Consider (16 page)

Chapter 13

Day 115: November—1,658 hours to decide

Question: Do you live in families?

Answer: Yes, we live in communal housing situations with like-minded people if we choose. Some also live alone and prefer a more solitary lifestyle. We do not have the same static definition of family as you do.

As the weather
in New England shifts from fall to an early winter, the neighborhood landscape also begins to change. While hotels and motels remain full, more houses are empty. It’s hard to notice during the day, but at night the streets are darker than usual because fewer and fewer houses have lights on in their windows. The news calls it the “Great Vertex Migration,” more people traveling to be with family, staying closer to a vertex just in case, or leaving through a vertex and abandoning property. Normally, the homeless would squat inside the homes, but most of the homeless have left via the vertexes as well.

The darkness gives my neighborhood a more sinister atmosphere, like a forest of wolf houses ready to attack me.
Where there’s emptiness, there’s space where things can hide and come out to bite you when you least expect it.
I’ve never been afraid before to walk around at night, so at first I think my anxiety is acting up. When Dominick insists on staying inside after dark, I realize my fear is real.

The day of
the prisoner voting question I begin to think I’ll just skip it and let other people deal with it. But the more I recall Dad and Benji discussing the need to leave all the prisoners behind regardless of crime because they gave up their rights long ago, the more I wonder if that’s what I want to happen. Maybe my vote will matter. I decide to wield my invisible sword and cast my first and maybe last public vote.

Dominick has to watch his brother, so Rita and I decide to meet up and go vote together. She shows up at my house an hour later than we planned. I could’ve walked to the high school by now.

“Sorry,” she apologizes. “My parents were being difficult. They think I’m at the library.” She grins deviously. “Check this out.”

She unbuttons her black wool coat to show me her latest acquisition of HoloVertex fashion. Companies have been cashing in and profiting off the phenomenon, creating merchandise like cups, T-shirts, hologram dolls, and key chains, both in favor of the vertexes and against them, to appeal to all consumers. Rita proudly displays her new T-shirt. Across her bulging chest is the slogan HOLOGRAMS ARE SEXY in white bold letters against black. The SEXY is in red, of course.

“Like it?” she asks, grinning and driving. It’s her mini-rebellion. I know, like me, she’s putting up with her parents and their beliefs. Doesn’t mean she can’t have a little fun of her own in the meantime. Like I am with Dominick. Like most people are.

“I bought a different one for you,” she says, smiling. “I figured since you and Dominick have been so amorous lately . . .” She points to her bag on the floor of the passenger side.

I reach inside and pull out a hot pink shirt with the slogan THE END IS COMING—ARE YOU? followed by a smiley face.

“I can’t wear this!” I laugh.

“Why not?” Rita asks with a stupid grin plastered on her face. “It’s innocent.”

“Yeah, sure it is,” I fold the shirt to hide the front. “Thanks.”

“Still a prude,” she says.

“I am not,” I say. “I’ll wear it. As pajamas. When my dad’s not around.”

By the time we reach our voting area at the high school, the line snakes out the door and around the corner. I’m not surprised to see people holding signs, some for the rights of prisoners, some against. After Rita parks the car, we wait in line for what seems like a millennium.

All these people. Perfect location for another bombing attack like at the vertexes.
I search the line for potential terrorists—everyone looks suspicious.

“It’s hard to believe we’re waiting to get into the high school,” Rita jokes, “when we usually can’t wait to escape.”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” I lie. “Weird how the building looks exactly the same as it did freshmen year but how much has changed with us.”

“That’s true. Hey,” she says, pointing, “Isn’t that Private Benjamin?”

“I doubt it. He’s supposed to be guarding the vertex site.” I search the line for a Benji look-alike.

“It’s definitely him. Up front with the sign.”

That’s when I spot him. Benji’s with the picketers.

“I forgot how good he looks out of uniform,” Rita comments.

I roll my eyes. Benji’s taking his anti-prisoner stance seriously, taking work off and everything. But then, from a distance I read the sign that he’s holding: PRISONERS ARE STILL PEOPLE.

