I shrug and take a bite from the apple. “Or I may order a pizza.”
Adam grins. To his twelve-year-old mind, ordering a pizza is the epitome of adulthood. We used to order massive pepperoni pizzas together, when Dad was working late and Mom was off at some PTA thing or other, but when you’re twelve, hanging out with your friends—even when they live next door—is infinitely cooler than spending time at home with your nerdy older sister. I don’t blame him.
He dumps his spoon in the dishwasher and grabs his bag. “Save me a slice, okay? Also”—he raises his voice—“Grandpa is home tonight, so you won’t be alone.”
“I am!” Grandpa’s voice comes from the basement, where he’s working on restoring and repainting his collection of old toy cars.
The chunk of apple sours in my mouth. Adam pulls the door shut, and the kitchen seems to close in on itself around me.
*
So I hide. In my own home. In my own room. I hide in daylight.
Zoe’s texted me a few times, but I haven’t opened any of them. I’ve tossed my phone onto my bed. I don’t know what to tell her. Come over. I’m sorry. Help me. Please don’t leave me on my own. But she would ask to understand, and that is a problem. She would ask me to share secrets I cannot, do not, ever think I can share.
After all, I tried to share them once and no one listened. I tried to share them twice and no one listened. I cannot do it a third time. Besides, I can’t silence that small voice in the back of my mind that wonders: Am I not to blame? I didn’t stop it. I let it get this far.
It’s far easier to let myself go numb.
At the end of the day, all I have left is a house that doesn’t feel like a home anymore either. A body that doesn’t feel like my body anymore. A self that doesn’t feel like myself anymore.
*
I am fractured.
I’m not a good person. I don’t try hard enough. I get angry easily. I fight with my brother even when I don’t want to and ignore my friends even when I shouldn’t.
But I don’t think I deserve this.
*
According to chaos theory, the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future. One small deviation can change the entire future. That’s known as the butterfly effect. The idea that one flap of a butterfly’s wings would be enough to alter the course of the weather forever. Or that traveling back in time and stepping on one butterfly can change the history of the human race.
The idea that one time, a girl was a solid B student who could take pride in her geeky accomplishments, who could laugh and feel her stomach flutter and her heart race, who mattered. Until all that changed and kept changing. Small causes have large effects.
*
It was raining outside. That was what I remember most clearly. It was the last week of freshman year, and it was hot and humid and raining. The type of rain that clings to you, all dust and warm water.
Zoe walked me home before she had to go to volleyball practice, and I was soaked through by the time I walked through the front door. I was itching to change into something dry and cool. But when I went to drop my backpack in the living room, I found Dad sitting on the couch.
I froze in the doorway, sure that something had happened. As a general manager at an insurance company, he worked long days, and we rarely saw him between dawn and dusk. He seemed out of place here. He’d left his jacket over the armrest, and he’d loosened his tie. His normally flawless hair was sticking up, as if he’d run his hand through it several times.
“Dad?”
I don’t think he saw or heard me, at first. “Jenna?”
I let my soggy backpack slip off my shoulder and onto the hardwood floor. It immediately created a puddle of water around it. On any other day, Dad would not have let that go unmentioned—Mom hates the stains—but right there and then, he didn’t even blink.
My heart leaped into my throat, and I tried desperately to find my voice. “Dad, what’s wrong?”
“Jenna?” It took a long time for him to focus on me, longer to find the right words. But eventually they came. “Grandpa just called. We knew it might happen but . . . After everything he went through with the store, the bank is going to foreclose his home, too. He’s lost everything. He’s— Aunt Beate can’t take him in, so he is going to come live with us for a while.”
*
Grandpa arrived a week later, in his beat-up old car, with nothing but a large suitcase full of clothes, a baseball glove and baseball for Adam, a large photo album for Dad, and an old abacus from the store for me.
I liked him. He looked younger than I expected. He had an easy smile and a sharp sense of humor. He made Adam and me laugh throughout dinner.
That first weekend, he sat up with me and let me talk endlessly about math and chaos and fractals, everything that even Dad had grown tired of.
He took Adam to his games and took him out for milk shakes after while he told him stories about his endless road trips, first with Grandma, then alone. He loved his car as much as Mom hated the look of it.
The truth is, I didn’t want him to come because although we live comfortably, our house isn’t big enough to fit five. Some days it’s barely big enough for four. And yet he fit in. Easily and without hesitation. He became a part of us.
*
I didn’t have to murder a butterfly.
I didn’t realize anything had changed until it was too late.
*
I slip into my bedroom and sag down against the door. I grab an old matchbox from my stack of collectibles, and I turn it around and around and around between my fingers.
I started collecting matchboxes when I was eight because matches are great for re-creating geometrical shapes. When my parents discovered what I was up to, they started bringing home matchboxes from every vintage store and every hotel where they could find them.
I switched to LEGOs, eventually, and virtual building materials. I discovered formulas and coding.
But I always kept the matches, and my parents kept up the tradition. They didn’t know, but they gave me enough matches to burn down the world.
Still, I never lit matches before today, and doing so isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.
The first match snaps and splinters.
The head of the second crumbles.
The third match lights up, and I’m so shocked I immediately drop it. It sears my jeans and extinguishes.
The fourth burns all the way down, scorching my fingertips.
I push the fifth against the tender skin of my forearm.
Then the sixth. And the seventh.
The flames are mesmerizing, and I can feel the pain.
I can feel.
I make my way through the entire matchbox, until the small blotches on my arm itch and ache and my room smells of sulfur. Until the twilight outside gives way to night and the shadows creep in.
I tried to lock the door, but the shadows always creep in.
*
The world burns from the inside out. You don’t see it until it’s too late.