The End of the World (8 page)

Twelve seconds later I spot the first one.

A dock. Sitting at the edge of the property. It’s a horizontal skyscraper stretching out over the surface of the water, so long and thin I almost can’t make out the size or shape of the outer perimeter in the rapidly diminishing sunlight. But I can make out one thing without any trouble.

Shaye is sitting alone at the end of it, crying into her hands.

Cameron

A
t first I
stay rooted to my spot next to a tree, unsure if I should let her know I’m here or if I should just stand guard to make sure she’s okay. I might be young, but I can throw a mean punch if I need to.

Until then, I’ll pray hard it doesn’t actually happen.

It takes a couple more minutes and a few more indecisive starts and stops from me, but eventually she lifts her head and looks out onto the water. The fading light frames the side of her face in an orange halo, feathering around her hairline like the jagged edges of a sunburst. I read about that in a poem once but never knew it could actually be true. Until now.

She drops her feet so that they dangle over the water, swinging in a slow back and forth motion like two pendulums fighting not to touch, but drawn together by the pull of gravity. Or grief. Funny how both bring a person down.

Suddenly she stops and rests her hands in her lap, as though she’s trying to decide whether to get up and disappear or hang out a bit longer. I take that as my cue to move. My heart beats faster as I approach her from behind. If she notices I’m here, she doesn’t react; then again, I have a feeling that masking her responses are just another thing Shaye has perfected. I lower myself beside her, careful not to touch but close enough that she’ll know she isn’t alone. A sigh escapes her throat and hangs suspended in the air in front of us. It doesn’t seem like a disappointed one. It seems almost…relieved.

“How did you find me?”

“I didn’t mean to. I just heard the water when I was leaving the shed and followed the sound.”

“You just now left the shed?” She finally looks at me, a little bit of the sadness slipping from her features as concern edges its way in. “What were still you doing there?”

It suddenly feels stupid.
Waiting for you, remember? I didn’t want to leave without you.

“I told you I would wait for you,” is all I say. I, too, can mask things on demand. It might not be my perfected skill, but one of these days it will be. “Plus, I made you something,” I reach behind my back and drop it in her lap. Looking at it now, the object seems even more pathetic than it was in the dim light of that shed, like the reflection from the lake decides at this very moment to shine a spotlight on what an awful woodworker I am. Six months of watching my foster father didn’t do much in the way of passing on the skill, that’s for sure.

She does nothing but stare at it like it’s an unwanted bug that she can’t decide whether to flick away or let drift off on its own. Her silence stretches, then stretches some more while I sit next to her and sweat. Funny how it’s pushing frigid out here, especially by this windy lake, but we both seem to have sweat glands that work inappropriate hours.

Finally, she looks at me. “You made me a cross?”

I shift in place, stopping just short of allowing myself to squirm. “It’s not just a cross. It’s also a dream catcher. You hang it above your bed, and at night whatever bad dreams you have are supposed to go into here. All you have to do is wish them inside.”

She gives me a small smile. “Where did you learn that?”

“My mom told me when I was little.” I swallow around a lump in my throat. “It’s one of the only things I remember her teaching me before…before…” My throat closes like it always does when I speak about her.

Without warning, Shaye’s hand slowly closes around mine, and I can’t breathe. Her touch surprises me, but I hang on for all I’m worth. Sometimes it’s just nice to feel human contact, even if the human is someone you barely know who may or may not like you. Where Shaye is concerned, the jury is still out.

“I love it. Whether it works on dreams or not, I love crosses and everything they represent, so thank you.” She turns it over with her free hand. “I can’t remember the last time someone gave me a gift. It’s probably been…” Her voice travels far away like she’s trying to remember something—looking, digging, searching—then coming up empty. Her throat clears, dry and hollow. “It’s been forever.”

We sit side-by-side, hand-in-hand, neither of us moving for a long time, and all I can think is maybe the jury just came back and maybe they ruled in my favor. Maybe I’ve been given the all clear from Shaye, the freedom to move about at will, a proverbial shrug for testing her patience with a promise that things will get better if I shape up in the future.

My feet dangle three feet above the water, above where fish are taking one last swim before calling it quits for the night. Above algae and lily pads and the frogs sitting on top of them, joining together in the same boring tune. Above a miniature Doritos bag that bobs along the surface, left there by some citizen who doesn’t give a crap about fish and nature and polluted water. I release Shaye’s hand, flip my legs around, and stretch to retrieve it, groaning a little at the thin layer of slime that manages to coat my fingertips in the process. I stand up and pitch the empty bag onto the dock, wiping my hands on my jeans as I move to sit beside her again. She smells like sticky skin and lavender. I hate myself for noticing.

“A nature lover, huh?” Shaye says, the smallest hint of amusement in her voice.

“I just don’t like litter. People need to think more before they just toss things like that in the water. A fish could choke on it…or worse.”

“Not sure there could be much worse. For a fish, I mean. It isn’t like they know the Heimlich or anything.”

I smile at the image.

Next to me, Shaye brings her knees up and wraps her arms around them. I lean back, resting on the palms of my hands as we study the water in a comfortable silence. Lines blur as soft waves float and stretch for what seems like miles, even though in broad daylight it’s probably easy to view the opposite shore.

“It’s like the end of the world out here,” I say. “It’s almost easy to imagine the water going on for miles until it just falls over a cliff. The end of land, the end of humanity, the end of life as we know it.”

I feel Shaye’s eyes on me even before I utter the last word. “How old are you?”

“Fourteen. I thought I already told you that.”

Beside me, she laughs. “Fourteen maybe. But you have the mind of a forty-year-old. Anyone ever told you that?”

I look at her, unable to help the embarrassed grin that tilts the corner of my mouth. “All the time, Shaye. Only all the time.”

