“Because Nonna’s a zombie?”
“When I was your age and made her angry, she would tell me that karma would repay my behavior by giving me children as willful as me.” Mom paused, staring at me thoughtfully.
“I’m nothing like you,” I said. “I don’t give up on the people I care about.”
Sadness crept into my mother’s eyes. She touched her bare ring finger with her thumb. “I’d hoped you would inherit your father’s and my best qualities, but I fear we’ve given you the combination of our worst.”
She might as well have thrown her sharpened knives at me. A knife in my eye, one in my heart, and one in my back as I turned around and walked inside.
TOMMY
TOMMY’S NOSE IS SWOLLEN AND purple, and he can’t open his left eye. He sits on a stool at the kitchen counter while I fill a gallon-size plastic bag with ice from the freezer.
“I’m calling the cops,” I say.
“No you’re not, Oz.”
“Stop me.” My hands tremble; I can’t zip the bag shut. Tommy reaches across the counter and takes it from me, closing it and pressing it gingerly against his face.
“One of these days he’s going to kill you,” I say.
“No he won’t.”
“How can you say that?” Shouting at Tommy isn’t helping, but I can’t stop. “Last year he broke your wrist. This time it’s your nose. What happens when he cracks your skull? I won’t sit around waiting for a call telling me you’re dead.”
“That’s not going to happen.” Tommy’s swollen nose makes his voice froggy. I tried to force him to go to the emergency room, but he refused, because nurses ask questions and doctors call police. He’s worried about what will happen to his mother if the cops lock up his father. And as guilty as I feel for keeping the secret, I’m more afraid of what Tommy will do if I betray his trust.
“We should leave now,” I say. “Run away somewhere no one will find us.” It’s difficult to keep my thoughts straight when all I want to do is drive to Tommy’s house and kill his dad. “We could hide in the mountains or something. My uncle lives alone in a cabin with no electricity. I bet he’d let us stay with him. I mean, we’d have to find him first and—”
Tommy takes my hand. “One more year, Ozzie,” he says. “We have to stick it out one more year so we can graduate.”
“We can take the GED. Your life is more important than a stupid piece of paper.”
“Ozzie . . .”
I can’t look at Tommy without imagining his father looming over him, punching him. Slamming his face into a wall. “You’re the only thing in my life that matters, Tommy.”
“Don’t say stupid shit like that, Oz. Your folks love you, and so does Renny, in his own weird way.”
“But they’re not you.”
Tommy glares at me. I’m not used to seeing anger in his eyes. Not directed at me, anyway. “You know how much I’d give for your life? For parents that love me, a house with a roof that doesn’t leak, a bedroom with a real door? You act like you have it so rough.” He pulls the bag of ice from his face and points at his swollen eye. “Your pops ever do anything like this to you?”
I shake my head, unable to speak.
“No,” Tommy says. “He wouldn’t. Because your pops is a saint. He’d never hit you or your mom or Warren.” He presses the ice against his face again, wincing. I want to kiss him, hold him. “You have a great life, Ozzie, and you know what hurts worse than a broken nose?”
“Tommy . . .”
“That you don’t fucking appreciate it.”
Tears roll down my cheeks. I don’t notice them until they reach my lips and I lick them away. “I know I’m lucky, Tommy. But I’d give up everything to be with you.”
Tommy nods. The anger drains from his eyes, replaced with disappointment. “Then you’re an idiot.”
2,010,567,000 LY
I LAY ON MY BED struggling to read on the road. Kerouac’s manic thoughts ran together on the page like he’d written them in a drug-fueled race to exorcise them from his brain, which I suppose he had. I preferred books that transported me to strange places and distant times, but Tommy had given me On the Road before he’d disappeared, and told me it would change my life. That copy had vanished with Tommy, so I’d borrowed one from work. I might have enjoyed Kerouac’s adventures more if Tommy was around to argue about them with. It was the kind of book that might once have inspired me to hitchhike across the country, but in my present state of mind, Dean Moriarty struck me as an asshole, and Sal an even bigger asshole for believing Dean worthy of idolization.
Still, I kept reading, because Tommy had given it to me, and there was nothing I wouldn’t do to hold on to some piece of him.
A week had passed since I’d met with Calvin at the bookstore, and nothing had changed. He continued sleeping through class. Every time I saw him, I wondered whether he was still cutting himself, and if I should tell a teacher or the police. I even considered talking to Renny about it, but he was too preoccupied with his preparations for basic training to deal with my problems.
I kept waiting for at least one of my parents to realize Renny was making a huge mistake and padlock him in his bedroom until he abandoned his fantasy of becoming a soldier, but that scenario grew less likely with each passing day.
I needed to talk to someone. Lua had been skipping class more often than not, and hardly answered when I texted, and Dustin and I didn’t talk about personal stuff often.
Oh, and the last time I’d checked, the universe had contracted to a size of barely two billion light-years across. Ninety-eight percent of the known universe . . . gone. At its current rate, I worried it would collapse entirely before graduation, and I still had no idea why it was happening.
My most recent theory, which had come to me during class while Mrs. Nelson recounted embarrassing stories of her awkward teenage years in an attempt to help us relate to The Metamorphosis, was that reality was a lie. That in a distant, dying future, the desperate remnants of humanity had sought refuge in a simulated world, but my future-self’s subconscious mind had rejected the illusion. Tommy’s disappearance, Flight 1184, the shrinking universe. All symptoms of the truth intruding on my dream of a better life.
As implausible as it sounded, it was no less reasonable than any of the other theories I’d concocted. And if it were true, I wondered if Tommy was alive at the crumbling edge of the universe, dreaming some other version of me.
When I realized I’d read the same page of On the Road three times, I tossed the book aside, stood, and pressed my ear to my bedroom door. Mom and Dad had been fighting when I’d come home from school, but I didn’t hear yelling and hoped it was safe to forage for food.
On my way downstairs I noticed a strange man looking mighty comfortable on the couch in the living room. His brown hair was parted neatly to the side, and that was all I could tell from the back of his head.