I wasn’t tired though. I lay on a picnic table and stared at the stars. People spend a lot of time thinking about the planets that might orbit all those stars, but they ignore the worlds inside themselves. We’re all worlds; we’d spent the last three days on nine other planets, orbiting each other. I don’t know how much of what any of them said was the truth, but it doesn’t matter because the truth doesn’t exist in our words but in the spaces between them. You could spend a lifetime exploring the vastness between a person’s words and still never really know them. That’s the only thing that’s really true as far as I can tell.
But I do think Tino was right. Our parents and teachers and all the other adults in our lives might have seen us as animals, as feral youth determined to destroy our lives and the lives of those around us, but we weren’t. We were people, and we would not be ignored anymore.
I didn’t hear Cody come up behind me until he sat on the table near my legs.
“Hungry?” he said.
“Not really.” I sat up and scooted beside him.
“How come you never told a story?”
“Judge doesn’t have to.”
Cody elbowed me in the ribs. “So you’re not even going to tell me why you got sent here?”
“Aren’t we all here for the same reason?”
“No,” Cody said. But then he bit his lip. “Okay, maybe. I don’t know.”
“You’re cute when you smile.”
At the compliment Cody lit up like a neon sign. He smiled again, but it was a little self-conscious. Still cute all the same. “You think so?”
“You should try hooking up with guys your own age.”
“Maybe I will.”
Cody and I lay on the table beside each other for a while, and we watched the stars. When it got late, he said he was going to bed. Before he left he said, “Hey, so you never told us who won the contest.”
“No,” I said. “I guess I didn’t.”
“And?”
“And I’ll tell you later.”
After Cody’s footsteps faded, I reached into my pocket, pulled out a crumpled hundred-dollar bill, and held it in front of my face.
I said I was going to tell the truth, and I did. We were a clusterfuck, but we’d survived. I didn’t have any romantic notions that we were going to remain friends after what we’d been through. I didn’t believe for a second that Lucinda and Tino were going to call each other when they got home and start a long-distance relationship. I didn’t imagine Jaila and Jackie were going to meet up at a science-fiction convention and hound the cast of Space Howl for autographs together or that Jenna was going to fly to L.A. and have coffee with Sunday. We might have tied ourselves to each other for the three days we spent in the woods, but those knots had already started to loosen now that we’d returned.
That’s not the important bit, though. It didn’t matter whether we’d stay bound to one another, only that we’d learned to tie the knot at all and had gained the strength to show the world that we are not animals. We are not the feral youth they believe us to be. We are people. We are real. And we will not be ignored.
Or something like that. You’re going to believe what you want, anyway. I’m just here to tell the truth. Maybe.
I smiled at the hundred-dollar bill in my hand, folded it, and tucked it back into my pocket.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Shaun David Hutchinson Shaun David Hutchinson is the author of numerous books for young adults, including The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley, which won the Florida Book Awards’ gold medal in the Young Adult category and was named to the ALA’s 2015 Rainbow Book List; the anthology Violent Ends, which received a starred review from VOYA; and We Are the Ants, which received five starred reviews and was named a best book of January 2016 by Amazon.com, Kobo.com, Publishers Weekly, and iBooks. He lives in South Florida with his adorably chubby dog, and he enjoys Doctor Who, comic books, and yelling at the TV. Visit him at ShaunDavidHutchinson.com.
“The Butterfly Effect” and “The Chaos Effect” by Marieke Nijkamp Marieke Nijkamp is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of This Is Where It Ends, which follows four teens during the fifty-four minutes of a school shooting. Marieke was born and raised in the Netherlands. A lifelong student of stories, language, and ideas, she is more or less proficient in about a dozen languages and holds degrees in philosophy, history, and medieval studies. She is a storyteller, dreamer, globe-trotter, and geek.
Marieke’s second young adult novel, Before I Let Go, will be out in January 2018. Visit her online at mariekenijkamp.com and follow her on Twitter at @mariekeyn.
“A Ruthless Dame” by Tim Floreen Tim Floreen writes young adult fiction. The New York Public Library named his first novel, Willful Machines, one of the Best Teen Books 2015, and in a starred review, Kirkus Reviews called it “gothic, gadget-y, and gay,” which is an accurate assessment. Booklist called his second novel, Tattoo Atlas, “incisive, startling, and intense.” Tim lives in San Francisco with his partner, their two cat-obsessed daughters, and their two very patient cats. To find out more about Tim and his secret obsession with Wonder Woman, visit him online at timfloreen.com.
“Look Down” by Robin Talley Robin Talley is the New York Times bestselling author of four novels for teen readers starring LGBTQ characters: Our Own Private Universe, As I Descended, What We Left Behind, and Lies We Tell Ourselves. Robin has also contributed short stories to the young adult anthologies A Tyranny of Petticoats and All Out. Robin lives in Washington, DC, with her wife, their daughter, and an antisocial cat. You can find her at robintalley.com.
“Big Brother, Part 1” and “Big Brother, Part 2” by E. C. Myers E(ugene). C. Myers is the author of four young adult novels and dozens of short stories. His first novel Fair Coin, received the 2012 Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, and YALSA selected The Silence of Six as one of its “Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers” in 2016. He was assembled in the United States from Korean and German parts and raised by a single mother and a public library in Yonkers, New York. Visit ecmyers.net and follow him on Twitter at @ecmyers.
“The Subjunctive” by Alaya Dawn Johnson Alaya Dawn Johnson is the author of six novels for adults and young adults. Her novel The Summer Prince was longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Her most recent, Love Is the Drug, won the Andre Norton Award. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, Zombies vs. Unicorns, and Welcome to Bordertown. In addition to the Norton, she has won the Nebula and Cybils Awards and been nominated for the Indies Choice Book Award and Locus Award. She lives in Mexico City, where she is getting her master’s in Mesoamerican studies.
“A Cautionary Tale” by Stephanie Kuehn Stephanie Kuehn is the author of four novels for young adults. In 2014, Charm & Strange won the American Library Association’s William C. Morris YA Debut Award, and her three subsequent books, Complicit, Delicate Monsters, and The Smaller Evil have cemented her reputation as one of YA literature’s most unique and daring voices. She lives in Northern California and is a postdoctoral fellow in clinical psychology.