*

Shaye

Maybe he knows.
Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe he thinks he knows but really he’s chasing the wrong rabbit down the wrong hole in the same way Alice followed that stupid bunny until she fell into Wonderland. Maybe Cameron will stumble onto something someday. Or maybe he won’t.

Either way, he gave me a gift.

Today, that gift is all that matters.

I wasn’t lying or trying to win sympathy points when I said what I said to him earlier. It’s been years since anyone gave me a present. So many years ago that I can’t even remember what it was. Probably something along the lines of an Easy Bake oven mix or a new pair of stick-on earrings from Claire’s Boutique. Or maybe it was a five-flavor lip gloss pack from Bonnie Bell—the cheap stuff they sell at Wal-Mart that little girls like. The point is, it’s been a long time, and right now I have no idea how to react or even if I should react or if my initial reaction was all the gratitude he expected.

So I sit.

I grip the cross tightly in my lap, more than a little scared it might slip and fall into the water, then sink and sink until it lands in its own personal Wonderland where things like pocket change and wedding rings and five-inch wooden crosses fashioned with strips of brown burlap go to spend a motionless eternity.

A dream catcher. This thing has no idea how much it will need to hold within its thin parameters. I only hope it’s up for the task.

I tear my eyes away and try really hard to shake off my melancholy thoughts. Watching the slow moving lake almost always works. Now is no exception. And come to think of it, Cameron’s right.

“It really does seem like the end of the world if I squint hard enough. Like maybe we’re the last two people who exist and everyone else is gone forever. Kind of like Adam and Eve if Adam and Eve had lived next to a boat dock.”

I hear Cameron smile in the darkness. “Except I doubt Adam and Eve spent all their free time making peanut butter sandwiches.”

“Or folding laundry. That right there would have been the upside of wearing fig leaves.”

This time Cameron laughs. A loud laugh like he’s just heard the funniest joke of his entire life. It’s the first time I’ve heard the sound. I hope it isn’t the last.

“But can you imagine eating all those apples?” he says. “And then the juice running down your chin and landing on your…stomach?”

I blush. “So maybe we should stick to wearing shirts.”

“Deal. We’ll wear shirts, and I’ll keep helping you fold the laundry. Everything but your nasty underwear.”

“It isn’t nasty, but you have yourself a deal.” We shake. Our smiles hold and then fade. And then reality settles over us like it wants to hang its feet over the edge of the dock, too. My sigh escapes before I can stop it.

The kids. I’ve been gone thirty minutes and have no idea who is taking care of the kids. It doesn’t matter that the job is meant for someone twice my age with an affinity for small humans or that taking care of them around the clock leaves me exhausted and pondering the idea of becoming just another statistical runaway again. The job is mine, and someone has to do it.

I reach for my sneakers and undo the laces, then begin to pull them on.

“Where are you going?” Cameron asks. Disappointment rings in his voice like a flat note on an out-of-tune piano. Considering his words have surprisingly managed to soothe me like one of Mozart’s symphonies in the last three days, I don’t like the way it sounds.

“Back to the house. Everyone will wonder where we are.” I make a bow and tie my last shoe.

“Maybe we should let them wonder.” His words are a hand grenade, his meaning a finger on the pin, daring me to pull…to hold my breath, toss caution to the wind, and risk an explosion.

Too bad I know explosions are messy. Too bad I’ve never been that brave.

“We can’t. I can’t leave Maria too long or—” I catch myself before finishing the thought, partly in a desire not to scare Cameron, but mostly because I know the consequences if word travels. I can’t risk the fallout of my choices.

I stand and brush boat dock dust off the back of my jeans. Right by a huge body of water, and these planks of wood somehow manage to be the dirtiest things around. I look down at Cameron and try not to fidget at his open scrutiny.

“Why can’t you leave Maria?” When I say nothing, he stands up and tries again. “Tell me Shaye. I might be younger than you, but I’m not stupid.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Maria is fine.” I take a step away but he circles my wrist with his fingers and doesn’t let go. I try to shake him off but stop when I see the determined look in his eye. Odd that I’m not afraid. But that doesn’t mean I want him to know.

“Tell me, Shaye. What is happening to you? To her? I have an idea, and I can make a few guesses…”

“Let go of me, and keep your guesses to yourself. Nothing is going on.” Cameron releases my wrist and I jerk my arm away. “Maria is only three. She’s fine.”

“Age doesn’t matter if you’re being raised by a psycho. And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“What’s he doing to you?”

He.

Nameless.

But not nameless at all.

I stand and stare at Cameron, knowing but not quite believing that he has found the hole. He’s stumbled face first into Wonderland and he may never find the exit. If only Cameron were more naïve. We’re locked in a face-off as I weigh how much to say. In the end, I decide to concede a bit.

“It’s only happened once. He swore he would never do it again.”

He lets go of my wrist and just stares at me. His face goes rigid, turns white then red then white again. He ages two or five or ten years while I watch. It’s unnerving and hard to witness—feels like I’ve singlehandedly ruined whatever was left of his childhood with my careless, careless words.

“He swore? And that’s supposed to be enough?”

“Yes. And it’s only happened to me that one time. Never to Maria. He wouldn’t—”

“You can’t know that.” His hands fall as he shakes his head, anger morphing his features into straight lines and sharp angles and steely stares that burn my eyes. “There’s no way you can know that for sure, Shaye. You need to tell someone to make sure it stops.”

“I’m not telling anyone, and neither are you, Cameron. I have it under control. Swear to me you won’t say anything.”

“Shaye, I can’t swear to keep something like that to myself. It isn’t right. You need to call the police, or at the very least your social worker. They’ll help.”