
“Stop mothering me,” I say, but we’re both smiling. I don’t know why, but I’m smiling.
I inhale the food, then jump up when I see the time.
“You home for dinner tonight?” she asks.
I could walk around again. But I guess I’ll just come home. “Yeah.” I go to put on the duster, but it was so cold yesterday, so I grab my old parka.
“Have a good day, mijo.”
“Not possible,” I say.
“I didn’t say great day or exciting day. I said have a good day. Good is possible.”
I climb onto the bus and see that my favorite spot is open. Not only that, but no one’s giving me that hairy eyeball look I’ve been getting every other morning. I drop onto the seat and watch the world whip past and feel—for the first time in a long time—maybe she’s right.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you first readers—Anne Cunningham, Mary-Beth McNulty, Matt Weiner, and Jennifer Decker—for your story insights and sharp eyes. And to Jamie Quatro for giving me some much needed late-stage input. Most of all, to my supportive, involved, insightful, and enthusiastic mom, Chris Kaufman.
Thank you experts—Karen Mangold, for keeping me honest in my medical misdeeds; my dad, John Kaufman, for teaching me how to ride a motorcycle; Cate Williamson and Alison Moncrief Bromage, for helping
me write a poem; Jason for getting me to dig deep into the world of football; and to the local anonymous sources who helped me thoroughly trash my nice suburban mall.
Thank you to the team at Penguin Young Readers Group and Dial Books, including Don Weisberg, Jennifer Loja, Lauri Hornik, Erin Baber, Scottie Bowditch, Lisa Kelly, and Erin Dempsey, for all your support and enthusiasm for the series. And to Eileen Bishop Kreit and everyone at Puffin Books for putting out such beautiful paperback editions.
Thank you, Jessica Shoffel, for publicizing the series. Your kind words and guidance have helped me feel confident sharing my books and myself with the world.
Thank you to the design team behind these gorgeous books. Greg Stadnyk and Lindsey Andrews, you came up with another amazing cover. Jason Henry, I love how everything looks on the page!
Thank you, Regina Castillo, for lending your keen eyes once again to my words.
Thank you, Claire Evans, for making sure all the pieces came together, and for sending me good news.
Thank you, Kathy Dawson—more than thank you, bless you, truly. You push me to get things exactly right, ask the hard questions and point the way to solutions. You are everything I could have hoped for in an editor. I am so grateful to have had your brilliant mind guiding my work on this series.
Thank you, Faye Bender, agent and friend. You help me believe in myself on the days when that feels hardest.
Thank you, Evelyn, my dear girl, for being a constant source of joy and laughter. Thank you, Joshua, the new guy, for being adorable. And thank you, Jason, my love, for everything, but especially for being my friend.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dayna Lorentz has an MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from Bennington College. She used to practice law, but is now a full-time writer and part-time cupcake enthusiast. She lives in South Burlington, Vermont, with her husband, two children, and two dogs.
YOU CAN VISIT DAYNA AT