What? Since when is he on their side? My side?
After he freaking made me argue in front of Dad, giving him nightmares again, and possibly sending him back on the PTSD zombie train? What was the point?
A wave of anger overpowers my reason. I don’t know whose side I’m on, what side I stand for, but the next thing I know I’m at the front of the line screaming in Benji’s face.

“Hypocrite,” I yell and whack his sign with an open palm. He fumbles to keep it upright. “Chicken shit!”

“Alex, relax,” Rita says, grabbing my arm.

“No, let go of me.” I can’t control myself. I am a banshee fighting for the life I deserve. Benji tries to block me with his sign, but I push him anyway. In front of Dad he always makes me the bad guy when I’m the only one who looks out for him.

A cop monitoring the voting area steps over to intervene.

“Ma’am, calm down.” He places his body between me and Benji, one hand on his belt, one outstretched to block me.

“I am calm!” I cannot believe Benji was for prisoners’ rights all along and just harped on me in front of Dad to look good. How could he do that, just side with him and leave me hanging like a curtain without a window?

The officer doesn’t back down. “Ma’am, if you don’t calm down, I will have to arrest you.”

The word “arrest” knocks me back into reality, if reality exists anymore.
Handcuffed and charged with domestic assault. Stuck in a concrete prison. The shortest sentence given by a judge would still serve as a death sentence unless voters release me to a glowing vertex ready to devour me alive.
I take several deep breaths to regain my composure. Benji just stands there, red-faced and silent, still holding the sign.

The cop asks, “Are you able to act civilized and stay in line, or do I have to escort you off the premises?”

“I’m fine. I want to vote.” I say it as evenly as possible, but I really want to spit the words into Benji’s face.

“I’ll be watching you,” the cop adds. “One more step out of line, and you’ll be gone.”

I head to the back of the line. Rita follows me and stays quiet. I know she has a million questions to ask me, but she knows it’s not the time.

It’s ironic that after screaming at Benji, I’m about to vote in favor of the rights of the prisoners to choose their own destiny.
I don’t want to vote the same as him
. It’s a childish thought, and I know it, but it’s the truth. It’s weird to fight with someone when you’re on the same side.

As the anger subsides, my anxiety fills in the space. I look at all the signs around me, for prisoners’ rights, against prisoners’ rights, for holograms, for Jesus. Even Rita’s T-shirt carries its own agenda. There are too many signs nowadays, blatant and hidden, distorted and clear. How people look versus what they say. What people say versus what they mean. What they mean versus how they feel.

How do you know what’s real and what’s just a cover? Do you listen to the voices around you, the one in your head, or the one in your heart? Do hearts even speak anymore when the world becomes so loud?

Twenty long minutes later, I enter a voting booth and cast my vote.

Rita and I
walk back to the high school parking lot after we vote. Benji leans against his car, waiting for us.

“Can I talk to you?” Benji asks me.

“Why?” I ask. “What can you possibly say to me?” The anger rises inside of my throat.

“Rita, could we have a minute alone?” Benji requests.

“Sure,” Rita says. “I’ll be in my car.” I read her face. She wants me to spill everything later.

“Thanks,” Benji says to Rita.

Who said I wanted to talk to him?
Even though I’m fuming, something seems off. He was actually polite to Rita for once.

Benji begins. “Alex, I understand why you are upset. I get it.”

“Do you really?” The words come out sharper than I expect.

“Yes, you think I’m a hypocrite, like you said.”

My full anger bubbles over. “You’re so fake. You sided with Dad and then totally voted the other way.”

“Alex, you don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand? That you can totally ream me out to look good in front of him? That you like to torment me? That you blame me for my anxiety and for making his worse? Yeah, I get that. I so get that. That’s your M.O.”

“No, you don’t understand. Not really.”

He takes a deep breath and his eyes focus on the ground. “Alex, I’m gay.” His face looks like he just swallowed poison.

What?
My brain feels like it just traveled in time and hit a loop.
WHAT?

“I’m gay,” he repeats slowly, or maybe my brain has just slowed down to caveman level.

“Since when?” I almost think he’s lying to distract me from being pissed at him. Except his face looks sincere.

“Since always. Mom knows. Dad doesn’t.”

A burning sensation bubbles up from my stomach and settles in my heart. My tongue tastes like iron. Instead of being the sister I am totally capable of being—instead of flooding him with support—more anger, hot and wild, floods my veins.

His downcast eyes wait for a response. I can’t tell him what I’m really feeling because the only overwhelming emotion I feel is betrayal and I don’t know why and I don’t know how to explain that to him. I really want to slap him across the face. Hard. And maybe again. Behind that feeling, however, is a bewildering sense of disappointment in myself for feeling betrayed.

Everything I’ve ever thought about Benji feels unfair. All my memories, interactions, everything, feels like a lie.
How could he hide it from me?
My heart aches that he could hold on to a lie all these years and not tell me, his only sister.
Why didn’t he trust me?
Then fear settles into my stomach.

Dad’s gonna have a tirade.

And that’s when I begin to understand. As much as I hate Dad when he gets going, he’s so proud of his militant, all-American son. The knowledge will shatter the perfect image of his son and trigger Dad’s PTSD. That’s the one thing Benji and I avoid at all costs—crushing Dad’s universe.

Benji’s been fulfilling his role for years. For Dad. For Mom. For me. He’s been the glue holding our broken family together.

I hug him for all those years. I can’t remember the last time we’ve hugged, but it feels like the most awkward hug in history. Like hugging a cactus. Naked. On fire.

What happened to us? When did we stop being allies? When did our lives become about protecting Dad?

I rehash the
conversation for Rita on the ride home. There’s a long pause, and then she says, “I knew. He told me.”

“What do you mean you knew?”

“Yeah, remember our last sleepover? He told me that night.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” My anger resurfaces.

“He told me he was gonna tell you before school started. And then he didn’t.”

“You should have told me. You’re my best friend. He’s my brother.” My hands start to hurt, and I realize that I’m twisting the T-shirt she gave me with all of my might.

Rita sighs into the steering wheel. “I know. I’m sorry, but it wasn’t my secret to tell. I wasn’t going to out him to his family.”

“Whatever. I would’ve told you.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.”

“Yes, I would’ve.”

“You’re being childish and emotional.”

“You’re being a bitch.”

That does it. She drives me back home in silence. Best friends should tell each other everything, sometimes through mental telepathy. I feel duped by both Benji and Rita, and I’m uncomfortable with the knowledge that my small world could contain such important secrets—and I missed them. I pride myself on catching subtleties—
how did I miss it? What else am I missing?

That night Dominick
and I have sex in his car since his apartment is no longer parental free. His mother has been let go from her job as a home health aide since many of the elderly and ill have left through vertexes or have moved back in with their families.

Afterward, we sit and look out into the growing darkness of our city.

“My mother’s freaking out about losing her job,” Dominick says. “She doesn’t really have savings since her bank closed. I have a couple hundred saved in a coffee can, but that’s not much to live off.”

“It’s mid-November. The doomsday deadline is set for the end of January. How long can you last?”

He shrugs and looks off into the distance.

“Well, I doubt the landlord will evict you or anything since there’s no one else to move in.”

When he doesn’t respond, I change the subject. “I can’t believe Rita didn’t tell me about Benji.”

“Alex, just stop.” A blue vein in his temple looks like it’s about to burst. “Who cares about Benji being gay and Rita not telling you? It’s not about you. For a second can’t you think about someone else for a change?”

His words slap me across the face, and the imprint stings. Tears well up from being silenced by him. I don’t like it, and I don’t know what to say back.

Then I see him wipe a tear from his face. He’s always been my rock. My heart sags seeing him break down.

“I just don’t know what to do,” Dominick admits. He’s starting to sound like me.

I rub his shoulder. “Is this about your father?” I ask. More tears fall silently from his eyes. He removes his glasses. “He told me to step up and protect them for him.” He can’t wipe the tears away fast enough.

“Dominick,” I hug him and rub the back of his head. “Your dad didn’t know you’d be facing an apocalypse.”